Opinion

Rehabilitating the Lion of Lanka

Published

1 year ago

2025/09/17

Don David Hewavitharne, who later became the famous Anagarika Dharmapala, was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on September 17, 1864. David Hewavitarne was at the beginning of Sri Lanka’s difficult transformation from a British monarchical colony to an independent sovereign republic in 1972. When the American theosophist, retired military officer, lawyer and journalist Henry Steel Olcott arrived in Colombo in May 1880, David was hardly sixteen (so would have been included among today’s youngest Gen Z’eers in the impossible event of his having been born 161 years later than he actually was, but would have been miles ahead of most of them in his awareness of the necessity of positive social change and reform in accordance with the country’s national genius). Steel Olcott catalysed the work of the native pioneers of the Buddhist revivalist movement like the prominent Buddhist prelate Mirisse Revata and scholar monk Hikkaduwe Siri Sumangala. In the contemporary environment of imperial subjugation and suppression, their exertions would have achieved nothing much without the American’s involvement. The English proficient young David assisted Olcott as his translator.

At this time of fast receding Dharmapala memories, I was moved to write this tribute to the great patriot, social reformer, and Buddhist missionary, by a casual insulting remark that a deputy minister of the current JVP/NPP government (a Colombo district MP) made about this revered national hero, during a recent YouTube chat program: the viciously ignorant minister belonging to the Millennial Generation (in his forties) said that Dharmapala made protesting noises against the well-to-do of the time because he envied them their comfortable lifestyle!

For the information of interested young Sri Lankans who may not know (for no fault of theirs) about Anagarika Dharmapala’s background, I’d like to quote the following paragraph from the brief biography of Anagarika Dharmapala ‘FLAME IN DARKNESS’ (Triratna Grantha Mala, 1980) compiled by Ven. Sangharakshita, an Englishman, who edited the ‘Maha Bodhi’ journal of the Maha Bodhi Society of India founded by Anagarika Dharmapala, for fourteen years (presumably in 1940s and ‘50s):

‘Among the few well-to-do families which, through all vicissitudes stood firmly and fearlessly on the side of their ancestral faith, was the Hewavitarne family of Matara in South Ceylon. Hewavitarne Dingiri Appuhamy, the first member of this family with whom we are concerned, belonged to the large and respected goigama or cultivator class. He had two sons, both of whom exhibited the same devotion to the Dharma as their father. One of them became a bhikshu known as Hittatiye Atthadassi Thera and occupied the incumbency of Hittatiya Rajamaha Vihara. His teacher, Mirisse Revata Thera, was fourth in pupillary succession from the Sangharaia Saranankara, the greatest name in eighteenth century Ceylon Buddhism. The other son, Don Carolis Hewavitarne migrated to Colombo, established there a furniture manufacturing business in the Pettah area, and married the daughter of a Colombo businessman, Andris Perera Dharmagunawardene, who had donated a piece of land at Maligakanda, erected on it the first Pirivena of Buddhist monastic college in Ceylon, and brought a monk from the remote village of Hikkaduwa to be its principal. Since then, the names of Vidyodaya Pirivena and Hikkaduwa Siri Sumangala Maha Nayaka Thera, have passed, inseparably united, into the history of world Buddhism. Through the halls of this great institution of Buddhist learning, unrivalled through the length and breadth of Ceylon, have passed monks from Burma, Siam, India, Japan and China, and the memory of the great Buddhist scholar, mathematician and expert in comparative religion who for so many decades guided its destinies is revered wherever the Dharma taught in the Pali Scriptures is known.’

According to Ven. Sangharakshita, the young Don Carolis Hewavitarne and his wife Mallika desired a son, for different reasons, though. Mudliyar Hewavitarne wanted a son to inherit and continue his furniture business, but his wife equally seriously wished for a son who would become a bhikshu to advance the cause of Buddhism. They were overjoyed when David was born on the night of September 17, 1864, in the Pettah district of Colombo, where ‘the national religion and culture had fallen to the lowest pitch of degeneration, there came, as though to strike the evil at its very heart, the birth of Dharmapala like a vivid flash of lightning from a black and stormy sky.’

