Midweek Review

Towards a new medico- philosophical model : A short essay

Published

4 months ago

2025/11/19

Sri Lanka, with its long historical traditions, is home to the practice of many medical systems. Western allopathic medicine is the most widespread and is a legacy of our colonial past. The exemplary quality of life in terms of health indices Sri Lanka can rightly be proud of is a result of the successes of the practice of western allopathic medicine in Sri Lanka.

The practice of Ayurveda has been in existence from historical times which reached the shores of Sri Lanka from India, and it remains the main alternative system of medicine. But closest to the cultural practices of the Sinhalese ethnic group is what is termed indigenous medicine – ‘generational’ (paramparika) medical practitioners who carry on an individualised practice with the ‘knowledge base’ differing to each other and kept secret within families and passed on from generation to generation – hence its herbal medicines and practices too differ and are guarded by each family.

The practice of Siddha (from South India), culturally linked to the Tamil ethnic group, is based on the belief that the body is composed of five elements – earth, fire, water, air and sky – and Unani (from a Greco-Arabic tradition) culturally linked to the Muslim ethnic group is based on the body being composed of four elements – earth, water, air and fire – which is similar to the origins of the Hippocratic tradition.

In addition, in very much more recent times, Homeopathy (established by the German Heinemann) and acupuncture (of Chinese origin) have become less well-established medical systems practiced in Sri Lanka.

The main philosophical dichotomy between the western and eastern systems of medicine in Sri Lanka can be exemplified by the differences between western allopathic medicine and Ayurveda/indigenous medicine.

Western medicine derives its conceptual basis from the western philosophical tradition which is the source of the empirical ‘scientific method’. This is basically a reductionist model where the scientific process seeks to ultimately identify the ‘active ingredient’ in medicines. This finally leads to an organic molecule with certain specific properties giving rise to the required effect. On the other hand, Ayurveda approaches medication from a holistic model and the concept that a multiplicity of factors acts in concert to exert the required effect.

Errors of subjectivity over objectivity

This leads to a situation where both systems become prone to errors of subjectivity over objectivity. For example, Ayurveda ignores the possible deleterious side effects of the multiplicity of chemicals (particularly alkaloids) found in their herbal preparations. The errors in this aspect are so much greater when it comes to chronic long-term effects and not acute short-term or immediate effects. This is a result of the fact that the theoretical basis of Ayurveda not establishing a tradition of continuing intellectual and academic investigation of a systematic nature into long-term deleterious side effects of ayurvedic preparations. No systematic clinical studies have been carried out to ascertain the ‘real’ effects of ayurvedic preparations over their placebo effects – i.e., randomised clinical trials. The concept of a placebo effect has not been considered within the paradigms of Ayurveda. The fallback position of the ayurvedic/indigenous schools have been that the herbal preparations and their pharmacopeia has been “tested” and found to be valid by the extensive duration it has been in use. It is argued that the herbal medicines currently in use have been in use for centuries, if not millennia. If there were any such deleterious effects, they would have been definitively identified. Therein, to my mind, lay another serious conceptual error. There is little or no renewal of knowledge in Ayurveda, where the texts used in the teaching and practice of Ayurveda are ‘ancient’ – more ancient, the better according to many adherents of the system. Knowledge derived from hoary traditions, from the vedas and the sacred texts are sacrosanct. It is my view that unless ayurvedic medicines undergo the rigorous continuous monitoring and systematic study – i.e. establishing a regular monitoring procedure for their medicines – which will also include double-blind clinical trials that ensure their efficacy in the first place, there will always be large question marks in the minds of the discerning consumer about the long-term safety of ayurvedic medicines.

While it is also known to Ayurveda that herbs used in its medicinal preparations differ in the composition and concentration of active alkaloids present, from environment to environment, climate to climate, area to area, subspecies to subspecies and variety to variety, no attempt has been made to test the possible differences in their pharmacological effects or efficacies. It has been known to modern plant taxonomists that plants of very similar appearance from gross external appearance have been misclassified by ayurvedic physicians as being the same plant. Some have been of different species or even different genus.

The pitfalls of Ayurveda can be summarised as inconsistencies in dose standardization, possible contamination with harmful alkaloids and heavy metals, lack of uniform quality control systems and an absence of continuing regular clinical trials with standardised prescriptions to ensure patient safety.

In recent times, biochemists, molecular biologists and biotechnologists have ventured to ‘test’ herbal preparations under far stricter standardised laboratory conditions. These have, sometimes, given good promising results. I believe this is a positive trend towards developing a science-based, clinical trials-based indigenous pharmacopeia. Moreover, it could be an internationally marketable proposition – considering the increasing disillusionment in the US and Europe with Western allopathic medicine and the serious concern about the diabolical machinations of the singularly profit-oriented pharmaceutical industry.

