Tourism Authority Creates History

By Dr. Susantha Goonatilake

India has a sophisticated philosophical systems in its "Hindu" positions divided into six categories and three others namely Buddhism, Jainism, and the Charvaks which are considered against Hinduism’ six systems. These six are in addition to the 62 philosophical views at the time of the Buddha rejected by him.

These Hindu philosophical systems do not fall into the mythological categories like Rahu swallowing the moon during an eclipse which are a contrast to the well-known understanding of eclipses in South Asia. I myself in my own technical writings have praised these Hindu philosophical systems as having possibilities for modern science and philosophy (of among others in Toward a Global Science: Mining Civilizational Knowledge (Indiana University Press 1999); Aborted Discovery: Science and Creativity in the Third World (Zed Press London 1984); Crippled Minds : an Exploration into Colonial Culture (Vikas Delhi 1982).

But popular narratives such as Rahu swallowing the moon, or popular epics like the Ramayana or Mahabharatha are not considered serious factual statements by the Indian intelligentsia. Thus it was in New Delhi at an international conference dinner that an Indian academic alerted me to Sri Lankan tourism promoting the Ramayana story as fact. The Indian intelligentsia considers the Ramayana a tool of Hindu fundamentalist fanaticism with no factual basis. Back home, I explored this Tourist Authority’s "Ramayana trail" and was shocked at the crass inventions of false sites reminiscent of the invented traditional homelands of the Tamils.

The Royal Asiatic Society RASSL quickly assembled a multi-disciplinary group of accredited scholars for an internal workshop who were consequently alarmed at the inventions being propagated. A whole false literature in Sinhalese had been produced together with films. To get the other side of the story, the RASSL repeatedly requested the tourist authorities for their "experts" to address us. Not getting any reply, the RASSL wrote to each of the leading executives of the tourism authority to send their experts to the public Symposium we organised. None came.

At the public Symposium, a retired civil servant alerted me to one of the three so-called “experts” Suriya Gunasekara sliding away from the RASSL building leaving behind his son who had put on the Internet his father's fantastic "findings". I was alerted that many of the unqualified authors of the fictional literature had come in force and were dispersed around the audience. Indeed present was an organised group of Ramayana apologists, unknowing subscribers to Hindu fundamentalism as differentiated from Hindu philosophy and who our speakers alerted me were those who had invented the fiction.. I decided at discussion time to get every person to introduce himself giving his name and academic background. One said he had a doctorate from Germany and when I addressed him in German, he looked clueless; then he said his PhD was from Japan and when I greeted him with “Konnichiwa”, he sounded nonplussed and now he said his doctorate was from Russia. I gave up.

The substance of presentations of our accredited experts on prehistory, archaeology, Buddhist studies, Sinhalese literature, and South-East Asia was that the total Ramayana trail was invented, had deliberately misinterpreted archaeology, went against Buddhist views that denounced the Ramayana and as Ambassador Bandu Silva pointed out, had foreign policy implications harmful to the country. Ven Hegoda Vipassi, a relatively non-expert compared to others, described the harrowing tale of how, when he refuted the Ramayana Trail underwent repeated harassment and persecution.

Buddhaghosa’s "animal talk"

As Professors Oliver Abeynaike and Tissa Karriyawasam pointed out, the foremost commentator of the Pali Tripitaka, Buddhaghosa labeled the Ramayana as a myth and as among the 32 unbelievable stories dismissed as thiracchinakatha "animal talk". A thousand years later, Vidagama Maitreya Thera threw scorn at the alleged miracles of Rama and Hanuman. Unlike the 62 philosophical views rejected by the Buddha and the other sophisticated thought systems in Hinduism, the Ramayana is no philosophy text, only a tall tale.

In Ramayana’s name, fundamentalist Hindu mobs destroyed in the early 1990s the Babri mosque claiming it to be the birthplace of Rama. Later, they tried to prevent India’s Sethu Samudra project, claiming that there was a bridge between India and Sri Lanka. But the Hindu fundamentalist BJP's attempt to stop the Sethu Samudra was opposed by Tamil Nadu’s DMK who was the godfather to the LTTE. The ideology of the DMK had rejected the presumed Aryan supremacy in the Ramayana. To this anti-Hindu fundamentalist objective, the Dravidian theorist Periyar had invented Ravana as a hero against the Hindu fundamentalists’ Rama. Periyar’s was an informed act, a contrast to the adoption of Ravana by sections of the Sinhalese present at the symposium. These few Sinhalese Ravana supporters had contradictorily adopted as their own, both the Ramayana of Hindu fundamentalists as well as its opposite, the DMK’s hero Ravana.

Interestingly, ones of the BJP supporters at the Sethu Samudra protest was Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Chauhan who was recently feted by our Maha Bodhi Society. BJP' s attitudes on Sri Lanka sovereignty are amply indicated by the following headlines from Indian newspapers: “BJP for sanctions against Sri Lanka”; “Lift ban on the LTTE: BJP”; “LTTE prays for BJP victory in India”; “India should stop war, instruct Colombo to talk to Tigers - BJP “ and “[the BJP allied] Hindu Conference condemns Sri Lankan forces “.

