Angampora: a tradition of combat, repository of history, an art of living

There is a man by the name of M.A. Jayasinghe currently living in Kalawana.  He’s old and is said to be the last known exponent of the Koti Netuma, or the dance of the Cheetah.  The Koti Netuma apparently is a dance form adapted from the Koti Adiya, a fighting technique that’s part of the seven styles based on the ways of animals, the others being Eth (Elephant) Sinha (Lion), Valas (Bear), Naga (Cobra), Ukus (Hawk) and Gurula (Phoenix).

All of them constitute just one element of a larger school of fighting, Angampora. These animal-techniques apparently were subversively transformed into dancing styles when on the 5th of October 1818, Angampora was banned by the British.  

Angampora is a discipline that is seeped in military philosophy, spirituality, and was the at the very foundation of Sri Lanka’s 2,300 years of independent rule. 

 The British decree to ban Angampora
came in the wake of the
Uva-Wellassa freedom fight in 1818. 

In the face of its outlawing in 1818, and active persecution of practitioners until Sri Lanka’s independence in 1948, Angampora’s deadly techniques and esoteric practices were transmitted to the present day through ingeniously concealing knowledge in many forms, which include dances and other exotic cultural performances.

The subversion took many forms. For example, the Kandy Perahera is a veritable repository of what may be called ‘Angampora Secrets’; the ves thattuwa or the ornamental decorations that adorn the dancers are but vestiges of the armour plates and relevant motifs used by the fighters.   What made such gear-switching possible was the fact that embedded in Amgampora was a lot of things that are not immediately associated with combat. There is medicine, meditation, human-creature relations, food and nutrition and of course a sense of place, history and purpose.  

Most of this is unknown.  There’s a six-page note in a book P.E.P. Deraniyagala wrote in the 1950s which covers the traditional games of Sri Lanka. It is brief and inaccurate, apparently, but points to another subversive move to preserve the form.  

The conscious explorer however could find enough evidence scattered around the island both in archaeological form and in oral history.  A keen eyed anthropologist on the other hand would find how it survived by adaptation, how it was hidden in dance and other art forms. Such an individual would no doubt piece things together even using cultural and social facets and practices.  

‘Angampora: a nation’s legacy in pictures’ does not claim to be an anthropological treatise. Yasas Ratnayake, who has been a mover and shaker from beginning to end of this particular ‘Angampora Project,’ said it all began in 2011. 

‘Reza Akram, a freelance photographer had seen a picture of some Angampora practioners posted by a friend, Fazil Rahman.  It led him to do a photo essay which was later picked up by Huffington Post. I got involved only after I returned to Sri Lanka after completing my studies in 2014.  

Reza is two years older than I; we’ve known each other through scouting. We wanted to do business together. He was looking for a project. All this led us to an Angampora practitioner in Fazil’s office who took us underground, so to speak!’

Why the Korathota Lineage of Angampora practitioners, I wondered, because today there are several ‘schools’ which claim to be ‘the true practitioners’. 

It was not a random selection. There are various schools and they were all thoroughly researched. The Korathota practitioners had stood out because they had the best complement of weaponry, solid documentation and their story was supported by evidence in the chronicles. 

The Korathota Lineage is from Kaduwela. By the way, that’s from the kadu hangapu wela or the field where swords were hidden.  They lay claim to 700 years of recorded history; the ‘Rajavaliya’ (Chronicle of the Kings) mentions names of the families and clans    

“Angampora: A Nation’s Legacy in Pictures” is written by Deshamanya Ajantha Mahanthaarachchi, photographed by Reza Akram, and published by Oceans and Continents. The book will be available for purchase at Rs.9,500 at the venue. Photography prints too will be available for purchase during the event. You can inquire by writing to the contact details below. The project has a prominent presence on multiple social media platforms, and can give viewers an insight into this long and eventful project.

‘We found that Deshamanya Dr Ajantha Mahanthaarachchi, the Angam Mohandiram and the heir of the Korathota lineage, had already written on the subject. It was text-intensive. There were tons of interesting and unique information gathered from over 10 years of research,’ Yasas said. 

Today, there are several families in the Korathota Lineage practicing the art. They even train Army, Air Force and Special Task Force squads. There are both women and men who are trained in this tradition even today.  They give life to the tradition no doubt, but a visual preservation of the art form can do no harm, certainly.

This is how they found that the art is evidenced in temple frescoes, ornaments, wood carvings, combs, pettagam (large caskets made of wood or metal), envelope knives and even medicine holders. Clearly Angampora motifs have been popular in decorating lots of consumer products. It was obviously not some secret underground thing, but was of and for the society it was born to, was nurtured by and which it protected.