Investiment in Ayurvedic hospitals

Already, we have several Sri Lankan corporates that have invested billions in Ayurveda-based hospitals, hotels, spas and the export of herb-based medicines. Certain simplified, freeze-dried and packeted indigenous medicine products have caught the attention of international markets. The Indians and the Chinese have been doing this international marketing of their indigenous medicines very effectively in recent decades. Many of these ‘medicines’ have slipped through the US Foods and Drugs Administration (FDA) approvals by labeling them as ‘dietary supplements’ or ‘traditional remedies’ and are marketed in the USA. Unless the researchers in herbal/ayurvedic/indigenous medicines ‘clean up’ their methodologies to ensure that the preparations have absolutely no alkaloids harmful to health and contain no heavy-metal impurities, a lucrative international market will be lost to them. In the final analysis, all alternate medical/health systems and medicines must conform to the bases of the ‘scientific method’ – whatever methodological deficits remain therein. It still remains the best system through which we try to understand the nature of the universe.

Fallibility

Having said all of the above, in my evening years, I have come to realise the stark fallibility of completely depending on and defending the so-called ‘evidence-based’ knowledge. Evidence derived by the application of the scientific method. I have said elsewhere that ‘evidence-based’ on many occasions has been found to be strictly not evidence-based – at least in the realm of medicine. It has often been found that “evidence” is also ‘created’ by vested interests – mainly the ‘Big Pharma’ who pay medical researchers, through ‘ghost-writers’ to ‘manufacture’ ‘evidence’ that are published in reputed medical journals.

The mindset of over-dependence on so-called modern western science has been so deeply inculcated in us that it is very difficult to find a state from which we can completely or wholly be rid of. Dr. Gundasa Amarasekera (I attended his 96th birthday prathyawalokanaya a few days ago) and Prof. Nalin de Silva tried to popularise an alternative indigenous philosophy in their Jathika Chinthanaya. Dr. Amarasekera has been, in my view, balanced in the approach and exposition he adopted in the enunciation of his hypothesis. But Prof. Nalin de Silva went into extremes that I could neither accept nor fathom.

But where does it leave traditional indigenous and ayurvedic medicine? Can they derive sustenance and philosophical rigour from Jathika Chinthanaya? Have they attempted to do so in any meaningful way? Should it not be the vision and philosophy of indigenous medicine? If not, why not?

At present, the leading institutions of indigenous medicine are the Faculty of Indigenous Medicine – FIM (former Institute of Indigenous Medicine – IIM) of the University of Colombo and the Gampaha Wickramarachchi University of Indigenous Medicine (GWUIM). I do not wish to delve too deep into their respective course contents except to note here that there was a time about two decades ago, when Prof. Nandadasa Kodagoda, Prof. Carlo Fonseka and Prof. Colvin Goonaratna of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo were delivering lectures on anatomy (structure), physiology (function) and pharmacology (Medicines) based on Western medical principles. I did challenge both Profs. Carlo Fonseka and Colvin Goonaratna (my teachers in medical school), as to why they are teaching students of indigenous medicine the principles of anatomy and physiology based on modern, western scientific medicine which is contrary to the basic principles of Ayurveda and indigenous medicine. I believe it corrupted the purity and philosophy of Ayurveda. All I will say here is that the debate was long and arduous. We agreed to disagree. I believe that the reason behind many graduates of the then IIM, prescribing antibiotics in their private clinics was a result of that short-sighted act of misplaced ‘goodwill’. I sincerely hope that the FIM, UoC, no longer continues that false path to ‘scientific’ indigenous medicine.

Hybrid path

I find that to try and legitimise the ‘modernisation’ of indigenous medicine, the two institutions are following, in today’s jargon, a “hybrid” path of including modern science and management-based courses in their postgraduate programmes running in almost parallel lines. I agree that this is both unavoidable and understandable. Even in India, this ‘scientific modernisation’ is taking place. They are integrating scientific methodology into their pharmacology research – using the reductionist principle of isolating ‘active plant chemical compounds’. This, in fact, is what western medicine commenced over two to three centuries ago when they discovered cardioactive digitalis from foxglove and anaesthetic curare and quinine from cinchona bark for treatment of malaria from South American plants.

Chemical compound isolates in the western pharmacopeia were claimed by indigenous medical practitioners as the main cause of undesirable adverse effects and that a more holistic approach in indigenous medicine with its multiplicity of chemicals and alkaloids in their herbal preparations counter-balance the negative adverse effects. Hence, in my view, attempts at isolating active ingredients of herbal preparations in indigenous pharmacological research is a blind mimicry of western pharmacological research. Instead, what they should be doing is researching herbal preparations in its holistic form and clinical trials run on that basis. Whereas this gives rise to many methodological difficulties, they need to be overcome to ensure a more authentic basis for indigenous medicines. But then, who am I to preach to the high priests of indigenous medicine?

Reductionist approach only path?

Is the reductionist approach the only path to definitive knowledge? Are specifics always more important than the general? Are we losing some important aspects of research conclusions by this approach? Have we not grasped the importance of the concept that the “whole is often greater than the sum of its parts”?

