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| Illustration by Sumudu Athukorala |
Time passes over events, personalities and outcomes. In that passing truth bends or is made to bend. Time is the password that lets in the lie. And so we have stories. Version. Legends. Some preposterous and some believable. However, in both lies and truth, in the relevant excavations, in the inevitable interpretations, there are tales that delight and lessons that are useful.
What is before us could very well be a composite of error and deceit as much the work of men, women, artists, historians, the elements and time. A finely crafted statue of the Buddha always calls for meditation. That’s probably because of the cultural ethos I was born into and grew up in, heavily influenced by Buddhist thinking and practices, but then again there have been churches, Hindu temples and mosques that have had a similar effect.
For now, it’s about Aukana. The majestic budu pilimaya (it’s 42 feet in height) is dated to the reign of King Dhatusena and therefore the 5th Century has never failed to inspire awe. The sheer dimensions and the exquisite craftsmanship would call for long reflection, if not on the eternal verities perhaps nudged by the buddhaalambana preethiya then by the effort and skill of the sculptor.
Thus has the Aukana stilled and awakened me. I’ve wondered about that unknown and unnamed sculptor. I’ve known that it was during King Dhatusena’s reign and have wondered why he and not the sculptor is mentioned by name.
And then there’s the legend. Apparently the king had been journeying with his Royal Sculptor and having come upon the rock from which the statue has been hewn, had asked, ‘Do you see the buduhamuduruwo?’ And the sculptor had said ‘yes.’ The work had been commissioned. And the Aukana Buduhamuduruwo, ‘trapped’ in a rock for who knows how long, was released.
I don’t know if the story is true, but it is a nice story and it makes for deep reflection. I have, since hearing it for the first time, imagined the rock without the statue. I have imagined images trapped in rocks and therefore releasable. And reflecting on the reflection, I have obtained a sense of what upadanas (fixations) are, how they are created and how, perhaps, they could be avoided.
All this from the Aukana, remember. All this from an image released from a rock. All this from working back from release to entrapment and all the traps that distract and stop the exercise of grasping the eternal verities.
I remembered the Aukana story because of an incredible extrapolation, again associated with a rock, again associated with a depiction associated with the Buddha or Buddhism.
The rock, Bathalegala, has been in the news recently over the construction of a temple at the summit. Objections have been raised by people who claim that the natural beauty would be sullied. Visual pollution, they say. Let’s not get into the politics and hypocrisy of any of the many parties involved.
For me, nothing that has been mentioned or expressed about Bathalegala and the controversy has been more compelling than an artistic projection posted by Sumudu Athukorala. Sumudu, an architect, imagined Bathalegala as the base of a massive stupa. The projection has drawn a lot of invective. Some feel he’s encouraging stupendous and stupendously silly constructions on rocks and mountain tops, desecrating the environment and in many ways demonstrating abysmal understanding of the Dhamma. Others see this as an alternative to the construction of a stupa and therefore locates Sumudu in those who are virulently anti-Buddhist.
Sumudu has shown a way for those who are to a greater or lesser degree fascinated by objects that are associated with a doctrine, faith or religion. You could, theoretically, eye-manufacture a massive cross upon Sigiriya. It’s yours. It’s your faith. Your way of affirming faith. You can see a temple in a church and vice versa. And, if that is your preference, you could make a mind-offering of anything and everything to that object of worship.
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Other articles in this series:
Alex Carey and the (small) matter of legacy
The insomnial dreams of Kapila Kumara Kalinga
The clothes we wear and the clothes that wear us (down)
Every mountain, every rock, is sacred
Manufacturing passivity and obedience
Sanjeew Lonliyes: rawness unplugged, unlimited
In praise of courage, determination and insanity
The relative values of life and death
Poetry and poets will not be buried
Reunion Peradeniya (1980-1990)
Sorrowing and delighting the world
Encounters with Liyanage Amarakeerthi
Letters that cut and heal the heart
A forgotten dawn song from Embilipitiya
The soft rain of neighbourliness
Reflections on waves and markings
Respond to insults in line with the Akkosa Sutra
The right time, the right person
The silent equivalent of a thousand words
Crazy cousins are besties for life
The lost lyrics of Premakeerthi de Alwis
Consolation prizes in competitions no one ever wins
Blackness, whiteness and black-whiteness
Inscriptions: stubborn and erasable
Deveni: a priceless one-word koan
Recovering run-on lines and lost punctuation
'Wetness' is not the preserve of the Dry Zone
On sweeping close to one's feet
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
To be an island like the Roberts...
Debts that can never be repaid in full
An island which no flood can overwhelm
A melody faint and yet not beyond hearing
Heart dances that cannot be choreographed
Remembering to forget and forgetting to remember
Authors are assassinated, readers are immortal
It is good to be conscious of nudities
Saturday slides in after Monday and Sunday somersaults into Friday
There's a one in a million and a one in ten
Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California
Hemantha Gunawardena's signature
Architectures of the demolished
The exotic lunacy of parting gifts
Who the heck do you think I am?
Those fascinating 'Chitra Katha'
So how are things in Sri Lanka?
The sweetest three-letter poem
Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership
The songs we could sing in lifeboats when we are shipwrecked
Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna
Awaiting arrivals unlike any other
Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles
Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth
The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara
Some play music, others listen
Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn
I am at Jaga Food, where are you?
On separating the missing from the disappeared
And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)
The circuitous logic of Tony Muller
Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'
Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist
Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses
Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced
Some stories are written on the covers themselves
A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature
Landcapes of gone-time and going-time
The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie
So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?
There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords
A song of terraced paddy fields
Of ants, bridges and possibilities
From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva
Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse
Who did not listen, who's not listening still?
If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain
The world is made for re-colouring
No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5
Visual cartographers and cartography
Ithaca from a long ago and right now
Lessons written in invisible ink
The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'
The interchangeability of light and darkness
Sisterhood: moments, just moments
Chess is my life and perhaps your too
Reflections on ownership and belonging
The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha
Signatures in the seasons of love
To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows
Fragrances that will not be bottled
Colours and textures of living heritage
Countries of the past, present and future
Books launched and not-yet-launched
The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace
The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville
Live and tell the tale as you will
Between struggle and cooperation
Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers
Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Serendipitous amber rules the world