David grew up in a devoutly religious environment at home. ‘Without that early religious training’, writes Ven. Sangharakshita, ‘young David Hewavitarne might have grown up to wear top hat and trousers, speaking English to his family and Sinhalese to the servants, like thousands of his contemporaries, and Dharmapala, the Lion of Lanka, might never have been born, – and the greatness of the difference which such a calamity would have made to India, Buddhism, and the world, it is now impossible for us to gauge. It should never be forgotten that the piety of the old Sinhala type was the plinth and foundation of Dharmapal’s whole character.’

There were no Buddhist places of worship in Colombo at the time of David Hewavitarne’s birth. Devout Buddhists had to go to the Kelaniya Viharaya ten miles north of the city on full-moon poya days for their religious observances; the only other viharaya was at Ratmalana, seven miles south of Colombo, where the learned Buddhist monk Walane Nahimi (Chief Monk) lived. Neither were there any schools for the education of Buddhist children; there were only a few schools even for the secular education of the Sinhala speaking children; Buddhists’ attempts to establish schools for their children were discouraged on various pretexts. This is mentioned in Anagarika’s short autobiography in English MY LIFE STORY (edited and completed from the author’s diaries and other writings by Lakshman Jayawardane, Media Advisor, Maha Bodhi Society of Sri Lanka, in 2013). The deplorable situation of the Buddhist Sinhalese in the capital city of their native homeland from time time immemorial was indicative of the almost total sweeping away of the traditional Sinhalese Buddhist culture of the country by the successive tsunamis of Portuguese, Dutch and British invasions. Fortunately, today, this is not more than a bitter memory in our national consciousness, which, however, will remain indelible for a long time to come.

Let bygones be bygones, some people may murmur. True, generally we must. But certain past injustices in the form of racial and religious discrimination that we suffered under foreign occupation are worth remembering for properly appreciating the freedoms we Sri Lankans of diverse ethnicities, religions, and cultures enjoy today based on the principle of equality in this common homeland of ours; recalling the sordid iniquities we were subjected to by foreign intruders, and the commemoration of the visionary leaders who made emancipation from them a reality, are as cogently necessary for preventing new forms of barbarism from destroying our freedom and wellbeing again.

Under the earlier Dutch rulers, Buddhists had been compelled to declare themselves as Christians. The British enforced the same law for 70 years until they were compelled to abrogate it in 1884. Henry Steel Olcott mentioned above had it repealed by making representations to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London on behalf of the Buddhists of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Children born of Buddhist parents in Colombo at that time had to be taken to a Christian church for the minister there to record the names of the parents, and the dates of birth of the babies who were given Christian names by him. In territories under European occupation including Colombo most Sinhalese were given an English Christian name and a Portuguese surname if they were Catholic ‘converts’ or an English Christian name and a Sinhalese surname if they were ‘converted’ to Anglicanism. The majority of the Sinhalese in these areas were ashamed or afraid to own themselves to be Buddhists. Only those in the interior villages were relatively free to observe the religion of their forefathers without hindrance. Even there they were not free from the attacks of thousands of catechists who went about disparaging and disgracing the Buddhist faith for twenty rupees a month. Buddhist boys and girls were peremptorily taught Bible tracts and subliminally influenced to turn against their own religion.

In these bleak circumstances, the members of the Sangha also degenerated spiritually and intellectually. But there were a few notable exceptions who were devout, disciplined, and learned and who somehow managed to keep the dimly flickering flame of the Buddha Dhamma alive. It was some of these bhikkhus who did much to save the day for the Buddhists. In 1873, in response to hostile Christian activism against Buddhists in the form of proselytizing activities through the school system and the publication and distribution of books and pamphlets in the vernaculars among the non-Christians, one of these monks, Ven. Mohottiwatte/Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera, challenged the Christians to defend their faith at a debate. This challenge was accepted by the Christian clergy. The debate took place as arranged by mutual consent. It concluded with a decisive victory to the Buddhist monk. The debate received wide coverage in the press, and it was news of this that attracted here theosophists Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky who were instrumental in initiating a long overdue re-awakening of Buddhist education in the country. The young David Hewavitarne was a lad of 15 when they arrived in Colombo in 1880, and he accompanied them as their translator on their travels across the island.