Are there alternative methodologies for indigenous medical researchers to follow in parallel lines that do not compromise on basic principles of scientific research – formulate a hypothesis, test it by experiments, collect and analyse the data and draw logical conclusion without falling into the common pitfall of researchers of misreading ‘cause and effect’.

The philosophical bases of modern western scientific medicine and indigenous medical systems dependent on ancient wisdom are principally in contradistinction to each other. In Sri Lanka, like in many societies with civilizational millennia behind them, such as in India and China, where both these medical systems coexist today, we have a great opportunity to evolve a cohesive medical philosophy. Can this ‘great divide’ be bridged? Shouldn’t those within these seemingly contrary medical systems have some intellectual/academic meeting point? Should there not be a ‘movement’ in this direction? AS much as the physicists are seeking a unified field theory to explain the four fundamental forces of nature, is it not opportune for the medical philosophers to begin seeking such unity in the world of medicine? Can we in Sri Lanka, with the cooperation of India and China, set the ball rolling?

What I have attempted to do in this short essay is to bring up some contending, even conflicting, issues in our overarching medical culture. Is it an unrelenting truth that the ‘East is east and the West is west, and never the twain shall meet’? Can we not fall back on the Eastern philosophical tradition that we Sri Lankans are atavistically immersed in, to strengthen our resolve, in all sincerity, to synthesise an alternative medico-philosophical model that will bring out the best of both worlds?

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Midweek Review

Gotabaya’s escape from Aragalaya mob in RTI spotlight

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

Crowds throng Janandhipathi Mandiraya after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa vacated the building on 9 July , 2022.

The Court of Appeal declared on 09 March, 2026: “On the facts currently before us, the application of the exemption contained in Section 5 (1) (b) (i) of the Act is unsustainable. There is a little logical connection between the requested statistics in this information request (that do not pertain to the personal details of individuals) and national security. We see that asserting that national security is at peril, is not a “blanket or unreviewable justification” for withholding information. It should be noted that any restriction must be strictly necessary, proportionate, and supported by a “demonstrable risk of serious harm to the State.” In the case in hand, the Petitioner failed to establish a clear nexus between the disclosure of naval voyage expenditures and any genuine prejudice to national security under Section 5(1)(a) of the Right to Information Act. In the absence of specific evidence, the reliance on security is characterised as a “generalised assertion or mere assertion” cannot be a panacea, we hold it is insufficient to meet the statutory threshold.”

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The deployment of SLNS Gajabahu (P 626), an Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV), on the afternoon of 09 July, 2022, to move the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, being pursued by a violent aragalaya mob, to safety, from Colombo to Trincomalee, is in the news again.

The issue at hand is how much the deployment of the vessel cost the taxpayer. In response to the Right to Information (RTI) query, the Navy has declined to reveal the cost of the AOPV deployment, or those who were given safe passage to Trincomalee, on the basis of national security.

SLNS Gajabahu, formerly USCGC Sherman (WHEC-720), a United States Coast Guard Hamilton-class high endurance cutter, was transferred to the Sri Lanka Navy on 27 August, 2018, at Honolulu. The vessel was recommissioned 06 June, 2019, as SLNS Gajabahu (P626) during Maithripala Sirisena’s tenure as the President. (Last week, US Special Envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor, who was here to deliver a message to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in the company of Navy Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Damian Fernando, visited SLNS Gajabahu, at the Colombo port.)

What would have happened if the then Navy Chief, Vice Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne (15 July, 2020, to 18 December, 2022) failed to swiftly respond to the threat on the President? Those who spearheaded the violent campaign may not have expected the President to flee Janadhipathi Mandiraya, as protestors breached its main gates, or believed the Navy would intervene amidst total collapse of the ‘ground defences.’ Ulugetenne accompanied the President to Trincomalee. Among the group were the then Brigadiers Mahinda Ranasinghe and Madura Wickramaratne (incumbent Commanding Officer of the Commando Regiment) as well as the President’s doctor.

The circumstances leading to the President and First Lady Ayoma Rajapaksa boarding SLNS Gajabahu should be examined taking into consideration (1) the killing of SLPP lawmaker Amarakeerthi Atukorale and his police bodyguard Jayantha Gunawardena by an Aragalaya mob, at Nittambuwa, on the afternoon of 09 May, 2022 (2) the Army, deployed to protect Janadhipathi Mandiraya, quite rightly refrained from firing at the violent mob (3) efforts made by the top Aragalaya leadership to compel the then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe to quit. Subsequently, it emerged that pressure was brought on the President to remove Wickremesinghe to pave the way for Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to become the President and lastly (4) arrest of Kegalle SSP K.B. Keerthirathna and three police constables over the killing of a protester at Rambukkana on 19 April, 2022. The police alleged that they opened fire to prevent a violent mob from setting a petrol bowser, barricaded across the railway line there, ablaze.

