Celebrating the Legacy of an Exceptional Man

by Nandasiri (Nandi) Jasentuliyana

The nation lost one of his brilliant sons when Dr. P. H. D. H. De Silva left us last week at age 93. He was an outstanding scientist who committed himself to the preservation of our heritage and maintaining our ecosystem through his pioneering studies of the reptile and annelid kingdom. Though he was a prominent personality, he was very simple and endearing to those who came to know him. Yet, he held strong views on matters of concern to him and never hesitated to express them and did so in many letters and articles published in the press.

He had a brilliant mind and was an internationally recognized scholar with a trove of publications and became the second Sri Lankan appointed to the prestigious position of Director of National Museums.

He carried out extensive research in a variety of fields, from reptiles to fauna and the ecology of bees in Sri Lanka. He published extensively on these subjects and became a legendary herpetologist who was recognized as such internationally.

He hailed from Ambalangoda and completed his early education at Dharmasoka College and entered the University of Ceylon as a science student. On graduation, he was appointed as a lecturer in the faculty of science at the university. In due course, he went to the U.K. on a scholarship and obtained a Ph.D. degree in “Taxonomic studies of Marine Annelids” for his research carried out under renowned Prof. E.W. Knight-Jones of the Department of Zoology, University College of Swansea, Wales.

Dr. De. Silva was appointed as Assistant in Zoology in the Department of National Museums in 1951. He later functioned as an Assistant Director until he was appointed Director in 1965.

The Colombo National Museum will soon celebrate its 150th anniversary. What began as a collection of antiques in a dilapidated old building that housed the Royal Asiatic Society’s (Sri Lanka branch) library has today become one of South Asia’s best museums. The credit for establishing the Museum goes to Sir William Henry Gregory, the island’s British Governor, a scholar of repute who realized the urgent need for establishing a museum and despite financial constraints succeeded in establishing the Museum in a massive two-storied building in Colombo-7 where it still remains and flourishes.

The early administrators of the Museum were all Europeans. The first Sri Lankan to hold the post or Director was Dr. P.E.P. Deraniyagala, an anthropologist of great repute. Dr. P.H.D.H. De Silva became the Director in October 1965, heralding a new era in museum history. As an expert chronicler of artifacts, he arranged to exhibit all items, according to classification, thereby providing greater opportunities to access the Museum’s information. He organized seminars and issued publications to educate school children and the public. The museum publication `Singithi’ was especially meant for children.

The establishment of the Anuradhapura Rural Museum and Zoology Branch and the Natural History Section of the Museum are among his many other achievements.

Dr. De Silva also took steps to install an alarm system to provide security for the Kandyan throne. During one of my visits to see him at the Museum, he explained the reason for it by relating a well-known story about the Museum’s most prized possession, the throne of the last King of Ceylon Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe – which was linked to an amusing incident involving a person of unsound mind. Apparently, a visitor to the Museum, noticing that one could enter the throne’s glass enclosure, went and sat on the throne, claiming that he was its rightful heir. He refused to budge from it until the police forcibly removed him and packed him off to the Angoda Asylum.

When Dr. De Silva came to New York to catalogue Sri Lankan antiquities at the Natural History Museum, he was resident in an apartment next to the Museum on Central Park West. There, I visited my cousin Hemasiri, to whom I had looked up to as a role model while I was growing up. During those frequent visits, I became familiar with his work and his wife Chandra’s delicious cooking.

He ensured that every nook and corner of this world-famous Museum were examined, including hundreds of items stored away in the Museum basement. He visited 140 institutions in 27 countries to gather information on antiques and archaeological treasures taken from Sri Lanka. Based on his arduous work, he published an invaluable catalogue of all such items belonging to Sri Lanka abroad in 1974 entitled: ‘A Catalogue of Antiquities from Sri Lanka Abroad.’ These included intricately carved cannon on wheels on display at the Amsterdam Museum. This artillery piece belonged to Leuke Dissawe (local Governor in the Kandyan Kingdom and a confidante of the King who was left behind to meet the British when they came to negotiate a treaty in 1800 when the King fled Kandy temporarily). A miniature model of this gun is on display at the National Museum, Colombo.

In 1977, on the 100th anniversary of the Museum, He also published a catalogue of holdings at the Museum (he listed that it had 93,647 antiques and archaeological treasures and 2,603 anthropological models and that the number of coins had increased from 499 (in 1877) to 83,405 while the number of books and other publications had risen to over 500,000). When he finally retired, he left an indelible mark of his tenure, which is considered a high watermark of the history of the National Museums.

On his retirement from the Sri Lanka Museum, Dr. De Silva spent time working as an international consultant in Saudi Arabia and Libya enriching the museums in those countries and returned to Sri Lanka to spend his golden years continuing his research and writing at leisure.

He married Chandra Silva from Matale 62 years ago in October 1954. She was a tower of strength to her husband. She looked after his every need, providing him the freedom to spend long hours at work, carrying out extensive research, and working on his many publications. They have three sons. Ranil, Raj & Rukamal and two grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren.

Some bring a light so great to the world that even after they have gone, the light remains, and though Dr. De Silva is no more, his legacy will endure.