Priyan Dias, Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, presents a detailed assessment of THOMIA from an Old Boy’s point of view….. presentedin FACEBOOK, 9 January 2026 by Sandagomi Coperahewa
“By the time Reginald De Saram became warden, the school needed a “defender” against populist sentiment. With nationalist feeling running high, there were many who felt that British-public-school-style education, as offered at institutions like S. Thomas’, had at least outlived its time – if it was not actually inhibiting the establishment of a more ‘grassroots’ educational system for the country. Much of Volume II (covering the years 1948-2001) is devoted to this fascinating tension, which was heightened by feelings engendered by Ceylon’s independence from British rule. De Saram is portrayed as fulfilling his ‘defender’ role admirably, in some cases even ‘going on the offensive’ (to remain with the metaphor) and stealing a march on other nationalists. In particular, he responded to the official decree that ‘vernacular’ education be made compulsory at all schools by recruiting an enviable staff of Sinhala teachers from the activist “Hela havula” movement (which sought to ‘purify’ the Sinhala language), which thus found a home at the college. The son of one of the Hela teachers is today Professor of Sinhala at the University of Colombo, having studied at S. Thomas’ himself before gaining his doctorate from Cambridge University.
The story of the Hela Havula reminds us that while S. Thomas’ is often identified with an ethos of Westernised education, it has also produced several nationalists of more or less radical hue – among them SWRD Bandaranaike, Anagarika Dharmapala, Ediriweera Sarachchandra and Devar Surya Sena (who provided the musical setting for the Sinhala Anglican liturgy), to name a few. Arisen Ahubudu, one of the Hela havula teachers, is today a household name among Sri Lankan Buddhists. And in passing, the book describes how Thomians were victorious at the All-Island Inter-School Sinhala Debating Championships of 1978 – almost 50 years ago now, to be sure, but then only 30 years after Independence and on the 50th anniversary of the Sinhala Literary and Debating Society.
Today, at the 175th anniversary of the College, various competitions are being held on English essay-writing and oratory, open to students all over the country. That is a certainly a good way to celebrate Thomian contributions to Lankan English-language competence over the years – but maybe the school should follow this with corresponding competitions in Sinhala as well, highlighting her contributions to that language, too.”
My sincere thanks to Priyan for writing this and to you, Michael, for posting it. I thought perhaps some of your readers might be interested to read an small excerpt from the section in *Thomia* which tells the story of the Hela Havula at STC.
‘We cannot know who actually had the idea. Pinto-Jayawardena [Warden de Saram’s personal Sinhala tutor] may well have proposed it himself once he came to understand the school’s plight. What we can be certain of is that, having accepted the staff post de Saram offered him, he became the warden’s recruiting agent, travelling round the country to persuade his fellow “Helists” to take up jobs at Mount Lavinia.
His first success was Sandadas Coperahewa, an old friend from Pinto-Jayawardena’s hometown of Matara who taught art and Buddhism as well as Sinhala and had adopted his Hela-derived first name in place of the more Indian-sounding one of Chandradasa. Another early recruit was Ariyasena Ashubodha, an experienced teacher whose pre-havula years had been spent working at prominent Buddhist schools and who had taken for himself the ‘semi-Hela’ name of Arisen Ahubudu.
Both men were deeply committed to the movement: Coperahewa had been its deputy leader and a regular contributor to Cumaratunga’s Sinhala newspaper, *Subasa*; Ahubudu published his own Hela magazine for children, *Ediya*, in which, among other subjects, he propounded Cumaratunga’s fantastic notions about the history of Lanka and the origins of the Sinhalese. Joining the staff in 1951, the two became, like D.S. Jayasekera, Thomian institutions, serving 29 and 32 years respectively.
They were joined by several other members of the havula including Liyanage Jinadasa, Vini Vitarana and Vajirasena Samarakoon. Not all these men confined themselves to teaching Sinhala; Coperahewa, for instance, was better known as an art master whose contemporary reputation was enhanced by the critical essays he published in the Sinhala press and his translation of *A Miniature History of European Art* by R.H. Wilenski, a book which became highly influential among members of the Sinhalese artistic community.
At first, the Hela masters formed a separate group at St Thomas’s. Most of them lived together in a large boarding-house on Fairline Road in Dehiwela, which became something of a headquarters for the movement in the southern suburbs of Colombo. They had little in common with the rest of the College staff, few of whom could speak Sinhala or had any sympathy with their views, and their treatment at the hands of the boys was not always respectful. In common with the majority of other English-educated Ceylonese of the time, Thomians’ views concerning the apostles of Sinhalese nationalism were largely negative, ranging from amused condescension to contemptuous hostility. Recent political developments and the difficulties faced by Christian schools in the Kannangara era had not sweetened relations and the men of the Hela movement faced an uphill task in winning acceptance and exercising authority at St Thomas’s. They had the warden’s support, however, and that of a number of Buddhist old boys who shared something of their outlook, and in the fullness of time they prevailed. Ahubudu and Jinadasa, in particular, proved to be fine teachers whose ability and patience won the boys’ affection as well as their cooperation. Yet many Thomians remained unsympathetic; a sub-warden of the 1980s who had known the Hela masters as a schoolboy mentions them in his reminiscences as ‘fantastic entertainers’. The testimony of public examination results, the quality of Sinhala writing in the Magazine and the later inter-school successes of the Sinhala debating team all combine to prove him wrong.’ – From *Thomia* by Richard Simon, ©2024 (Colombo, Lazari Press); all rights reserved.