Now, swift action taken by the Navy, under extraordinary circumstances to prevent possible threat on the lives of the President and the First Lady, had been challenged. The writer felt the need to examine the evacuation of the President against the backdrop of an attempt to compare it with President Wickremesinghe’s visit to the University of Wolverhampton in September, 2023, to attend the awarding of an honorary professorship to his wife Prof. Maithri Wickremesinghe.

The 09 July intervention made by the Navy cannot be, in any way, compared with the public funds spent on any other President. It would be pertinent to mention that the President, fleeing Janadhipathi Mandiraya, and the withdrawal of the armed forces deployed there, happened almost simultaneously. Once a collective decision was made to vacate Janadhipathi Mandiraya, they didn’t have any other option than rushing to the Colombo harbor where SLNS Gajabahu was anchored.

Overall defences in and around Janadhipathi Mandiraya crumbled as crowds surged in the absence of an effective strategy to thwart them. As we recall the law enforcers (both military and police) simply did nothing to halt the advance of the mob right into Janadhipathi Mandiraya, as people, like the then US Ambassador Julie Chung, openly prevailed on the hapless administration not to act against, what she repeatedly termed, ‘peaceful protesters’, even after they, in a pre-planned operation, meticulously burnt down more than hundred properties of government politicos and loyalists, across the country, on 9/10 May, 2022. So they were, on the whole, the proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing working with the Western regime change project here as was previously done in places like Libya and Iraq and more recently in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal to install pliant governments.

After the 9/10 incidents, President Rajapaksa replaced the Commander of the Army, General Shavendra Silva, with Lt. Gen. Vikum Liyanage.

RTI query

M. R. Ali of Kalmuinai, in terms of Section 34 of the Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016 (read with Article 138), has sought information, in September 2022, regarding the deployment of SLNS Gajabahu. The Navy rejected the request in November 2022, citing Section 5(1)(b)(i) of the RTI Act, which relates to information that could harm national security or defence. Obviously, the release of information, sought by that particular RTI, couldn’t undermine national security. No one can find fault with Ali’s decision to appeal to the RTI Commission against the position taken up by the Navy.

Following hearings in 2023, the Commission issued a split decision on 29 August, 2023. The RTI Commission upheld the Navy’s refusal to disclose items 1 through 5 and item 8, but directed the Navy to release the information for items 6 and 7, specifically, the cost of the travel and who paid for it.

However, the Navy has moved the Court of Appeal against the RTI directive to release the cost of the travel and who paid for it. Having examined the case in its entirety, the Court of Appeal held that the Navy, being the Public Authority responsible for the deployment of the vessel, had failed to prove how they could receive protection under 5(1)(b)(i) of the Right to Information Act. The Court of Appeal affirmed the order dated 29/08/2023 of the Right to Information Commission. The Court dismissed the appeal without costs. The bench consisted of R. Gurusinghe J and Dr. Sumudu Premachandra J.

There hadn’t been a similar case previously. The Navy, for some strange reason, failed to highlight that the failure on their part to act swiftly and decisively during the 09 July, 2022, violence that directly threatened the lives of the President and the First Lady, thwarted a possible catastrophic situation.

The action taken by the Navy should be discussed, taking into consideration the failure on the part of the Army and Police to save the lives of MP Atukorale and his police bodyguard. No less a person than retired Rear Admiral and former Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekera alleged, both in and outside Parliament, that the Army failed to respond, though troops were present in Nittambuwa at the time of the incident. Had the Navy hesitated to evacuate the President and the First Lady the country may have ended up with another case similar to that of lawmaker Atukorale’s killing.

The Gampaha High Court, on 11 February, 2026, sentenced 12 persons to death for the killing of Atukorale and his security officer Gunawardena.

Let me stress that the costs of presidential travel have been released in terms of the RTI Act. The deployment of SLNS Gajabahu, at that time, has to be examined, taking into account the eruption of Aragalaya outside President Rajapaksa’s private residence at Pangiriwatte, Mirihana, on the night of 31 March, 2022, evacuation of the resigned Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa from Temple Trees, after protesters breached the main gate on 10 May, 2010, and the JVP/JBB-led attempt to storm Parliament on 13 July, 2022. Mahinda Rajapaksa and wife Shiranthi took refuge at the Trincomalee Navy base, chosen by Gotabaya Rajapaksa as sanctuary a few months later.

US Ambassador Julie Chung tweeted that Washington condemned “the violence against peaceful protestors” and called on the Sri Lankan “government to conduct a full investigation, including the arrest and prosecution of anyone who incited violence.”

The US fully backed the violent protest campaign while the direct involvement of India in the regime change project later transpired. As far as the writer is aware, this particular request is the only RTI query pertaining to Aragalaya. Evacuation of Mahinda Rajapaksa took place in the wake of a foolish decision taken at Temple Trees to unleash violence on Galle Face protesters, who were also besieging Temple Trees.

Defence Secretary retired General Kamal Gunaratne told a hastily arranged media conference that the former Prime Minister was at the Naval Dockyard in Trincomalee. The media quoted him as having said: “He will be there for a few more days. We will provide him with whatever security he needs and for as long as he wants.” Mahinda Rajapaksa remained in Trincomalee for over a week before attending Parliament.

