Thannamurippu, in The Economist, 23 November 2023 where the title runs thus: “Asian Monuments. What’s mine, what’s yours?Disputed monuments are Sri Lanka’s new ethnic flashpoint”
On a wooded hill edged by rice fields in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district sit the ruins of an ancient Buddhist monastery. Members of the country’s Sinhalese majority call it “Kurundi Viharaya”. For Tamils, who are mostly Hindus and consider the war-battered north their homeland, it is “Kurunthoor Malai”. Since 2018, when the state archaeological department began excavating the site, Tamil and Sinhalese nationalists have rowed over which community has a greater claim to it.
Kurundi Dagaba
Sri Lanka’s long civil conflict, between the secessionist Tamil Tiger rebels and Sinhalese-dominated government, has left deep scars in Mullaitivu. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were slaughtered by the army there in 2009 during the war’s terrible denouement, according to the UN.*** Some locals who fled the fighting were only permitted to return in 2013. It was around then that the department started showing interest in the many archaeological sites, including Kurundi, dotted across the vanquished Tigers’ former domain.
The Kurundi complex dates back to the 2nd century BC, with extensions added over subsequent centuries. The limited area that has been excavated includes a stupa, or Buddhist reliquary tower, and an image house, used to display representations of the Buddha. On the site’s summit , white butterflies flit to a chatter of cicadas.
For the Sinhalese nationalists such as Ellawala Medhananda, a Buddhist monk and author of a popular book on the Buddhist heritage of Sri Lanka’s north and east, such ruins serve a keen political purpose.
At the heart of the claim for a Tamil homeland is a belief that ethnic Tamils were the original settlers of Sri Lanka’s north and east. For Sinhala nationalists, the ancient Buddhist sites repudiate that claim
Tamil nationalists counter that the monuments were also Hindu. The two religions often co-existed in pre-modern Sri Lanka. Excavations at many Buddhist monuments in Northern Sri Lanka have revealed evidence of Hindu practice. Even where excavations are limited at a site, local Hindus often lay claim to it. Kurundi is locally believed to contain a Hindu temple; Hindus have begun gathering to pray there. These rival claims have put archaeology on the front line of Sri Lanka’s communal fissure. It has become a “highly volatile ethnic issue” that has “created a tension in the minds of both Sinhalese and Tamils because of its political implications”, writes G. P. V. Somaratna, a historian.
The Kurundi site was protected by British administrators in 1933. Earlier this year, the archaeological department—citing evidence of unexplored ruins outside its 78-acre expanse – called for a further 229 acres, including fertile paddy fields, to be blocked off. This has outraged the Tamil farmers who cultivate the land. Tamil leaders decry the proposal as an effort to “Sinhalise” the region. The site has been decked in signage, written in Sinhalese, that does not mention its Hindu significance. Local Hindus have filed lawsuits to prevent further changes. A judge who ruled in their favour fled the country in August, citing death threats and “a lot of stress”.
The politics of the dispute are warping the history. It is not merely the case that Tamils and Sinhalese once worshipped side by side. Buddhist and Hindu identities were also more fluid than Sri Lanka’s bitter politics today permits; some ethnic Tamils were once Buddhist. That probably makes the ancient sites at least as Tamil as they are Sinhalese—even if not in a way that extremists on either side would recognise. The row is about ethnicity, not religion, and essentially about “who got here first”, observes Shamara Wettimuny, a historian.
A growing number of sacred sites are seeing the same ethnic disagreement. Kandarodai, a collection of restored stupas in the northernmost Jaffna Peninsula, has been fenced off and put in (mostly Sinhalese) army hands. Local Hindus are outraged. Rowdy protests at some other monuments have led to police intervention. And with an election due next year, such tensions are likely to increase. A Tamil human-rights lawyer calls this “sectarian conflict based on ruins”.
VITAL NOTES from The Editor, Thuppahi
** As far as I can work out the author is one “Thannamurippu”; while there seem to be two titles: (A) “Asian Monuments. What’s mine, what’s yours?” … and (B) “Disputed monuments are Sri Lanka’s new ethnic flashpoint.”
*** I will be contesting the assertion that “Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were slaughtered by the army there in 2009 during the war’s terrible denouement, according to the UN.” This challenge cannot be done in a few words. Watch this space.