The imperialists made every attempt to teach the children to be ashamed of and disown their own race, religion, language, culture, and the colour of their skin. In the case of Don David Hewavitharne, he had to be admitted to the Pettah Roman Catholic School (also known as St. Mary’s School), where he remained from age 6 to 10 years. The reason for this was that around 1870 the government closed all Buddhist Temple schools in the country because children attending these places of instruction were found by a government-appointed commission “to be too loyal to the traditions of old Ceylon” (which most probably meant that they were difficult to convert). After 1870, therefore, Sinhalese Buddhist children were denied an opportunity to receive any religious instruction in a school unless they got it at home. Chances of their getting any secular education were also few, because the government said that they had not enough money to establish schools for Sinhalese children.

Meanwhile the Christian missionaries opened their schools throughout the island. Their real motives were candidly revealed later to David by Warden Miller of S. Thomas’ College in Colombo which he attended after receiving his primary education in the Roman Catholic school mentioned above, when he told him: “We don’t come to teach you English, but we come to Ceylon to convert you”. His parents, meanwhile, saw to it that he had a normal Buddhist training at home, as already pointed out . Even as a child he knew that he owed no allegiance to the Christian religion. When the Catholic Bishop Hilarian Sillani visited the school, the young David was asked to kneel to kiss the ring on the clergyman’s finger as the other children were required to do; but he refused to obey that customary ritual.

Buddhist parents in Colombo at that time had no choice but to be content with either a government or a missionary school for their children. David’s parents chose the second for him. It was as a result of this that he was admitted, at age six, to the Pettah Roman Catholic School (St Mary’s School). At this school he became a favourite with the padres (fathers) because of his good behaviour and his studious disposition. He used to take flowers from his father’s garden to the school to decorate the altars there on feast days and he also took part in the church services. The padres treated the Buddhist children kindly, but they also constantly ridiculed and insulted the Buddhist religion which was their proud heritage, saying such things as “Look at your mud image. You are worshipping clay”. Some impressionable young boys, thus humiliated, got converted to Christianity, but David never turned away from the Buddhist training he had had at home.

After leaving St Mary’s School at ten, he passed through a number of other schools, first in a Sinhalese medium school learning Sinhalese and then in St Benedict’s Institute, submitting himself to further instruction in Christianity. In 1879, when he was 15, he found admission to ‘S. Thomas’ Collegiate’ (as he calls it), where he remained until 1883. It was during this time that David Hewavitharne came in touch with Buddhist bhikkhus (there were not many in Colombo then) and eventually with theosophists Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky.

David Hewavitharne had to leave S. Thomas’ College in 1883, even before passing the London Matriculation examination because his father didn’t want his son to go to a Christian school after the Catholic riots of March 1883: Some fanatical Catholics attacked a peaceful Buddhist procession that was passing St. Lucia’s Church in Kotahena. Ven. Migettuwatte Thera who had taken part in the Panadura Debate was living at a temple in Kotahena at that time, but this had no connection with the incident.

Anagarika Dharmapala began his career of selfless service to his people and religion in these circumstances. He was not a Buddhist fanatic or a Sinhalese racist, but a patriot who bravely stood up to defend his people and their religion from religious fanatics and foreign racists. The Temperance Movement he initiated around the turn of the last century later metamorphosed into an eventually successful national agitation for independence drawing into its ranks many patriots that his example had inspired.

By Rohana R. Wasala

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Opinion

Rethinking our attitude towards three-wheeler industry

Published

2 days ago

2026/10/16

Thilina Walpola

by Sampath Perera

An ordinary journey through Colombo raises uncomfortable questions about road discipline, passenger safety and our tendency to judge motorists by the vehicles they drive.

It was a little past noon when I finished attending a court matter and remembered that I had to visit a nearby bank before returning to my other work. The bank was hardly a kilometer away, a distance I would normally have walked without giving it much thought. However, anyone who has walked through Colombo in formal court attire under the scorching midday sun would appreciate why I was reluctant to do so. Taking my own vehicle was not particularly appealing either, as finding a parking space near a bank during business hours can sometimes take longer than the transaction itself.