Navy’s dilemma

Gotabaya

At the time information was sought under the RTI Act, Ulugetenne served as the Commander of the Navy. Vice Admiral Priyantha Perera succeeded Ulugetenne on 18 December, 2022. Following VA Perera’s retirement on 31 December, 2024, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake brought in the incumbent Kanchana Banagoda, as the 26th Commander of the Navy.

On the basis of the RTI query that dealt with the deployment of SLNS Gajabahu to evacuate President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and First Lady Ayoma, one can seek information regarding the expenditure incurred by Air Force in flying Mahinda Rajapaksa and his wife from Colombo to Trincomalee and back, as well, as Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards leaving the country on Air Force AN 32 on 13 July, 2022. On the following day, they flew to Singapore on a Saudi flight.

Ali, in his representations, stressed that his objective hadn’t been to determine the legality of the Navy’s actions but to exercise his right as a citizen and taxpayer to oversee public spending. He questioned the failure on the part of the Navy to explain as to how revelation of specific information would “directly and reasonably” harm national security. In spite of the RTI Commission directive, the Navy refrained from answering two specific questions as mentioned by justice Dr. Sumudu Premachandra. Question number (6) How much money did the Sri Lanka Navy spent for the travel of former President Gotabhaya Rajapaksha in this ship? And (Question 7) Who paid this money? When did they pay?

Both the RTI Commission and Court of Appeal quite rightly rejected the Navy’s position that the revelation of cost of the deployment of vessels poses a significant threat to national security. That claim was based on the assertion that such financial data could allow third parties to calculate sensitive operational details, such as a ship’s speed, fuel consumption, and operational range. The Navy claimed that the disclosure of sensitive information could reveal supply dependencies, logistics constraints, and fueling locations, making the vessels vulnerable to sabotage or economic warfare.

The Navy sought protection of RTI Act’s section 5(1)(b)(i). Following is the relevant section: “(b) disclosure of such information– (i) would undermine the defence of the State or its territorial integrity or national security;”

The Navy appears to be in a bind over the RTI move for obvious reasons. With the ultimate beneficiary of Aragalaya at the helm, the Navy would find it extremely difficult to explain the circumstances SLNS Gajabahu was deployed against the backdrop of direct threat on the lives of the then incumbent President and the First Lady. The truth is desperate action taken by the Navy saved the life of the President and his wife. That is the undeniable truth. But, the current political environment may not be conducive to say so. What a pathetic situation in which the powers that be lacked the courage to lucidly explain a particular situation. As stressed in the Supreme Court judgment of November 2023, the Rajapaksa brothers – including two ex-Presidents – were guilty of triggering the country’s worst financial crisis by mishandling the economy.

In a majority verdict on petitions filed by academics and civil rights activists, a five-judge bench ruled that the respondents, who all later resigned or were sacked, had violated public trust. The regime change project took advantage of the attack ordered by Temple Trees on 09 May, 2009, on Galle Face protesters, to unleash pre-planned violence on ruling party politicians and loyalists.

If not for the courageous decision taken by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in spite of his private residence, at Kollupitiya, being set ablaze by protesters on the night of 09 July, 2022, to order the military to thwart the JVP/JJB march on Parliament, two days later, and evict protesters from Galle Face soon after Parliament elected him the President on 20 July, 2022, saved the country from anarchy. Although Wickremesinghe, without restraints, encouraged Aragalaya, he quickly became the bulwark against the anti-State project that threatened to overwhelm the political party system.

Obviously, during Wickremesinghe’s tenure as the President, the SLPP, that accommodated the UNP leader as the Head of State, appeared to have turned a blind eye to the RTI query. Had the SLPP done so, it could have captured public attention, thereby making an attempt to influence all involved. In fact, the case never received media attention until journalist and Attorney-at-Law Nayana Tharanga Gamage, in his regular online programme, dealt with the issues at hand.

Before leaving Janadhipathi Mandiraya, the President has warned the military top brass, and the IGP, to prevent the destruction of the historic building. However, no sooner, the President left, the military top brass vacated the building leaving protesters an easy opportunity to take control. They held Janadhipathi Mandiraya until Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned on 14 July 2022 to pave the way for Ranil Wickremesinghe to become the President.

It would be pertinent to mention that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa only moved into the Presidential Palace (Janadhipathi Mandiraya) after massive protest outside his Pangiriwatte private residence on 31 March, 2022, underscored his vulnerability for an attack.

