Rediscovering history
Aravinda HETTIARACHCHI
The traditional way of writing history in Sri Lanka has always
literally appeared to be like chronicles such as Maha Wansha, Thupa
Wansha and Dhatu Wansha. This type of literature has gradually started
watering down with the colonial period of 500 years. Thus even after the
colonial period, we used to refer these writings of Wansha as a distant
monumental literature of the past.
Yet very recent years of this 21st century, a new attempt of
re-writing this previous literature of history came into the scene with
the State literary festivals. The State administration has decided to
choose a particular historically significant city or an area to
celebrate this festival rather than lagging this festival behind in the
colonial tinted Colombo 'city for all the time'. Thus in every year, the
State has introduced a certain type of Wansa literature with the
facilitation of knowledge of the historiography and other subject
matters affluent with historical sciences which came to Sri Lanka during
the colonial period itself. This particular Wansha Katha of today has
been written concerning the late history of the city or area where the
State literary festival takes place. For instance, a book named Mathara
Wanshaya has been composed during the time where the literary festival
took place at Matara the historical city.
Pulathisi Wansaya is such a historically important book composed by
Nihal P. Wijethunge with a collection of articles written by a variety
of intellectuals, which came into the literary platform of history with
the recent Literary Festival 2009 under the keen guidance of Mahinda
Chintana held at Polonnaruwa (called as Pulathisi Purain the
pre-colonial period) a historical noteworthy city of this island.
This book is all about the history of Polonnaruwa, an area which is
producing a considerable amount of rice to this country until today. On
the other hand, Polonnaruwa was an ancient city with lots of traditional
literature in various kind. Yet the agricultural minister who is also an
ancestor of this area has pointed out that the knowledge of history of
Polonnaruwa area is very much neglected around the minds of the
school-going children today in this area. The cultural minister declares
that you have to dedicate very much on lot of things to create any
culturally valuable book or event.
The professor of archaeology at the Kelaniya University Anura
Manathunge has revealed a controversial idea that Polonnaruwa could be
an ancient commercial city of this country for the reason that it won't
signifies any religious over-determination of ethos in past ages, while
Anuradhapura was a much religious area with lots of significance in
religious worship. The professor of sociology and the senior lecturer
Praneeth Abayasundera has also indicated that 'Orientalism' may be a new
concept and phenomenon to the Euro-US world, yet the Asian region was so
rich with valuable traditions before the European history. |