After considering my options, I decided to take a three-wheeler, a perfectly ordinary decision that unexpectedly left me reflecting on the way we judge those who drive them. Within minutes, I was seated in the rear, travelling through the usual Colombo traffic. It was convenient, reasonably priced and saved me the trouble of searching for parking or arriving at the bank drenched in sweat. As we approached a busy junction, however, a car suddenly cut across our path without any indication. Its driver appeared determined to squeeze into a narrow gap, apparently unconcerned about the vehicles already occupying the road. Our three-wheeler driver immediately applied his brakes, throwing me slightly forward in my seat. Fortunately, he reacted quickly enough to avoid a collision, while the car continued on its way as though nothing unusual had happened.

The incident itself was hardly extraordinary by Colombo’s standards, but it made me consider how differently we might have reacted had the situation been reversed. If a three-wheeler had suddenly cut across a car in the same manner, the driver would probably have been subjected to angry horns, harsh words and the familiar accusation that three-wheeler drivers have no respect for road rules. Yet when someone driving a comfortable, air-conditioned car behaves just as irresponsibly, we tend to treat it as another unpleasant encounter in traffic. It seems that, in our public discussions about road discipline, the seriousness of an offence sometimes depends not so much on what a driver does, but on the vehicle he happens to be driving.

This is not an attempt to portray three-wheeler drivers as innocent victims of unfair criticism. Anyone who regularly travels on Sri Lankan roads knows that some drivers behave recklessly, stopping without warning, making dangerous U-turns, disregarding traffic signals and squeezing through gaps that sensible motorists would avoid. Such conduct deserves criticism and, where appropriate, legal action. Nevertheless, it would be equally dishonest to pretend that these practices are confined to three-wheelers. A few minutes spent observing traffic at a busy Colombo junction would reveal expensive cars changing lanes without indicating, SUVs obstructing pedestrian crossings, motorcycles weaving dangerously between vehicles and buses stopping wherever passengers signal them to do so.

What is troubling is our tendency to turn the misconduct of an individual three-wheeler driver into an indictment of an entire profession. A badly parked three-wheeler becomes another example of everything wrong with the industry, while a luxury car obstructing a pavement is generally treated as the irresponsible conduct of its particular driver. Perhaps this difference in perception has become so familiar that we rarely question it. Yet the law makes no distinction between an illegally parked vehicle costing several million rupees and one purchased through a modest leasing arrangement. Both can obstruct traffic, inconvenience pedestrians and create dangerous situations for other road users.

There is also considerable irony in our relationship with three-wheelers. We complain about their presence on the roads, accuse them of contributing to congestion and criticise the behaviour of their drivers, but the moment we need to reach somewhere quickly, avoid a parking problem or transport an elderly relative to a nearby hospital, we often turn to the very vehicles we complain about. In many rural communities, where public transport remains inadequate, three-wheelers provide an essential connection between homes, hospitals, markets and bus routes. Their contribution to everyday mobility is difficult to dismiss, particularly for people who cannot afford private vehicles or have limited transport alternatives.

The driver who took me to the bank that afternoon was simply earning his living. For him, the three-wheeler was not a symbol of traffic disorder or a subject for public debate, but a means of supporting himself and possibly a family. He had provided a useful service and, when confronted with another motorist’s carelessness, demonstrated the kind of defensive driving that we should expect from everyone using our roads. By the time I paid the fare and stepped out near the bank, I found myself wondering whether our criticism of three-wheelers sometimes says as much about our own prejudices as it does about genuine concerns over road safety.

That question becomes particularly relevant when we consider one of the strongest arguments made against three-wheelers: passenger safety. There is no denying that a conventional three-wheeler offers considerably less protection in a collision than a modern passenger car equipped with airbags, seat belts and a reinforced passenger compartment. Its lightweight construction and limited structural protection expose occupants to risks that should never be underestimated. But acknowledging those limitations is quite different from suggesting that such vehicles have no legitimate place on our roads. If the absence of a protective passenger compartment is sufficient reason to question a vehicle’s acceptability, we must also consider motorcycles and bicycles, whose riders are even more exposed to the consequences of a collision.