Midweek Review

Village tank cascades, great river quartet and Cyclone Ditwah

Published

2 days ago

2026/03/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

This past November and December Ditwah showed us how dark, eerie and haunting catastrophes cyclones can be. Past generations have suffered as shown in 1911, the Canberra Times reporting the great flood of Ceylon on December 30 of that year. It killed 200 people and left over 300,000 homeless. Half century later, on December 25, 1957, a nameless cyclone brought severe rain to the North Central Province (NCP), and the Nachchaduwa reservoir breached, unloading its full power of volume into Malwatu Oya, a mid-level river flowing through the city of Anuradhapura, nearly washing away its colonial-era bridge near the Lion Tower. A cyclone paid a visit to the Eastern Coast of Sri Lanka on November 17-23, 1978.

Half a century later, Ditwah came with swagger.

Quartet of Rivers

Cyclone Ditwah unleashed disaster and tragedy, terrorising every breath of hundreds of thousands of people. These cyclones come spaced by a generation or two. How the Great River Quartet of Mahaweli, Kelani, Kalu, and Walawe, and their attendant mid-level streams, behaved before Ditwah masks the reality that they are not the loving and smiling beauties poets claim them to be. During the Ditwah visit, our river Quartet showed its true colours in plain sight when wave after wave of chocolate rage pushed uprooted forests creasing islands of floating debris and crashed onto bridges, shattering their potency into pieces. These rivers are nothing more than a bunch of evil reincarnations cloaked in ruinous intentions.

The River Quartet and its mates woke up to the first thunder of Ditwah. They carried away villages, people, property, herds of cattle, and wild elephants to the depths of the Indian Ocean. While we continue to dig out the dead buried in muddy mountainsides, dislodged from their moorings during this flood of biblical proportions, how our rivers, streams, and, particularly, the village tanks handled the pressure on their own will be the core of many future discussions.

The destruction and tragedy caused by this water hurt all of us in many ways. But we all wish they were only a fleeting dream. Sadly, though, the real-life sight of the pulverised railway bridge at Peradeniya is not a dream. This section of the rail line was stripped of its modesty and laid bare. It hung in the air, literally, like strands of an abandoned spider’s web on a wet Kandyan morning. It was a reminder to us that running water is a masked devil and should not be considered inviting. It can unleash the misery with a chilling ending no one wants to experience in a lifetime.

Tank Cascade Systems (TCS)

Although the Ditwah cyclone covered Sri Lanka from top to bottom with equal fury, the mountainous areas and floodplains of our River Quartet surrendered soon. However, the village tanks in the Dry Zone – Northern, North Central, Northeast, and Eastern provinces – weathered that onslaught, sustaining only manageable damage. They collectively mitigated the damage caused by over 200 mm of rain that fell across the catchment areas they represented. Thus, the tank, the precious possession of the village, deserves to be titled as a real beauty.

Let me introduce the village tanks systems our engineering ancestors built with sophistication and ingenuity, a force like Ditwah hardly made a dent in groups of these tanks called Tank Cascade Systems (TDS). Many of the village tanks in the Dry Zone, covering 60% of Sri Lanka’s land area, stand in groups of TDS, separated as individual bodies of water but sharing water from one or more dedicated ephemeral streams. R.W. Ievers, the Government agent for North Central Province in the 1890s, noted that these tanks were the result of “one thousand years of experiment and experience,” and “ancient tank builders took advantage of the flat and undulating topography of the NCP to make chains of tanks in the valleys.” Colonial Irrigation Engineers of the early 20th century also recognised this uniqueness. Still, they could not connect the dots to provide a comprehensive definition for this major appurtenance of the village.

Although these tanks appear to be segregated ecosystems, a closer look at the peneplain topographic map of Sri Lanka shows that each stream feeding them ultimately flows into a larger reservoir or river, jointly or independently influencing the mechanics of regional water use and debouching patterns. This character is the spirit of the dictum of King Parakramabahu centuries earlier: “let not a single drop of water go to waste into the sea without being used by people.” Villagers knew that each tank in their meso-catchment area was related to other tanks on the stream it was in ensuring maximised use of water.

With their embodied wisdom, our ancestors centuries ago configured the placement of individual tanks that shared water from a catchment area. But not until 1985, following a careful autopsy of the pattern of these small tanks in the Dry Zone, Professor Madduma Bandara noticed a distinctive intrinsic relationship within each group of tanks. He called a group of such tanks a Cascade of Tanks. He wrote, “a (tank) cascade is a connected series of tanks organized within a micro-catchment of the Dry Zone landscape, storing, conveying, and utilising water from an ephemeral rivulet.” In short, it is a “series of tanks located in succession one below the other.” Dr. M.U.A. Tennakoon shared the names of the villagers in Nuwarakalaviya used for this configuration of tanks: Ellangawa. On a map, these tanks appear as hanging on a string. Thus, Ellangawa can be a portmanteau, a blend, of these two words.

There are over 475 such cascading tank groups in the Dry Zone. On average, each cascade typically supports four tanks. One cascade, Toruwewa, near Kekirawa, has 12 tanks. According to Professor Madduma Bandara, a cascade of tanks held about 20-30% of the water falling on its catchment area. As I will show later in this essay, the tank cascades behave like buddies in good times and bad times. By undertaking to build a vascular structure to collect, conserve, and share water with communities along the stream path, our ancestors forewarned of the consequences of failing to undertake such micro-projects where they chose to live. The following are a villager’s thoughts on how to retool this concept to mitigate the potential for damage from excess water flow in a larger river system.

