Pedris Silva of Athuruwella

It is 136 years today since the birth of Pedris Silva, on August 31, 1875, in the village of Anguruwella near Induruwa. When he was only 16 years of age, he had written a poem which he recited at a meeting held by Anagarika Dharmapala. After listening to Anagarika Dharmapala, Pedris Silva decided to become Piyadasa Sirisena.

Piyadasa Sirisena had begun contributing his poems to the newspaper, ‘Sithumina’ from 1895, and through the contacts developed with the editor of Sithumina he found employment in a furniture shop in Colombo, which helped him to move to the city, paving the way for him to work as an assistant-editor of the Sithumina journal, and later to become a deputy editor of Sarasavi Sandaresa.

The first chapter of his first novel, ‘Vasanavantha Vivahaya Jayatissa ha Roslin’ appeared in ‘Sarasavi Sandaresa’ on 27th December 1904. ‘Meena’, which is often considered as the first Sinhala novel was published in 1905. Till his death on May 22, 1945, he had published 20 novels, 11 poetry books, 4 books on general topics. He had also worked at 11 newspapers and journals.

‘Jayatissa ha Roslin’ was published as a book in 1906, and by 1916, 25,000 copies had been printed. In the introduction to the 5th edition Sirisena had written it was only for the past 400 years that the novel had been used in the West as a means of developing the good nature of the public, while in the East it had been present for several thousand years.

He did not write for the sake of writing, probably he did not believe in “Art for Art’s sake”, but that Art was for the benefit of mankind. Sirisena fought for social justice, for freedom from foreign occupation, and he was against the caste system. He mentions that there are only two castes, the “Brahmin” and the “Chandala”, based on the Vasetta Sutta (Majhima Nikaya).

Unfortunately he did not realize the need for the freedom of our womenfolk. Even though he did not go to the extremes as we find in ancient Indian literature and in our own chronicles, he still believed and promoted the view that the woman’s place was at home. He quoted often, in many of his books, that “a young girl should be under the protection of her father, the wife under her husband, and the elderly matron under the protection of her sons”. Sirisena in his novel ‘Parivartanaya’ (Transformation), says “A woman is a gem. It is man’s responsibility to protect the gem”.

Most of us know Piyadasa Sirisena as a novelist, but he started his literary career as a poet, his first book was poetry, ‘Owadan Mutuwela’ and he had continued to write poetry, which we find in all his novels, where he has used them in appropriate manner, to embellish the narration and also to emphasize his message.

After the 1915 riots, Sirisena had to spend 68 days in prison along with F. R Senanayake, D. S. Senanayake, D. B. Jayatilleke and others. He had used his time to write ‘Maha Kapi Jatakaya’ and ‘Ashtaloka Dharma Chakraya’ which is claimed to have been written on the margins of the Bible found in his cell.

Sarathchandra Wickramasuriya says that Martin Wickramasinghe, in his first novel ‘Leela’, had imitated the “most popular novelist of all time and perhaps the most prolific Sinhala novelist, Piyadasa Sirisena”. Wickramasinghe himself had admitted that he imitated the Piyadsasa Sirisena novels.

Though Sirisena was against the corruption and decadence of the Sinhala people who were aping the West, he had studied these people, their behaviour and their thinking, to have been able to write about them. Not only did Sirisena understand the mind of the westernized Sinhalaese in the city, but he could also get into the mind of the criminal, because it is the only way he could write a series of successful crime novels with Kongoda Wickramapala as his detective. Sirisena begins his first detective story, with the death-bed warning to Wickramapala by his father, that according his horoscope he would end up a thief, but he should aim to be a thief-catcher.

Sirisena’s novels could be considered ‘cathartic’, in the way that Aristotle meant it as the effect of viewing a good drama, that it leaves the viewer cleaned refreshed and purified.

One reason that his books became so popular (25,000 copies of ‘Apata Vechcha De’ in five years), could be because the sinhala readership enjoyed reading about the sad plight of their own people who suffered by trying to imitate the West. The German word, ‘Schadenfreude’ means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. Sirisena’s novels could also have been influenced by his belief in ‘Ditta dhamma vedaneeya kamma’, (one pays for one’s actions in this life itself), and also the opposite reaction to Schadenfreude, ‘Mudita’, finding joy in the happiness and success of others.

The complete works of Piyadasa Sirisena have been compiled in five volumes by Jayalatha Medawatte, from which I was able to gather some of his biographic data. In ‘Dingiri Menika’ we find an ‘embedded advertisement’ (as in Bulgari Connection), probably unintentional, when Sirisena recommends the ‘Natonal Drapery Stores’ to all patriotic Sinhalese.

Like in the case of most great people on earth, Piyadasa Sirisena also had the right opportunities at the right place at the right time, which could be attributed to good fortune or his past Karma, but which in no way would demean his intelligence, his talents and his fertile imagination. If not for these opportunities would this great talent have faded away like a flower blooming in the wilderness? He would have remained as Pedris Silva for the rest of his life.

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