As Sturdy as Sigiriya: Raja de Silva reaches His Year Hundred

Rajiva Wijesinha, in The Island, 11 August 2024, … where the title reads “Raja de Silva at 100″

I have been privileged to have come to know in the last few years the former Commissioner of Archaeology, Raja de Silva. He was at school with my uncle Tissa and last year he came home – as he used to do in his schooldays – to a celebration of what would have been the latter’s 100th birthday. And before that he had been a source of interesting books, for in downsizing his library he passed on to me several books he thought I might like.

Raja …. Cutting birthday cake

But now there has been a book for and about him, a slim volume produced to mark his 100th birthday. This was celebrated at a grand lunch his family arranged, at which I was delighted to find a range of my acquaintance. Apart from his many relations there were representatives of the Orient Club of which he has been a habitue, much loved for his endless stream of anecdotes.

The book was put together by Uvindu Kurukulasooriya, whom I know as the Editor of Colombo Telegraph, and knew earlier for he had been at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura when I taught there, and been distinguished for resisting ragging. He married one of my students who read English in the first year I taught there, and they are both now in England, for when his journalism became too controversial he left this country. But he continues to provoke with a range of articles in his web journal on all topics.

This book however was a labour of love. It turned out that his grandfather was Raja’s uncle and though the latter had moved to Kandy connections in the clan continue close. There were delightful vignettes of Raja by several members of the family, including a couple who were professors at Peradeniya and so added an academic component to their reminiscences.

The family history was in itself fascinating, for it revealed a host of connections to individuals I had not dreamed were so close to Raja, including his brother Chari, who was so innovative when he headed Aitken Spence. The distinguished cricketer Sargo Jayawickrema was the youngest brother of his mother, and one of her sisters married Cyril Rodrigo of Pagoda and Green Cabin fame – and father of my mother’s close friend Indrani de Silva, whose son Ranil of advertising fame I was delighted to see at the lunch. Another sister was the mother of Chanda Coorey, former Secretary to the Treasury, whose son Mohan I knew in England and whose younger daughter married my university chum John Hicklin, and has been involved in helping Sri Lanka to overcome its financial crisis.

 Raja de Silva and Luciano Maranzi who restored the vandalized Sigirya frescoes.

Raja’s wife was the sister of Morgan Tambiah, another good friend of my uncle Tissa, whose son Nigel I remember from school. I had long forgotten him until I saw his father’s name in the book, but at once his long nosed features came to mind. And then there was Pip Siriwardena, who became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ceylon when all universities were combined in the seventies. He too had been a friend of Tissa and continued in touch afterwards.

But though I was fascinated by the account of the friends and family of Raja de Silva, he is also a distinguished professional, and the collection Uvindu Kurukulasuriya has put together also emphasizes his achievements in this regard.

That he had been Commissioner of Archaeology I knew, but I had not known that he had come to the field through Chemistry, and this was just as well for it meant that he was able to cope admirably with the defacing of the Sigiriya frescoes that took place in 1967. Sent there by the then Commissioner Godakumbura, Raja took immediate steps to remove the paint, but realized greater expertise than he possessed was needed. So the Italian expert Luciano Maranzi was brought in and, though he did wonders and is rightly remembered as the prime saviour of almost all the frescoes, he recognized that Raja had done what was immediately necessary, and the two of them worked superbly together. The book carries a couple of pictures that make clear their camaraderie.

Raja was appointed Commissioner soon afterwards and during his tenure he also worked on megalithic sites, the importance of which has only been registered recently. He retired before the expansion of activity when the Central Cultural Fund was set up and accessed much international funding. Though he remained an advisor to the Department, his arguments against allowing the CCF independent authority were ignored and, though much was accomplished, funding was also squandered when much more actual archaeology could have been engaged in.

The showmanship that sometimes took precedence is apparent from the claim that Dutugemunu’s ashes had been discovered, a claim that was effectively exploded when the results of the laboratory testing that was supposed to confirm this grandiose declaration were suppressed. Uvindu’s own piece is most entertaining about the parcel of charcoal that ‘was taken in procession round the country twice, the government proclaiming its contents to be those of King Dutugemunu’s ashes’.

But perhaps Raja’s most significant assertion of intellectual independence was his challenge to the Mahavamsa account of Sigiriya being the palace King Kashyapa built as a refuge. Rather archaeological evidence made clear the site had been used previously for monasteries, and Raja argued cogently that the frescoes represented Tara, an icon of Mahayana Buddhism. But given the Mahavamsa suppression of everything that did not fall in line with its assertion of unbroken Theravada supremacy, Kashyapa who like Mahasen was more eclectic, was demonized, and what was probably a celebration of a more joyful faith was transformed into a symbol of sensuous guilt.

The booklet is full of articles about Raja’s achievements as an archaeologist. But it also had wonderful accounts of his lively personality, the attraction all generations felt towards him, and the laughter that surrounded him. As the Peradeniya professors put it, ‘Raja was a raconteur extraordinaire with plenty of stories, some true, many exaggerated, and a few concocted but all with a touch of humour’. And it was wonderful to see the anecdotes in full flood at his party, as he moved from group to group, full of energy at 100, entertaining us all.

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ALSO NOTE

• https://thuppahis.com/2022/11/02/sigiriya-rock-fortress-some-references-unusual-photographs/