To villagers, their tank is royalty. Its water is their lapis lazuli. Therefore, they often embroidered the title of the village with the suffix wewa (tank) or kulam (tank, in Tamil), indicating the close connection between the two. It is the village’s foremost provider and is interdependent. That is why we have the saying, “the village is the tank, and the tank is the village.”

A study in 1954/55 found that there were 16,000 tanks in Sri Lanka, of which over 12,500 were operational. Out-of-commission tanks were those that fell into disuse after the original settlers abandoned them for a host of reasons, such as a breach in the bund, fear of plague or disease, or superstition. Collectively, they supply water to an area larger than the combined area of the fields served by the major irrigation reservoirs in the country at the time.

In some villages, an additional tank called olagama, with its own acreage of fields, receives water from the same stream or from another feeder stream which joins the principal stream above or below the main tank. In the event the main tank is disabled, often the olagama tank can serve as the alternate water source for their fields.

Cultural and Engineering

A graphical representation of the tank cascade system. Image courtesy of IUCN Sri Lanka.

A tank cascade is also an engineering undertaking. But village tank builders were not engineers with gold-trimmed diplomas. They were ordinary folks, endowed with generations of collective wisdom, including titbits on the physics of water, its speed, and its cruelty. Village pioneers responsible for starting the construction of the tank bund, gam bendeema, placed the first lump of earth after marking off home sites, not immediately below the future bund, but slightly towards one end of it, in the area called gammedda, or the elevated area the bund links to, gamgoda.

Engineering of a tank cascade has a cultural underpinning. It is founded on the feeling of solidarity among the villages along an ephemeral stream. In practice, it was a wholesome area with small communities of kin below each tank sorting out their own affairs without much intervention of the ruling class. For example, during heavy rains, each village in the chain communicated with the villages below the volume in its tank and the projected flow of the stream. When the tank reached its capacity and water began to spill over the spillway, the village below must take measures to protect its tank bund. If it breached, villagers up and down the cascade helped each other repair it.

They were aware that an earthen dam was susceptible to failure, so they used their own town-planning ideas. They avoided building residential zones directly under the stream’s path, generally at the midpoint of the dam. Instead, they built their triumvirate of life – tank, field, and dagoba (stupa) – keeping safety and practicality in mind. Dagoba was always on a higher ground, never supported by beams on a stream bank like what Ditwah revealed recently. We now know what happens to dagobas built on sagging beams by deceptively serenading riverbanks when thunder waters and unworldly debris came down hand in hand.

From top to bottom, the Tank Cascade showed the engineering instinct of the builders and accessory parts that helped its smooth functioning. There was the Olagama and Kulu Wewa associated with a system. Tank builders had an idea of the volume of water a given stream would bring in a year. In conjunction with this, the bunds of the Olagama and Kulu Wewa are built small. In contrast, the bunds of the tanks that formed the lower rung of the cascade are relatively larger. The idea behind this was that, in the event of a breach in an upstream tank, the downstream tanks could withstand an unexpected influx of water.

During the Ditwah’s death dance, the Mahaweli River did not have this luxury as it marched downstream from Kotmale dam. There were not enough dams to tame this river, and its beastly nature was allowed to run wild until it was too late for many.

The embodied imprints of experience inherited from their ancestors’ helped villagers design the tank’s physical attributes. In general, a tank supplied by this stream had a dam of a size proportional to the amount of water it could store for the fields. Later, as the village added families and field acreage increased, villagers raised the bund and the spillway to meet increased storage capacity. This simple practice guarded against eventualities like uncontrollable floods between villages. Excess water was allowed to flow through the sluice gate and the spillway, reducing the pressure on the bund. Had we applied this fundamental practice on a proportional scale to a large stream, i.e., oya or river, it would have lessened the destruction during a major rainstorm, ilk of which Ditwah brought.

With my experience living in a village with its tank, part of a TCS of five tanks, I wish large rivers like the Mahaweli had a few small-scale dams or partial diversions mimicking a rudimentary TCS so that the Railway Bridge at Peradeniya could have avoided the wrath of hell and high-water bringing muck and debris along its 46 km descent from Kotmale, where its lone dam is. I am glad I have company here. Professor Madduma Bandara noted 40 years ago, “much water flows through drainage lines due mainly to the absence of a village tank-type storage system.” Mahaweli turned out to be that drainage line this past November, holding hands, sadly, though, jubilantly, with the designs of Ditwah. Recently, former Head of Geo-Engineering at Peradeniya University, Udeni Bandara Amarasinghe, highlighted the importance of building reservoirs on other rivers to control floods like those we experienced recently.

