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The birth of an English school for Buddhist girls With a fistful of rice

Buddhist Women and the Making of Mahamaya Girls' College
Author: Indrani Meegama
Published by: Mahamaya Girl's College, Kandy, Old Girls Association, Colombo branch

The Mahamaya Old Girls Association, Colombo branch and Indrani Meegama should be congratulated for their excellent effort in producing "With a Fistful of Rice" which describes in great detail the most difficult task undertaken by a few Buddhist women during a difficult time to set up an English school for the Buddhist girls in and around Kandy.

A persevering Buddhist monk, Ven. Attadassi Thera guided and encouraged the few leading Buddhist women to take up the challenge and work hard towards achieving the most difficult target of setting up an English school for the Buddhist girls in Kandy during that difficult time when Christian missions enjoyed all the favours and successes.

It was quite easy for them to set up a number of Christian schools for the education of girls and boys in and around Kandy. They were also successful in converting some of the Buddhists to Christianity. One particular leading school had it on record that they were successful in converting some leading Buddhist families to Christianity.

After the Kandyan Rebellion of 1818 the British administration took special care to deny facilities for education for the people of the Kandyan areas. When American missionaries offered to set up schools for providing education they were directed to set up the schools in Jaffna. Christian missions were given all facilities to set up schools wherever they wished to set up such schools. They had already set up their schools for boys and girls in Kandy.

The Buddhist people of the Kandyan area composing the Central Province, North Central Province, Uva Province, Sabaragamuwa Province and the North Western Province had no facilities for educating their children.

Meagre facilities

The leading Buddhist temples continued to maintain their meagre facilities for providing education by way of a traditional practice. But it was not customary for girls to attend classes for learning at these temples. Buddhist women therefore did not enjoy facilities for learning.

The leading women who were determined to establish an English school in Kandy for Buddhist girls encountered many difficulties and setbacks but they certainly were determined and would not accept defeat under any circumstances. These pioneering Buddhist women were all members of the Sadachara Bauddha Kulangana Samithiya which met every Sunday in the Assembly Hall of the Dhammayuttikaramaya at Katukele and was receiving advice from Ven. Attadassi Thera.

Kulangana Samithiya was an important organisation attached to every Buddhist temple throughout the country and composed leading Buddhist women of that particular village. They made much effort to improve the temple facilities.

The fistful of rice or the "halmita" was a simple but a most effective device of the rural women in every village where a Kulangana Samithiya functioned.

The Kulangana Samithiya got the cooperation and the active participation of the Buddhist housewives to collect the fistful of rice or the "halmita" at their respective homes. What they did was to take fistful of rice from the rice taken to cook the meal for the family.

In most rural homes rice was cooked three times a day and the fistful of rice was put into a separate pot. When this pot was full it was taken to the temple and there were sales organised from time to time and the people bought the pot of rice in order to be of assistance to the temple.

During the earlier period many of the temple buildings and constructions were done with the money obtained from the sale of the pots of rice brought from the homes in the village. It certainly was a simple but most effective and fruitful device which helped to collect funds for the development and improvement of Buddhist temples.

Funds

The Sadachara Bauddha Kulangana Samithiya in Kandy also resorted to this well-established simple device of the fistful of rice to build up funds to establish the Buddhist Girls' English School in Kandy.

Thanks to the determined efforts of the pioneering members of the Kulangana Samithiya Mahamaya College today is one of the leading Buddhist girls schools which is doing extremely well as a national school.

The author has done very well in naming this book "With a Fistful of Rice". The present generation of students may not be familiar with the operation of this simple but most effective device of the earlier generations to collect funds for the improvement of the village temples.

The author also makes due reference to the services rendered by Buddhist leaders like Anagarika Dharmapala, D.B. Jayatilake, P. de S. Kularatne, G.P. Malalasekara and C.W.W. Kannangara for the successful organization of Mahamaya Girls College and helping it to acquire the necessary status and standing.

These were the leaders who helped Buddhists to establish schools in other parts of the country as well. Their sincere and committed services helped the Sinhala Buddhists throughout the country to organize schools in some of the urban centres for the benefit of Buddhist children.

Revolution

This book draws attention of the reader to the efforts made by Dr. C.W.W. Kannangara to teach English in the vernacular schools and later on established Central Schools in the different parts of the country and it became possible for rural students to obtain Secondary Education in the English medium which was a facility available only at the elite urban schools.

He opened the gates for Secondary Education in the English medium to the rural students who attended Central Schools. He had established fifty Central Schools by 1946 and four more Central Schools were established in 1947 and these were spread throughout the country including Jaffna.

He brought about a revolution in the field of education by introducing Free Education in October, 1945.

In his own words "the patrimony of the rich" became the "inheritance of the poor".

The author also takes the reader through the major situations resulting from the impact of the political and economic policies of the British administration particularly during the 19th century after the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom.

The struggles that the Buddhist monks had to go through and the tremendous efforts of the Buddhist leaders to establish schools for the Buddhist children, the social and cultural challenges that fired the energy of the Buddhist people and the achievement of success after many struggles are all very suitable and necessary material that the present generation of students should become familiar with.

The reference to the valuable contribution made by Dr. C.W.W. Kannangara is most relevant today when the education system has been pushed by politicians in power at different times to give its present pattern of having elite International Schools teaching in the English medium while the other schools teach in the Sinhala medium as was done during the colonial period.

The students who are able to enter the elite International Schools are sure of finding suitable employment at the appropriate time while those students who received their education in the Sinhala medium fail to find suitable employment even after their university education.