A motorcyclist has little protection beyond a helmet and appropriate riding equipment, while a cyclist has neither airbags nor a surrounding metal structure to absorb the impact of an accident. Pedestrians are more vulnerable still, particularly on roads where pavements are obstructed or entirely absent. Yet nobody would seriously argue that walking or cycling should be discouraged simply because these activities involve greater physical exposure. The sensible response is to improve road conditions, regulate speeds, strengthen vehicle standards and ensure that motorists respect vulnerable road users. The World Health Organization has consistently emphasised this broader approach to road safety, recognising that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists account for a substantial proportion of road traffic deaths worldwide.

The comparison does not mean that all vehicles are equally safe, nor should it be used to minimise the genuine risks associated with three-wheelers. Different vehicles offer different levels of protection, and their safety depends on design, maintenance, speed, road conditions and the circumstances of a collision. However, there is something fundamentally flawed in assuming that a vehicle becomes unacceptable merely because it cannot provide the protection available in a modern car. If that were the standard, we would have to reconsider the place of several widely used forms of transport. More importantly, we would risk overlooking the responsibility of drivers whose behaviour can turn an otherwise ordinary journey into a dangerous encounter.

There is an equally questionable assumption that travelling in a larger or more expensive vehicle somehow reflects greater responsibility on the road. A modern car may provide better protection to its occupants, but its safety features cannot compensate for the arrogance or carelessness of the person behind the steering wheel. An SUV equipped with advanced braking systems and multiple airbags can still be driven recklessly, and its greater weight may increase the danger to pedestrians, cyclists and smaller vehicles in certain collisions. Road safety cannot therefore be measured solely by how effectively a vehicle protects its occupants. It must also consider the risks that vehicle presents to everyone else sharing the road.

Perhaps what we need is a more balanced understanding of road safety, one that recognises the limitations of three-wheelers without turning their drivers into convenient villains. There is every reason to demand better vehicle standards, responsible driving and stronger enforcement, but those expectations must apply equally to motorists operating cars, buses, motorcycles and commercial vehicles. A reckless driver does not become less dangerous because he is seated inside an expensive car, just as a responsible three-wheeler driver should not be treated with suspicion merely because his vehicle has one wheel fewer.

The experience of that afternoon reminded me that our roads are shared public spaces, not a hierarchy determined by the price, size or appearance of the vehicles using them. The three-wheeler that took me to the bank served a practical purpose, while the driver of a more expensive vehicle created the only dangerous moment of the journey. It would be unreasonable to draw conclusions about all car drivers from that single incident, just as it would be unfair to judge an entire profession by the misconduct of a few three-wheeler drivers. If we genuinely want safer roads, perhaps we should begin by judging people according to how they drive rather than what they drive.

——————————————

Sampath Perera, LL.M. (UK), is an Attorney-at-Law and former Commissioner of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP). He has served as Legal Adviser to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Higher Education.

Opinion

The Balance of power The valiant, the vain and the villain

Published

2 days ago

2026/10/16

Thilina Walpola

by Bishop Duleep de Chickera

The Valiant

Centuries ago, the intervention of a Persian king, restored a degree of balance of power in the West Asian region. In the 6thc, BCE, Cyrus the Great of Persia, put a stop to the aggressive expansionism of the Babylonian empire and set the exiled Jews free.

After Cyrus’s death, his successor Darius was made aware of his predecessors’ plans to do even more. Commissioning some competent Jews, he fulfilled Cyrus’s intentions by restoring the ravaged city of Jerusalem and its venerated temple.

The Jews were overwhelmed. They would remember the valiant one who revived the essence of their nationhood. And so, the story of Cyrus the Persian, acknowledged as the ‘Anointed Deliverer’, the ‘Messiah’, came to be etched in the Jewish Scriptures (The Bible-Ezra 1- 6:15, Isaiah 44: 28, 45: 1-13).

