Enlightening geometries ~ Malinda Words

Sunsets are delightful. Sunrises too. Many things in the natural world are pleasing to the eye. Rainbows, the movement of water, cloud formations, the play of wind on leaves, rain, waves breaking on rocks, dry leaves in a puddle, mountains, rivers, valleys. You could go on.

Not for everyone though. More than forty years ago, a splendid sunset over the trees beyond the racecourse did not move Ravi Arulnandi.

‘Hmm…,’ he said and explained: ‘maybe I find beauty in other things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Mathematics.’

Defensible. There’s movement, order, predictability, patterns, formulas and others that make a different kind of ‘dharmathavaya,’ in things mathematical. I did not disagree. We use mathematics to understand the natural world, calculate distances between celestial objects and to predict natural phenomena.

Maybe it’s just two different languages, two ways of seeing, understanding or trying to understand, and two ways of being delighted by such things. And sometimes these languages speak to one another. Much has been made of how the ancients understood geometry and used relevant knowledge to understand the sun, the moon, constellations and the earth itself.

That’s deliberate of course.

But sometimes it’s 'chance' with a dash of deliberation evidenced by 'decision.' For example in Mahagama Sekara’s epic poetic work, ‘Prabuddha,’ there’s a moment when the main protagonist notices a bright star shining in the sky above the Ruwanweliseya.

It was dusk. He wanted to turn it into an adornment. And so he walks around until he locates the spot where his gaze, the pinnacle and the star intersect. Thus did he obtain clarity, thus did he dispel gloom: 'deepena thama dhansinaa!’

There are geometries all around us. Sometimes we notice them. Sometimes we see and don’t take much notice because there’s nothing special about them. Sometimes we need to move a little, take a detour, look for ‘the spot’ that yields some unique, revealing and, in the very least, pleasant configuration.

Of course it’s quite possible that geometry will not appeal to someone. Or many people, actually. We are not required to be delighted by the same things or in the same way. Lines and curves can be fascinating, but not for everyone. The spaces they yield, what’s contained in these spaces, the juxtaposition of objects and colours might very well be the least of someone’s concerns at a given moment. They might also cast light on the darkest regions of someone else’s mind, unravel the thorniest of knots, show pathways and answer questions that had not been noted hitherto.

In Arankele, a monastic complex in the Kurunegala District a few kilometres from Ibbagamauwa off the road to Polpithigama, there are lines and spaces, intersections and other geometries that I noticed a few days ago. There was a pond full of kumudu flowers, gently nodding with the wind’s work on the water, rhythmic ripples making for the glancing of sunlight in various directions. Stars that have descended on the water to cool off. Delicateness awaiting gaze and fingertips.

In Arankele, there are walkways for the ascetic bhikkhus. Walking along the sakman maluwa, I came across a vine that had doubled back on the tangle it had created for itself, for want of space perhaps. Beyond it is a tree. Straight. Spaces thus defined made for reflection.

We cut things into pieces without realising. We compartmentalise for ease of comprehension. We break unities and make new ones.

At night, they all disappear. And at dawn reassert presence. These things that were born one day, thrive now, will one day decay and perish. Prolonged drought may draw out all the water from the pond. There will be no flowers to decorate the landscape, delight the senses.

It will rain again, most certainly. New water, new flowers. Same pond? Yes and no. And thus we revert to more familiar equations transient though they too are. Geometries, in the end, are a means and not the end. Useful but ultimately required to be set aside or dissolved in the waters of comprehension. Pirith pan, you may call it.

05 May 2023

Enlightening geometries

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

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