‘In fact it’s there even in the Dalada Maligawa (the Sacred Temple of the Buddha’s Tooth Relic, Kandy). Inside the ranweta (the golden railing) on the ceiling there are lots of paintings.  Much of this is corroborated by historical information which speaks of two fighting school in the Kandyan Kingdom, the Sudaliya (probably dating back to the 15th Century) and the Maruwaliya (to the 15th or even before), both trained by the Korathota practitioners,’ to paraphrase Dr Mahanthaarachchi. 

Ethunu Kaduwa

The folk tradition is as rich. There are claims to connections with Ravana and pre-Vijayan history dating back 30,000 years.  There are stories that speak of Mahasammata Manu, Kataragama Mahasen and Tharaka. The art, they say, has kinship to the martial arts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, especially the Kalaripayattu where present day practitioners believe their art came from Parasurama, an incarnation of Vishnu.  

The ‘project’ took Yasas and Reza to Ellore in Maharashtra, a place which holds one of the only remaining early statues of Ravana.  The visit to South India was essentially to make the point that further research is necessary to establish which tradition is older, which fed the other and what kind of cross-fertilization there was, and of course to see how far back in time we should go to obtain the early history of Angampora.  The claim is that ‘Angam’ is a combat craft that is precursor to many a martial art in the world.

As for dating, the book claims that the unusual nomenclature for combat techniques indicates that it predates the Sinhala language and signifies ancient foundtions.  For example, the following: Ï Ahavala, Rakkha padhigäna herala, Rakkha sabalha herala, Rakkha yamara bandha, Rakkha rakkhäna herbal, Rakkha mora herala, Gassäkatha herala, Müsüla phala herala and Angängatha Herala.  

The book is the outcome of six years of intensive research and photography.  In the 436 pages and through more than 600 photographs, ‘the book aims to raise awareness internationally and locally about the last remaining vestiges of a colorful cultural legacy that shaped Sri Lankan society over the centuries.’  

The book showcases an exotic array of never-before-seen ancient artifacts including unbelievable weapons (the oldest in the book is a sword from 200 BC) including the ‘Ethunu Kaduwa which had up to 25 blades, six feet in length and which could be word as a belt.  There’s information about the importance of pressure points of nila. Apparently there are 108 such points on a human body. Pressure on certain points can turn someone blind and then there are time-based nila which can kill or heal a person in a week, a month or later. 

It speaks of fighting against and alongside animals. Then there’s Maya Angam or black magic and voodoo. All these as well as colorful and yet unseen cultural practices on the brink of extincion have been preserved faithfully through secret and unbroken warrior lineages, the book claims.

‘There were oils that could make one bullet proof, meditational techniques to improve vision and expand peripheral vision,’ the text explains. There are stories about drums and whips which make us think of military displays.  I would venture that after perusing these pages the Kandy Perahera would be seen very differently.  Of course there’s much more than all this in the book.

Angampora: A nation’s legacy in picture,’ then, speaks the long story of the tradition, those who developed the techniques, the art of weapon making, the forces that from the Yaksha clans that came to defend king and country in critical moments, the legendary commanders including women who were revered by their followers and feared by their foes, the ‘special forces of Rajasinghe the First (Illangakkaruwan) the sources from which information was garnered, and of course the battles from ‘the decisive battle at Mullériyäwa in the 16th Century, where the Portuguese invaders were decimated by the ruthless fighters of Räjasinghe (one of the finest testaments to the ferocity of the lethal delivery of the Angam craft’) to the rebellions in 1803, 1814, 1818 and 1848.

The project, which cost approximately 13 million rupees is a first of its kind. It is crowd-funded but sponsored by Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC (Heritage Sponsor), Sri Lanka Army, Brandix PLC, Sampath Bank PLC (Legacy Sponsors), Sri Lanka Air Force, Sri Lanka Navy (Patriot Sponsors), Siam City Cement Lanka (Pvt) Limited, and Q&E Advertising (Flag-Bearer Sponsors).

What ‘Oceans and Continents,’ a collective of creative professionals based in Colombo have done, along with one of the last heirs of Angampora’s cultural legacy, have done is historic.  It is as close to a visual anthropological text as we can get given constraints and will no doubt spur much needed research to complete the tapestry of the island’s colorful and yet deep story and thereby unearth clues to the resilience demonstrated even today, against both invader and tyrant.