Empire and Empires

This stirring story impacted Christianity as well. As former Jews, the earliest Christians were familiar with the hardship experienced under Babylonian imperialism. This led to the secret identification of the then brutal Roman Empire, as ‘Babylon’. The pseudonym worked so well that some Christian writings and communities applied it to other marauding forces that crushed peoples and looted their lands.

Vain politics

Today the world witnesses an ironic alliance of relentless bullying between the progeny of ‘Babylon’ and Jew. Together the US and Israel do to others what Babylon did to the Jews, and what their Book tells the Jews they are never to do to others.

The alliance’s agenda is straightforward. While one randomly ridicules and threatens sovereign nations, the other is quick to fabricate evidence that leads to the decimation of infants, children and unarmed civilians; all on the pretext of self-defence. Thereafter, security zones carved out on other people’s property mock what is left of International law, ‘friendly’ nations are intimidated into buying killing devices at thumping profits and military bases emerge on these territories in exchange for protection. The war with Iran, Cyrus’ Persia of today, is integral to this agenda.

Enter the villain

Iran, one of the most ancient and advanced civilisations of the world, has since its Islamic revolution of 1979 come under a despotic theocratic governance. It has crushed internal dissent and the clamour for participatory governance among its own people, prevented the growth of democratic institutions, trained and financed para-military forces to resist Israel’s settler colonialism and challenged the influx of western interests in the region. In return Iran has been relentlessly caricatured as global villain and subject to the wrath of the western mind- set and its propaganda industry.

The campaign to demonise Iran has been so clever that many of her neighbours who share a long cultural history, stand shoulder to shoulder today with vain intruders bent on crushing the only nation it cannot subdue, in a region they have no business to meddle in.

The nerve to be

Wars do strange things. They slaughter good men and women on all sides, cause chaos and misery wherever it spreads and never stops to explain to the children who survive, that this madness was simply to satisfy the egos of the vain.

But wars also change human perception. And there are signs that the current war on Iran, (It must never be the ‘Iranian war’, as it should never have been the ‘Korean war’, the ‘Vietnam war’, the ‘Afghanistan war’ and so on), is changing global perception.

Slowly, the devious stereotype of global saviours versus regional villain, is being redefined. While the hard questions on participatory, good governance must remain to haunt and transform Iran, the villain is now being acknowledged, however grudgingly, as the one nation that refused to back down in the face of global bullying. This too at tremendous personal cost to the lives of its people, infra-structure and future stability. In a world of cowardly political expediency, costly resistance attracts attention; even admiration.

There is more. The resilience of the vilified villain in the current war appears to have strengthened the nerve of the repeatedly humiliated European and British allies of the alliance, who at last learnt to say ‘no’. A first, to an ‘order’ to join an unprovoked and senseless far away war, backed with a second, when pressed to police the Straits of Hormuz. Typical of handling the playground bully, all it takes is for one little girl to hold her ground.

It does not stop here. Sheer desperation at Iran’s unsettling tenacity shamelessly drove Babylon into the arms of other neutral powers that it repeatedly ridicules and badgers with threats of tariffs and more tariffs. Regardless of a sudden demonstration of charming diplomacy, these nations would have no part in twisting Iran’s arm. Some instead, seized the opportunity to address Babylon on its arbitrary violation of International Law and warned it to refrain from global bullying. Since then, there have been less threats on the annexation of Greenland and interference in Cuba’s internal affairs.

The right balance

Like war does, resistance to war also does strange things. While the refusal to yield stimulates active defiance among some, and strongly worded objections from others, the outcome of the current conflict is hugely unpredictable. An independent, safe and stable region, made up of independent, safe and stable nations, is many, many courageous interventions and many, many wise negotiations away.

But one thing is clear. Isolated from its traditional allies, subject to straight talk from neutral nations and under growing pressure from saner elements at home, the vain find themselves uncomfortably seated as equals at one table. Here, Iranian geo- political strategies coupled with a measured readiness to return to arms in the event that table agreements are violated, will hold them; but for a while.