The Indian rejection of the historicity of the Ramayana is acknowledged by the Tourism Authority's leading "expert" Kiriella (the third expert is a Pettah shopkeeper Chawla the Chairman of a Hindu fundamentalist organisation and who declares that he is “Proud to be an Indian" and that he “supports the Indian Flag”). Kiriella in his self published book says flatly:

"The government of India appointed a committee of 14 historians to identify the realism (sic) of Ramayana. However they could not find any historical evidence in India other than legendary sites. But archaeological evidences are available in Sri Lanka to prove Ramayana."

The professional expert panel at the Symposium demolished all the "evidence" and sites invented by Kiriella's committee.

Tourism Authority's invented “Evidence”

Kiriella claimed that Ravana as King of “Heladiva” was the first to discover missiles and nuclear bombs which should be good news to our military. Kiriella produced "evidence" that Ravana ruled over "modern South America, Southern Europe" which if only true should shake the whole world. Kiriella "produced" cave inscriptions of Ravana which his Tourist Authority Committee had "deciphered" and photographed and found "evidence" of an alphabet from 17500 BCE, as well as Ravana remains in Anuradhapura (all of which was dismissed by epigraphist/archaeologist Dr Dias as fiction, the inscriptions literally painted by a taxi driver Pathiraarchchi). Kiriella says that "historians and archaeologists kept away from exploring the pre-history of Sri Lanka", a preposterous lie that Deputy Director-General of Archaeology Dr Perera’s presentation on prehistoric findings shot down.

Kiriella gives other "evidence" in the form of a Seetha Amman Kovil built actually by Tamil estate labourers who came to the country in the 19th century. Other similar sites, only a few decades old are in the Tourist Authority's list. Transferring Kiriella's truly "encyclopedic gaze" to the giant rock Lakegala, he declares it an abode of Ravana and he finds elsewhere plants transferred from the Himalayas (all of which were shot down by Dhanesh Visumaperuma using standard scientific literature). Kiriella now levitated himself to space and claimed that NASA photographs gave evidence of a bridge between Sri Lanka and India (all of which was rejected by both Indian and NASA authorities).

The son of Suriya Gunasekera, present at the symposium and acknowledging as son only when questioned has an Internet publication titled "Ravana, Fact or Myth? Independent Study". This is mainly his father's "research" and yields more amazing tall stories. The book does not refer to the father as "Dr" and thanks a group called "Ravana Brothers”. He produces truly amazing findings of ancient flying machines and claims that the Americans have "even tested a prototype of the Pushpaka, and succeeded", Pushpaka being the alleged flying machine of Ravana. Suriya Gunasekera even "discovers" “Wariyapola” as Ravana's airport with Ussangoda, a place for landing aircraft. Further truly earthshaking "evidence" is found in the Tourist Authority's websites.

Hindu fundamentalist commentators

Taking a cue from our tourist authorities, an Indian Hindu fundamentalist article asserted that unlike Indian academics, the Sri Lankan government had declared "Ramayana no more a myth " and had "recognized and authenticated Ravana’s existence" and considered "Ravana a part of Sri Lanka history". For good measure, they informed that Ravana' s coffin was available as was his "airplane" Pushpak Viman together with "five airports used by Ravana". It quotes other "findings" of our "experts" who had corrected India's own lesser experts who had "condemned and scorned" the Ramayana and considered it not history but a myth.

Fiction’s threat to sovereignty

India’s tourism authorities do not promote any alleged Ramayana sites, but sponsors a Buddhist Circuit to attract its Asian tourists as Prof Oliver Abeynaike pointed out. These Buddhist Circuit sites were actually discovered in collaboration with Sinhalese monks in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And in a great anti-Buddhist travesty, the Tourism Authority is marketing the Ramayana trail in Thailand instead of our Buddhist sites which Thais and South-East Asia know very well as Dr. Hema Goonatilake pointed out.

Later, when questioned by the Sunday Times, Tourism Authority’s Kalaliselvam had said that it was not their job to verify historical accuracy adding that "as long as people believe in the presence of historical sites", they will promote it. This is a total travesty and a camouflage; the sites were "discovered" under instructions by the Tourist Authority. This Ramayana trail had begun under the CFA supporter, then Tourism Minister Milinda Moragoda with the guidance of Tamil bureaucrats. One is reminded of the secret activities of a few Tamil bureaucrats in 1961 which created the group Pulip Padai ("Army of Tigers") and prepared the way for the LTTE. This exercise in promoting non-existent Hindu fundamentalist sites at the expense of Buddhist sites creates a future danger for the integrity of Sri Lanka as Ambassador Bandu Silva pointed out, a not-too-subtle attempt to plant another invented homelands, new claims on our sovereignty.

Equally significant was the Secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society MBS (I had known him as a promoted clerk in the Peoples Bank) gleefully boasting that the MBS itself was promoting these invented Hindu sites. Anagarika Dharmapala, the founder of MBS who fought against Hindu fundamentalist machinations to get Buddha Gaya for the Buddhists would have been horrified. Equally horrified was a supporter of the Indian Dalits at the Symposium who reminded us that Indian Buddhists were against the Ramayana fiction.

Our symposium had begun to blow the bubble of lies. Several responsible journalists correctly reported our experts. Only an anonymous columnist in true kelapathra style, in spite of all the expert evidence, wrote against it. My late classmate Upali Wijewardene who wished to bring factual and pro-Sri Lankan perspectives to our journalism would have been appalled.

This Symposium material is now on the RASSL website. The struggle for truth will continue.

- Asian Tribune -