One does not need to be an Archaeologist or an erudite historian to recognize that the existing ruins at the Kurundumale Vihara site and its vicinity, in the Mulativu District are the remains of an ancient Buddhist Stupa and other temple buildings constructed hundreds of years ago. Scholars of history say that the Mahavansa has mentioned that King Kallatanga (110-104 BC) constructed the Kurundumale temple during his reign. Stone inscriptions at the site indicate that major additions to the temple complex were made by several kings — including Aggabodhi-1 in (575-608) and Vijayabahu-I in (1070-1110). These kings reigned hundreds of years after King Kallatanga. Other artifacts, ruins as well as epigraphical evidence, have established without doubt that the site was an ancient Buddhist Temple complex of very high importance, revered by many ancient Sinhalese Kings and Buddhists.
The existence of the Kurudumale ruins were first recorded by J.P Lewis (G.A) in 1895. Others like H.C.P. Bell (1909), Archealogical Commissioner, confirmed these findings. On May 12, 1933, the site was declared an Archaeological Reserve by the British under the Gazette Notification 7981. More recently, excavations conducted by the Department of Archaeology, have unearthed a large number of Buddhist monuments including the ruins of a stupa, a statue house, marble fragments of sitting and standing Buddhas, as well as a Bodhisattva statue.
However, the existence of many Buddhist temples venerated by ancient Sinhalese Kings for hundreds of years does not fit the recently advanced narrative of the LTTE and its fellow travellers. They claim that the Northern and Eastern provinces as well as parts of the North Central Province of Sri Lanka were parts of their “Traditional Tamil Homeland”. Some of the more enthusiastic Tamil politicians have even claimed that the whole of Sri Lanka was their “Traditional Tamil Homeland ” and that the Sinhalese were intruders. Contrary to the article in the Economist, Sinhalese, for many years, have ignored the spurious claims made by the LTTE, other Tamil political parties and politicians that Tamils were the original settlers of the country and are therefore the rightful owners of Sri Lanka or some large parts of it.
It has been well established by Anthropological studies, that the Veddas, a group of hunter-gatherers — who lived in Sri Lanka as early as 30,000 years ago — were the original people of Sri Lanka now known as Vanni. In any case the term Vanni” is the name given to the mainland area of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, a land-space which covers the entirety of Mannar, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya Districts, as well as most of the Kilinochchi District. If the Veddas were the “original settlers ” in the Vanni for the last 30,000 years or so, Tamils have no claim to be the “original settlers” of these lands, unless the Tamils are the descendants of the the Veddas. However, studies in Genetics have conclusively established that neither the Tamils nor the Sinhalese are descendants of the Veddas. In fact, except for the Tamils, no other ethnic group — including the Veddas – has ever made the ridiculous claim of being the “original settlers” of any part of Sri Lanka and because of that, they are the the rightful owners of the whole island.
All other ethnic groups, such as the Veddas, Sinhalese, Muslims, Burghers, Malays, Chetties et al, have unquestionably accepted the fact that they are Sri Lankans and have the inalienable right to live in any part of the island, irrespective of the time of their arrival. To my knowledge, very few Sinhalese, or even rabid race conscious Sinhalese Buddhists, have ever seriously questioned this fundamental right of all Sri Lankans, to live anywhere in the island. This is very evident by the fact that there are NO political parties among the Sinhalese formed with the express intention of dividing the country on a communal basis. However, the same cannot be said of the Tamil political parties that have existed from as far back as the 1930s.
Sinhalese have very rightly pointed out that the Tamil claim of a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka is a “recently” invented idea, and that both communities have lived in harmony for thousands of years, except for brief periods of conflict. However, it was only during the recent reign of the LTTE in the North, that Sinhalese, Muslims et al were given 24 hours notice to evacuate the “Traditional Home Lands of the Tamils”. I understand that some of the Moslems and Sinhalese who left Jaffna at that time still live in temporary accommodations.
For overa hundred years Tamils have lived in the various neighborhoods of Colombo like Colombo 7, Colpetty, Bambalapitiya, Wellawatte, Mount Lavinia and Ratmalana etc. During this time, Tamils have have lived in these areas like all other citizens of Sri Lanka, and no one among these Tamils, Sinhalese, or others have claimed to be the “original settlers” in the metropolitan arena and claimed more rights than others or given 24 hours notice to other communities to vacate the traditional homelands of their communities within the city. This harmony was shortly and viciously disturbed during 1956, 1958 and 1981 — riots or pogroms concerning which most of us are ashamed.