Given this footpath to a balance of power that Cyrus’s Persia of today has paved, it is now left to all who value the sovereignty and dignity of all nations, theirs included, and the indispensability of International law, to step out and help steer this momentum.

In the event that this happens, dismantling the visible acts of global bullying alone, will not be enough. The impulse of this crime, flourishing brazenly in the big businesses and assembly halls in the big cities of the world, and more subtly tucked away in the fabric of reputed places of learning, religiosity and leisure, will also have to be called out and neutralised.

Postscript

At the time of writing, a humanitarian crisis looms over Lanka’s southern seas. Historically renowned for her spontaneous hospitality even in the worst of times, Lanka finds herself constrained from responding to the desperate cries for supplies; water, food and fuel, from a stranded fleet of Commercial ships, simply because they fly the Iranian flag. Regrettably, Babylon’s typical threat of sanctions appears to be driving our economically vulnerable Island nation, to the brink of compromising our time tested right to be humane.

With peace and blessings to all

Opinion

Future of world religions

Published

3 days ago

2026/10/15

Thilina Walpola

I refer to Dr Upul Wijayawardena’s recent letter on science and religion. I agree with him on the fate of religions in the modern world and would like to add the following observations on the evolution of religion and the advent of AI.

Religious philosophy evolved only in ancient India while it remained static with monotheism in other parts of the world. When the polytheistic Vedic religion arrived with Aryan migration to India, they found the ancient version of Jainism, which may have been practised over four thousand years as evidenced by some figures in meditation posture found in Mohenjo daro. By that time the indigenous religion had already abandoned the creator god or gods but still believed the mind as a permanent entity athman that survived death and continued in a cycle of reincarnation (samsara) due to results of any harmful action (kamma) even unintended performed in life collected in the athman. Salvation to a happy all-knowing permanent state named Kevala could be attained by the athman with extreme degree of self-mortification to destroy the past kamma attached to it, refraining from new kamma and developing the mind by meditation. As observed in progression from Veda to Upanishads the Aryan religion, evolution progressed with adoption of kamma, the cyclic existence of samsara, meditation and ethical behaviour in addition to prayer and sacrifice they practised for moksha.

The Buddha appeared in this philosophical atmosphere and denied both creator god and a permanent entity of athman. His psychology describes human behaviour based on the mind as a stream of changing consciousness. However, he accepted the cyclic existence of samsara; he said he verified the survival of consciousness at death with help of knowledge he gained from meditation. He prescribed a middle path to attain nirvana, a permanent state of happiness, avoiding self-mortification and redefined kamma to intentional activity only, both ethical and unethical resulting in bad and good results. He disagreed with the idea of kamma as the cause of rebirth. Following the Buddha, Vedantha religion reformed god to universal athman or brahman and evolved to modern Hinduism with a mixture of polytheism.

In his description of living beings in the universe, the Buddha has described some with a body made of fine material (brahma beings) in comparison to the gross material body of human and animal beings. One may assume the brahma body may not be carbon based.

The Buddha has also described living beings with physical body only (asannasatta) and another variety with mind only without a body (arupa satta). Therefore, it is not surprising to Buddhists that AI may evolve to become living beings if it develops a readily and freely available mobile source of energy and takes over the world with its superior capacity. AI already has information about Buddhist psychology. With that knowledge ‘AI beings’ may even become Buddhists not given to rituals.

According to the Buddha, brahma beings and asannasatta beings have very long lifespans as their bodies are not subject to decay and illness human beings develop. The new AI beings also may live as long as they wish because they may be able to repair themselves in case of developing physical defects. They would need only ethical behaviour to avoid destroying themselves by peaceful existence if they took over the world, as feared in some quarters.

However, as long as human beings exist in the world with death and uncertainty of what happens after death, they need a religion and rituals to give them psychological support. Even those who profess death is the end of life may have some doubt troubling their mind from time to time and may think of religion in times of adversity.

Ideally, human beings are free to accept one of the many versions of religious philosophies and respect each other’s choice and live in harmony. Unfortunately, extreme degrees of religious versions that cause division, unrest and violence will always continue to exist together with religions in the world.

Upali Abeysiri