Check Dams & Macroscopic Control

Within the TCS, the check dams, Kulu Wewa or Kele Wewa – forest tanks above a working tank held back sediments generated by upstream denudation. They controlled the volume and water entering the main tank. Kulu Wewa provided water for wild animals and checked their tendency to raid crops below the main tank. The difference between Kulu Wewa and Olagama was that, because of its topographical location, Kulu Wewa was occasionally used as a source of water for crops when the main tank below it became inoperable due to a breach or was undergoing repairs or used up its water early.

Based on these definitions, each working tank in the TCS also acted like a check dam for the one below it. Furthermore, if a tank in the cascade ran out of water, other tanks in the cascade stepped in. They linked up with the tanks above through temporary canals made by extending an existing minor canal, wella, or the wagala, excess water pan, of an upstream field.

The tank bund tamed and kept in check the three attributes of a stream – water velocity, volume, and its destructive power. By damming the stream, the villagers broke fueling momentum of it. They rerouted it via the spillway at the end of the bund, a form of recycling. Water from some spillways is diverted along a large niyara-like (field ridge) lesser dam, built along the wanatha (flanks) of the field, until it empties into the atrophied stream below the field.

Simultaneously, by controlling the release of water through two sluice gates on the bund, goda and mada horowwa, and directing it to the two flanks of the field, ihala and pahala wanatha, villagers succeeded in tamping down the pressure on the bund. Water from the neutered stream is thus redirected from all three exit points. It must now continue its journey along the wagala, to which field units (liyadi) also empty their excess water. This water is called wel pahu wathura.

After going through this process, the momentum of the ephemeral stream water is passive by the time it reaches the tanks in the lower parts of the cascade, often a kilometer or two downstream. This way, a line of tanks along the stream’s axis now shares the responsibility of holding back its full potential, limiting its ability to cause damage.

Such a break of momentum was lacking in the Four Great River Quartet and their lesser cousins. For the long-term solution to prevent damage from future cousins of Ditwah, we must consider this ingenious water-control method for rivers on a macroscopical scale.

Reservoirs

1957 and 2025 Cyclones Flood Marks written above window and below on the wall of a house by the banks of the Malwatu Oya in Anuradhapura.

As Ditwah-type floods occurred in 1911, 1957, 1978, and 2025, with a bit of luck, we can expect to have a few more decades of recess to work on cascading edifices along rivers, such as dams or diversions, before the next flood comes with roguish intentions. The Accelerated Mahaweli Diversion Program (AMDP), started in 1978, took 30 years to complete and now has over a dozen reservoirs between Kandy and the Dry Zone coastal belt, holding back its might. These reservoirs held their ground while Ditwah rained hell, so consulting the TCS’s ingenuity, though seems antiquated, is a good investment.

As soon as Cyclone Ditwah began to make noise, word spread that releasing water from a few of them on the Mahaweli and Kelani rivers could have made a difference. The problem with the Kelani River basin in Western Province and the Mahaweli basin in Central Province above Kandy is that, despite their combined population being nine times that of the NCP, they only have six reservoirs. On the contrary, the NCP has twice as much in the lower Mahaweli River basin, built under the AMDP. Furthermore, the NCP also has many ancient reservoirs it inherited from our ancestors. A string (cascade) of large reservoirs or minor dams in the hill country could have helped break the river’s energy which it accumulated along the way. G.T. Dharmasena, an irrigation engineer, had already raised the idea of “reorienting the operational approach of major reservoirs operators under extreme events, where flood control becomes a vital function.”

Unique Epitaphs for the Cyclones

The processes discussed above could have prevented the destruction of the railway track at the Peradeniya bridge, the image of which now stands like a pictorial epitaph to the malicious visit of the Ditwah and a reminder to us, “what if…?” or “what next…?”

As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, when the 1957 Cyclone dropped heavy rain on the NCP, a Railway Department employee at Anuradhapura made an exceptional effort to keep the memory of that saga for posterity with an epitaph still visible 70 years later. This person memorialised his near escape from the Malwatu Oya flood. As the river roared past over the railing of the bridge near the Lion Pillar roundabout, this employee, probably trapped in his two-storied house near the roundabout, day-stamped the visit of the flood with a red line on the wall of his house to mark the height it reached to trap him.

Three meters from the ground, right between two archtop windows facing the road to Sri Maha Bodhi, he wrote, “Flood level” in Sinhala, Tamil, and English. Right below it, at the end of the faded line, he added, “1957-12-25.”

As Cyclone Ditwah came along, the current resident of the house was not going to break this seven-decade-old tradition. After the flood receded this time, this duty-bound resident drew a line in blue ink and wrote at its end, ‘2025-11-28’, his contributing epitaph reminding us of infamous day Ditwah showed her might by driving the river off its banks. (See picture)

He added a coda to his epitaph – the numeral “8” in 28 is written in bold!

Lokubanda Tillakaratne is the author of Rata Sabhawa of Nuwarakalaviya: Judicature in a Princely Province – An Ethnographical and Historical Reading (2023).

by LOKUBANDA
TILLAKARATNE