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by Carlo Fonseka, Professor Emeritus in the Universities of Colombo and Kelaniya

Extracts from the Deshamanya Nandadasa Kodagoda memorial oration

Nandadasa Kodagoda, in whose memory we are assembled here, was born on October 31, 1929 and died on August 2, 1997. He was a natural star who was widely admired and greatly honoured during his life and deeply mourned when he passed away.

The fortitude with which he encountered death when it menaced him was awe-inspiring. In life he was a kindly healer, a subtle decision-maker, a superb communicator, a consummate manager and a born leader. Embarking upon even a brief recapitulation of his incredibly fruitful multifaceted life and work would leave little time for the elaboration of the set theme of this oration, I have the honour and privilege to deliver.

Suffice it to say, therefore, that at a personal level, in 1958 he was my tutor in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Ceylon. Since 1962, he was my senior colleague in the same University Faculty. In time, his family and mine came to enjoy a cherished friendship. He and I didn't see eye to eye on a few matters. On these we agreed to disagree, but never did we become disagreeable to each other. The void he left by his untimely death remains unfilled, and is in actual fact, unfillable. We shall not look upon his like again. Professor Nandadasa Kodagoda was the role model countless parents in our country unreservedly recommended to their children aspiring to become doctors. That was my main reason for zeroing in on the theme of this oration.

Nandadasa Kodagoda qualified as a doctor from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ceylon, in 1956. It was the year in which linguistic nationalism triumphed in Sri Lanka. It was the year in which Martin Wickremesinghe's novel Viragaya; Ediriweera Sarachchandra's drama Maname and Laster James Peiris' film Rekawa saw the light of day. Significantly, it was also the year in which the 2500th anniversary of the parinibbana of the Buddha was commemorated worldwide. It was a turning point in Sri Lanka's history in the rejection of much of the cultural baggage that had been imposed upon us by our British conquerors. But truth to tell, in the field of medicine, Sri Lanka has remained - to use a phrase coined by a minister of the government that ruled this country from the time of Independence in 1948 to 1956 - "a little bit of England".

Nandadasa Kodagoda for whom his Sinhala Buddhist cultural heritage was the basis of the proper pride which enabled him to hold his head high, owed his place in the sun to his competence in western medicine. He was indeed a proud Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Even ardent nationalists who honestly believe in the intrinsic superiority of Ayurveda to western medicine, have been known, on occasion, to turn to Fellows of the Royal Colleges of the United Kingdom, for medical advice. Therefore, the Ideal Doctor for Sri Lanka will necessarily have to be, above all, intellectually equipped with a deep knowledge and understanding of western medicine.

For many decades, however, perceptive members of the medical profession in the West, have been lamenting that western medicine and the medical profession in the West, are passing through a critical stage in their history. For example, in the middle decades of the 20th century, Kenneth Walker, a philosophical English Surgeon, wrote an article titled "The Ideal Doctor". In it he says that to understand the reason for the crisis in the medical profession one has to consider the origin and history of the western doctor. According to him, the western doctor took descent from the physicians of ancient Egypt, who were priests.

With the passage of time the priestly half of the doctor gradually atrophied, and entirely disappeared in the highly materialistic period of medicine in the 19th century.

In Kenneth Walker's judgement, it is to the decline of the religious dimension of the doctor that the crisis in the medical profession must be attributed. He quotes with approval what Amiel opined in 1873: "To me the ideal doctor would be a man with profound knowledge of life and of the soul, intuitively divining any suffering or disorder of whatever kind and restoring peace by his mere presence. Such a doctor is possible, but the greater number of them lack the higher and inner life; they know nothing of the transcendental laboratories of nature; they seem to me superficial, profane, strangers to divine things, destitute of intuition and sympathy. The model doctor should be at once a genius, a saint, a man of God".

There is little doubt that the decline in full-blooded faith in traditional religion in the West during the past four centuries coincided with the rise of Science. In the protracted conflict between Science and Religion in the West since the 17th century, Science has invariably triumphed. In the ultimate analysis, the crisis in the medical profession is, I believe, rooted in the sharp conflict between western science and western religion. The knowledge on which the practice of western medicine is based belongs to verifiable, empirical natural science. The ethics guiding the practice of medicine has been based on faith in supernatural creeds, enjoined on the basis of everlasting happiness in heaven or eternal punishment in hell after death. Intelligent, scientifically educated people of the world, are not inclined to believe in heavenly bliss or eternal hellfire. The result has been that they have become disillusioned in traditional religion as a meaningful guide to living. From such a state of mind the insensible conversion to the secular religion of consumerism and hedonism is almost inevitable. Doctors could not or anyhow did not resist this conversion.