- L.M. Samarasinghe

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Abnormal Psychology made simple

Normal/Abnormal: An introduction to Abnormal Psychology
by Jennifer Chambers
Publisher: Family Studies and Services Institute
Reviewed by: Dorothy Abeywickrama

'An Introduction to Abnormal Psychology' by Jennifer Chambers is a welcome addition to everybody's personal library. It is a timely publication at a time we are confronted by massive challenges from the consequences of a civil war, conflicts arising from rapidly changing social and family values and culture itself, combined with a rat race among youth who are often goaded by parents to pass examinations against the fabric of an increasing public demand for success.

The book has been written in an easily comprehensible and an engagingly straightforward style, on a subject which could otherwise have been intense and heavy reading and sometimes even unintelligible for the lay reader.

The mere mention of words such as "Psychology", 'Psychiatry' and even the word 'Psyche' appearing in the title of a book frightens away people from even picking it up and taking a peep at the contents, because they think it will be' heavy going' to read it.

Quite to the contrary, this is a book written in a lighter vein, unfolding valuable information, gradually and with ease. It covers two types of abnormalities viz those with normal behaviour developing abnormalities owing to the impact of the environment and which can be corrected if identified early and also abnormal behavioral disorders per se arising from birth, which can be treated and corrected or at least minimized, if timely referrals are made. It is an effort, and a successful effort, in knowledge sharing and tantamounts to a guide book for the non-professional readership.

The author of this book, jennifer Chambers, as stated in the back cover of the book, is a graduate from the University of Glasgow, who has lectured in Abnormal and Social Psychology at the University of Glasgow and later in Nairobi. It has also been stated, that in the early 1970s, she has lectured to post graduate students of the Colombo Campus of the University of Sri Lanka.

Coming back to the contents of this book, what is remarkable about it is, that while most writers would tend to present connected theories at least in capsule form when dealing with a subject like Abnormal Psychology, Chambers takes the reader through, as I choose to describe, an interesting journey, as it were.

The pertinens information is presented in an orderly way, interspersed where necessary with relevant concepts, but moving on swiftly from there. The journey Chambers takes us on, starts by taking the reader in a lightning sort of way through a bit of the history of the Mental Hygiene Movement (these are my words, as she avoids using labels such as this), prefacing it with remarks and examples from cultural practices in some countries to cure or correct abnormal behaviour.

Sri Lanka is also covered in her references to demoniacal practices such as Bali and Thovil, which exist even now in our villages. Then, she moves on to the Psychoanalytic Movement (again, not labelled so by her).

She touches on the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, when modern Psychotherapy is said to have begun. While her approach makes it light reading, she makes sure that the amount of information the reader should know, is adequately covered, to read on. Other significant names in the field and what they are known for, are touched on-for e.g. Charcot, Jung and Adler and the experiments done by Pavlov, who advocated the concept of conditioned reflexes, have all been covered swiftly in the very first chapter on 'Mental Disorders,.

In the next chapter titled 'The Making of the Person: Normal and Abnormal', she starts by describing how the baby begins life as a single cell and takes the reader through the beginning of the person and what could happen in the 'to be born' and the new born's developmental process in favourable and not so favourable environments.

Chambers then introduces, at this point, and in a lighter vein, the basic concepts in Freudian Theory, of the' id', the 'ego', and the 'superego' and diverse mental states such as frustration, conflict stress and so on which affect the development of the personality, taking the reader through its impact form infancy, through toddler stage and pre-schoolers, etc. viz. 'the beginning person' and right up to adulthood and old age.

As part of the journey Chambers takes us through, in Chapters 3,4 and 5, she unfolds gently, the different types of behaviour disorders and abnormalities.

She describes them in simple English, free of unnecessary technical words and in a manner the lay reader can comprehend well-be it a person whose leisure-time activity is reading, or parents interested in effective parenting or otherwise, school heads, teachers, counsellors, teacher counsellors., career guidance practitioners, care-givers, social workers, health workers, government policy makers, public and private sector employers, managers, executives etc., and if I may use the all embracing word-any adult.

I would underscore parents, especially, because in this era of both parents working and therefore pressed for time, they tend to dismiss slight abnormalities in children as mere 'squirks' and tend to turn a blind eye to a possible emerging problem, which if corrected in time will help immensely in the child's normalisation and developmental process.

This is a very comprehensive book in a general sense, in that, not only physical abnormalities and popularly known psychological abnormalities are covered, but the author also covers alcoholism, gambling and drug addiction under the caption, "The addictions' in Chapter 7, which also happens to be the longest chapter in the book. Another thing that strikes me, is Chambers', up-to-datedness.

She goes on to say, 'Gambling has only recently come into the framework of abnormal psychology'. What's more is that she touches on an important new approach to the problem, which is the use of 'Transaction Analysis' by the Psychologist, Eric Berne, the exponent of TA, as it is commonly called.

In the last lap of the journey she takes us through, she unfolds, one by one, the different treatment and behaviour modification processes in the last chapter titled' Psychological Treatment Methods'. Once again, she does this in a lucid style and is easily understood.

This, I think is the appropriate point to mention, that this book has not been written to make the readers Psychotherapists. Quite to the contrary, it is a useful guide book for everyone, to use it as a preventive handbook. It is by reading guide books such as this, that we can minimize abnormal behaviour and help children to normalize and, 'become a person'.

If more serious abnormalities exist, this last chapter will help the reader to make the appropriate referral, and to do so timely. I cannot help but repeat how engagingly the writer has made her presentation in this book, and to coin my own title and describe it as "Abnormal Psychology made simple'.

(Available at all leading bookstores)

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