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Reimagining Dutugemunu : A Problem of interpretation
By Uditha Devapriya
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In Sri Lanka the two main such narratives would be the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa, the latter more than the former. Here the issue of interpretation is somewhat compounded by the fact that these two works are among the oldest and most credible of their kind in South Asia, indeed probably the most important such documents for any historian of the region or of surrounding regions like South-East Asia. The Mahavamsa alone is a useful compendium of the social and economic relations that prevailed before the advent of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC and the advent of Vijaya in the 6th. Among other things, it presents an early example of the colonisation myth, in the form of the Vijaya-Kuveni legend.
The myth itself is presented as a sequel to two other historical events, Gautama Buddha’s three visits to Sri Lanka, and the convening of the Three Buddhist Councils after his passing away or parinibbana. There is then a break of sorts in the narrative after these incidents when the story, as such, shifts to the Sinhabahu myth, which in my opinion, to put it rather crudely, is no more and no less than an Indianised – or Asianised if you will – version of the Oedipal myth. Origin and colonisation myths are strewn with three elements: guilt, incest, and parricide. Vijaya’s birth, visit to Lanka, and his subsequent actions in the island involve all three. Guilt, in fact, lies at the heart of the Kohomba Kankariya, which is a ritual centred on the quest for absolution for what Vijaya does to Kuveni.
Here we need to be mindful of an important point. The authors of the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa may have worked from an oral tradition, but that tradition is so replete with common motifs, themes, and problematics – the main problematic being, in my view, the question of how to legitimise, or authenticate, the purist claims of the monarchs of Lanka when these monarchs traced their origins to a neighbouring country – that it is difficult not to be swayed and dazzled by them. Even the historian and archaeologist feel tempted, from time to time, to overlook the mythical aspects of these stories.
It is against this backdrop that we must examine the main historical problem of the Pali Chronicles, namely the problem of what meanings to ascribe to the stories and concepts employed by their authors. We need to be aware that meanings of words change from time to time, era to era, and that, as I mentioned in my earlier article on Alan Keenan’s point about Sinhala (and non-Sinhala) names, ascribing contemporary meanings to archaic terms is a crime of which the most ardent nationalist is as guilty as the most fervent liberal. This is why both groups, opponents though they are, tend to get it wrong, very wrong, over the more controversial stories in these narratives, and the question of interpreting them. Chief among them, in my view, would be Dutugemunu’s defeat of Elara.
There are two reasons why Dutugemunu’s conquest has become the most misinterpreted historical episode – I hesitate to use the word myth because, as Gananath Obeyesekere has reminded us, Dutugemunu was an actual historical personage – in Sri Lanka. Firstly, it is to Dutugemunu that nationalist ideologues, those propounding an exclusivist interpretation of Buddhism and those considering Sri Lanka as Buddhism’s last haven – turn, to validate if not legitimise their claims. In their reading, Dutugemunu is a saviour-king, a great unifier whose actions can only be emulated, but never quite equalled: hence the tendency to adulate later unifier-monarchs, like Parakramabahu I, along Dutugemunist lines. As Newton Gunasinghe and Nalin de Silva – occupying different ideological grounds – has reminded us regarding this, the Dutugemunu story contradicts the universalism of Buddhism by grounding it in Sri Lanka and specifically among Sinhala speaking communities.
The Newton-Nalin congruence is interesting. It leads me to my second point, which is that the failure of interpretation, or misinterpretation, in the Dutugemunu story, or specifically the Dutugemunu-Elara encounter, is not merely the nationalist ideologue’s, but also his or her liberal opponent’s. For both groups, the Dutugemunist reading of history contrasts with another variant of Buddhism. Nalin de Silva, for instance, contrast Dutugemunist Buddhism (DB) with Olcott Buddhism (OB), which is then contrasted with the missionary zeal of the foremost Buddhist propagandist of 20th century Sri Lanka, Anagarika Dharmapala. In other words, historical stories and chronicles are used to justify the superiority of an exclusionary variant of Buddhism over a more universalist and all-encompassing one.
The liberal rejoinder to the nationalist reconstruction of the Dutugemunu story is, simply, that Dutugemunu’s actions, particularly his defeat of Elara, his momentary remorse over the deaths of his opponents, and his recovery from remorse through the intervention of a group of Buddhist monks, suggest an absence of empathy associated with Buddhist monarchs, of whom the supreme figurehead would have to be Asoka Maurya. Here, it is interesting to note and acknowledge that, like their nationalist opponents, liberal commentators resort to a common set of assumptions when commenting on such stories: prime among them, that the wars depicted in these stories were between two racial groups and not, as the likes of R. A. L. H. Gunawardana and H. L. Seneviratne have argued, two dynastic ones.
The episode involving Dutugemunu’s confessions of guilt to a Buddhist monk, and the Buddhist monk’s blanket absolution of the hero-king, is a case in point. What we see here is not so much a contradiction but an inversion of a similar episode from Asoka’s life, after the Kalinga War. The contradiction is so patently visible that it’s hard not to judge the episode without summoning a contrast with its Indian equivalent, or dis-equivalent. Nationalists may argue, as many of them indeed do, that Dutugemunu’s recovery from remorse indicates the sacrosanct nature of Buddhism as is practised in Sri Lanka: no matter what, even if it takes the murder of thousands or millions, the king’s foremost duty is to preserve the faith of the land. In fact, the author of the Mahavamsa, putting words into Dutugemunu’s mouth, argue that this takes precedence over “the sovereignty of the State.”
Liberal scholars, conversely, would contend that this episode provides a justification of ethnic cleansing, genocide, the murder of one’s own subjects in the interests of a faith or the State, and so on. This, like the nationalist argument, is not entirely without its merits. But it depends on how you look at the words and terms, or assumptions, underlying such stories. The question to ask here is, are we looking at history through an historical lens, depriving entire episodes and stories of their specificity in the interests of certain political and cultural biases – nationalist or liberal, exclusivist or cosmopolitan? I would say so. But the issue isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing with this notion of history; it is about coming up with a solution that address the concerns of both ideological groups.
The solution I propose is hardly a radical or innovative one, but it is the best one there is. While agreeing with Gananath Obeyesekere’s polemic against interpreting these stories in a too literal light – an approach which, as he rightly notes, paves the road to fundamentalism of the sort that has bedevilled this country for the last 75 years – I would note that we need to ground them in the way in which they were related, imagined, or witnessed at the time of their recounting. Another feasible solution would be to prioritise inscriptional evidence over literary texts: even though there are convergences between the two (the historical actuality of Dutugemunu’s personage), there are also significant divergences (the arrival of Vijaya). In other words, we need to be aware of the mythical connotations of historical narratives and compare, and contrast, them with actual archaeological evidence.
I am aware, however, of a problem – one noted for me by a renowned political analyst and commentator. The issue with interpreting stories like Dutugemunu’s defeat of Elara and his recovery from remorse with the aid of a Buddhist monk, at one level, linguistic: we need to be careful when using terms whose meanings change dramatically from era to era. At the same time, as linguists themselves will tell you, some words have meanings that transcend specificity, context, space and time, geography, history. What, then, do we make of a monk who, after hearing Dutugemunu’s confession, assures him that “from this deed arises no hindrance in thy way to heaven”? Certain episodes can be grounded in a specific period and excused on the basis of their specificity. Certain others, like the extermination of six million Jews, cannot. The problem for me is, where does Dutugemunu belong?
The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.