One consequence of the triumph of Science over Religion in the West, has been the debasement of "values", that is to say, what is considered to be intrinsically good or bad independently of its effects. Why did that happen? Because questions concerning "values" became excluded from the realm of western science.

If one's ethics derives from faith in God and one's faith in God is lost, then anything goes in the domain of personal and professional conduct. For, if there is no Almight God to lay down the moral law and no immortal soul to be rewarded for conforming to it or punished for violating it, then morals and values simply become creations of humankind to serve their secular temporal needs. Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900) was perhaps the first notable western philosopher to face up to western man's loss of religious faith. He launched a devastating attack on the whole edifice of western morality, including Christian morality.

Given the pervasive doctrine of the essential subjectivity of values, it seems futile to turn to the West for an intellectually binding code of professional ethics, which is not merely prudential. Therefore, the ideal Sri Lankan doctor must perforce look to see whether a binding code of professional ethics could be derived from our own culture. It is the thesis of this oration that our traditional culture can provide a prescriptive code of professional ethics which will bear critical philosophical scrutiny.

The dominant culture of Sri Lanka is essentially a Buddhist culture. In his monumental work titled Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge (1963) K.N. Jayatilleke has subjected the epistemological foundations of Buddhism to a very exhaustive examination. He quotes S. Radhakrishnan to the effect that, "early Buddhism was positivistic in its outlook and confined its attention to what we perceive". Modern Sri Lankan Buddhist philosophical analysis represented by the work of scholars such as K.N. Jayatilleke, D.J. Kalupahana and Asanga Tilakaratna has sought to demonstrate that the Buddhist approach to reality can be almost wholly assimilated into the modern empiricist scientific tradition.

Indeed Bhikku Bodhi, perhaps the world's leading contemporary authority on Theravada Buddhism, fears that the net result of the enterprise of these Sri Lankan scholars might be the assimilation of Buddhism into Anglo-American empiricism and positivism and the reduction of Buddhism to "little more than a system of ethical culture and mental training based on an especially insightful psychology".

To turn to Bhikkhu Bodhi at this juncture is to quote impeccable authority. In an article titled, Two Paths to Knowledge, he says that: "In contrast to the classical Western antithesis of religion and science, Buddhism shares with science a common commitment to uncover the truth about the world. Both Buddhism and science draw a sharp distinction between the way things appear and the way they really are and both offer to open our minds to insights into the real nature of things, normally hidden from us by false ideas based on sense perception and "common sense".

Despite this affinity, Bhikkhu Bodhi hastens to emphasize that whereas science is concerned with objective factual knowledge, Buddhism is a spiritual path intended to promote inner transformation. The problem confronting us, therefore, is the problem of bridging the gap between objective knowledge and spiritual wisdom enjoining ethical conduct. Bhikkhu Bodhi avers that "Buddhism includes within its domain the entire spectrum of qualities described by personal experience. This means that Buddhism gives prime consideration to values. But even more, values for Buddhism are not merely projections of subjective judgements which we fashion according to our personal whims, social needs or cultural conditioning; to the contrary, they are written into the texture of reality just as firmly as the laws of motion and thermodynamics". (emphasis added)

If Bhikkhu Bodhi's analysis is correct, the Buddhist approach to reality represents an intellectually compelling way to bring about a reconciliation between science and ethics. For the cognitive thrust and the ethical thrust of Buddhism employ the same epistemological approach which, moreover, is identical with the modern scientific intellectual approach.

In this approach, science and ethics acquire the same intellectual status. Therefore, ignoring the rules of ethnics becomes as hazardous and ominous as ignoring the laws of science.

This has always been the position of Buddhism. The Buddha is not only a "Lokavidu" (a knower of the world) like a scientist; but also a "Vijjacaranasampanno" (one complete in both knowledge and conduct).

The Buddhist approach to the human condition is often formulated in the form of a medical diagnosis. The Buddha, the Great Physician, recognized that humankind is afflicted by a mortal illness. He ascertained its cause - greed, hatred and delusion. On the basis of his diagnosis he prescribed the remedy. He described in detail how the remedy is to be administered.

In this oration, I sought to demonstrate that western ethics and western science are derived from different epistemological approaches.

Therefore, western ethics does not command the same degree of intellectual assent as does western science.

In contrast, the Buddhist cognitive thrust and the Buddhist ethical thrust derive from the same epistemological approach, which is indistinguishable from the approach of modern empirical science. Accordingly, I conclude that the Ideal Doctor for Sri Lanka should be a embodiment of western medical science and Buddhist values represented by contentment over acquisitiveness; co-operation over competition; compassion over perfunctory sympathy; and altruistic service over selfish indulgence.

I have not the slightest doubt that this concept would have received the unconditional endorsement of Professor Nandadasa Kodagoda.

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