Abstract
The first case study discusses how the perception of Sri Lanka being the ‘sanctuary and bulwark’ of Theravāda Buddhism has shaped the religio-political discourse, leading to the emergence of an exclusivist ultra-nationalist Sinhalese Buddhism from the late nineteenth century onwards to the detriment of non-Buddhist and non-Sinhalese inhabitants of the island, especially the Tamils, be they Hindu or Muslims. To better understand the emergence of this extremist Buddhism, a brief overview of the religio-political history of the island will be provided before we examine the works of Anagārika Dharmapāla and Walpola Rahula in some detail. The current ‘nationalist thought’ or Jathika Chintanaya will be discussed as well, and so also the current rhetoric of a number of extremist monks such as Inamaluwe Sri Sumanala Thero, Gangodawila Soma Thero, Athuraliye Rathana Thero, and Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero: who do they target, what do they say, and what do they want? And, most importantly, how do they justify and legitimize the resort to violence?
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Notes
- 1.
Interestingly, Obeyesekere (1975, 238) only mentions Sinhalese language and Buddhism as the “two distinct markers of Sinhalese identity.”
- 2.
This was no one-way relationship, however: as I have mentioned in the previous chapter, in 1753, King Kirti Sri Rajasinha (Kandy Dynasty, r. 1747–1782) welcomed a group of fully ordained Siamese (Thai) monks whose task was to help re-establishing his own Sangha which was in terminal decline at that time. These Siamese monks founded the Siyam Nikaya—one of the three monastic orders that still exist in Sri Lanka (Gombrich 2006, 158).
- 3.
As usual, a closer look at the events reveal that the differences were never as clear-cut as they are constructed nowadays for political reasons. For example, Dutugāmanu’s forces also included Tamil units fighting on his side—nationalism as we know it now did not yet exist in those times. Also, some Tamil kings turned out to be great benefactors for Buddhism in general and some major temples in particular.
- 4.
As Walter Wijenayake claims, “[the] missionary schools overtook the Pirivena or the Buddhist temple schools by 1827” (Wijenayake 2008).
- 5.
‘Thera’ or ‘Thero’ can be translated into ‘Venerable,’ and is used as an honorific for fully ordained monks. ‘Theri’ is the female version of it, used not for nuns but for female monks (bhikkhsuni) if and where they exist.
- 6.
The first part of a monk’s name usually refers to the village he came from; in his case, the village was known as Migettuwatte or as Mohotiwatte.
- 7.
Founded in New York, November 1875, by Olcott, famous Russian occultist Mme Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and William Quan Judge.
- 8.
- 9.
Dharmapāla meaning ‘Defender of the Faith,’ Anagārika meaning ‘Homeless One’ and denoting a status between monk and lay follower.
- 10.
- 11.
Fernando (2013, 115 fn 7) says that ‘Jathika’ “can be translated as both ‘racial’ and ‘national,’” and also refers to Peter Schalk who sees the term as corresponding to the German term ‘völkisch.’
- 12.
Benjamin Schonthal offers a set of target groups which is slightly different to mine: “In the first period (1940s–1970s), one sees a configuration of Buddhist nationalismconcerned predominantly with Catholic agents, colonial legacies, and education; in the second period (1970s–2009), one sees a configuration of Buddhist nationalismconcerned predominantly with Tamil separatists, ‘new’ Western religious and aid organizations, and territorial unity; in the third period (after 2009), one sees a configuration concerned predominantly with Islam and winners and losers in the island’s postwar capitalistic economic climate” (Schonthal 2016, 98–99).
- 13.
In early October 2017, even a small group of 31 MuslimRohingya refugees from Burma who ended up in Mount Lavinia were attacked by a Buddhist mob mainly from the Sinhala Raya organization. Its leader, Ven. Akmeemana Dayarathana Thero, was briefly arrested in the aftermath of the incident (Ariff 2017).
- 14.
Personal communication by phone, August 2015.
- 15.
The fact that the majority of the supporters of the LTTE were Hindu Tamils has more to do with demographics than with religion: the LTTE was a secular, vaguely Marxist movement, not a religious (Hindu) movement. On that, see, for example, Schalk 2017.
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Lehr, P. (2019). Sri Lanka: “This Is the Country of Us Sinhala People”. In: Militant Buddhism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03517-4_5
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