Sri Lanka - from the Euro - Asian commercial hub to pan-world socio-political importance:

An inspiring leader

Text of the Commemorative Oration by former Ambassador of Sri Lanka to France and USA Professor Ananda W. P. Guruge delivered on November 24 in Colombo

Continued from yesterday

Foreign relations initiated by the Sangha consisted of extensive missionary services in Southeast Asia. A ninth century inscription at Dvaravati in Thailand contains the opening verses of the Telakatahakatha, which dealt with the story of Kelani Tissa and his daughter Viharamahadevi, Sinhala monasteries of Thaton in Myanmar and Nakhon Si Thammarat of Thailand served to spread the Sri Lankan form of Buddhism, which George Coedes calls the Sinhala Reform, to Myahmar, Thailand and from there to Cambodia and Laos.

A Burmese monk named Chapata came with a team of monks including a prince of Cambodia to Sri Lanka to be re-ordained in the island. The Sangha in Southeast Asia was identified as Lankavamsa.

Sinhala monks had been the spiritual advisers to Kings Ramakamheng and Lithai of Sukhothai in the 12th century as recorded in their inscriptions, King Dhammazedi of Myanmar sent in 1476, a team of monks to be ordained at the Kalyani Sima and they took from here manuscripts of Pali works, which have been recopied and preserved in Southeast Asia. Pali language became the lingua franca of the region and Sri Lanka was regarded as its religious metropolis.

Commercial interests

In Thai and Cambodian script was found an extended version of the Mahavamsa, which had twice as many verses and greater details than the original. Reflecting the outreach of the Sinhala Sangha, an inscription at Ratuboka, the capital of the Shailendra Empire of Indonesia, bears witness to the existence a branch of the Abhayagiri monastery there. Also interesting to note is that royal matrimonial alliances existed between Sri Lanka and this empire and one of them caused the invasion of Myanmar by Parakramabahu the Great (1153-1186).

Thus along the trade routes to the East Buddhism travelled from Sri Lanka to the whole region. The Sangha used commercial vessels for their extensive travels. Fa-Xien travelled form Tamralipti in India to Sri Lanka in a large merchant ship and returned to China via Java in another which had space of two hundred persons. Amoghvajra saw a flotilla a 35 Persian ships in the Sri Lankan port. Sri Lanka had its own fleet as seen from the ships of Parakramabahu I, who waged war in South India and Myanmar.

No records exist to show if Sri Lankan Buddhism had any impact in the West. The only piece of evidence, perhaps, is the remarkably accurate interpretation of Buddhism by Saint Clement of Alexandria in the third century.

History changed with the initiative of Henry the Navigator of Portugal in the 15th century. Due to hostilities with Arabs generated by the Crusades, the European nations entered into open competition with them and sought sea routes to South Asia. Their policy of linking trade with colonization and empire-building put an end to the more cooperative trade relations which had existed up to that time. Though the Portuguese came by accident due to a storm, they were induced by commercial interests to occupy a part of the maritime region. Any international relations of the Sinhala kings were military in character and purpose. Getting naval support to oust the Portuguese was the objective. Relations with the Zamorin in Calicut were followed by those with the Dutch. After the Dutch occupied the maritime region, similar negotiations were conducted with the French and the Danes.

The loss of independence in 1815 left no Sri Lankan authority to engage in foreign relations. But Sri Lanka was not a country that could have been kept aloof from the world. Even in this bleak period Sri Lankans sought for opportunities to make a mark on the world. With two failed of culture or more precisely Buddhism that this opportunity was found.

International community

Within half a century of British occupation, the Sangha were engaged in introducing Buddhism and Sri Lankan culture to British administrators. The monks inspired pioneering British scholars like Robert Childers, T. W. Rhys Davids to study Pali and popularize it as a discipline in higher education in the West. The correspondence of Venerables Hikkaduwe Sri Sumanagala and Dodanduwe Piyaratana Tissa with Colonel Henry Steele Olcott in the 1870s displays their outreach to the world and how they won allies in the Theosophical Movement. Anagarika Dharmapala and Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka, both proteges of Colonel Olcott, brought the laity into the picture. The Sri Lankan support and advice to Rhys Davids resulted in the creation of the Pali Text Society of London in 1881, which made the Buddhist Canon in Pali and English translation, besides other Pali works, available to a widening international community of oriental scholars.

Anagarika Dharmapala established the Maha Bodhi Society in 1981 to agitate for the restitution of Buddhist shrines of India to the Buddhists. It turned out to be the first ever international Buddhist forum enlisting the cooperation of an impressive body of dignitaries from the East as well as the West. Its journal so impressed the organizers of the first Parliament of world's religions in Chicago that Anagarika Dharmapala was invited to serve in the organizing committee.

British Empire

In 1893 he attended the Parliament, delivered the historic speech on the World's Debt to the Buddha to a representative audience of 6,000 and became an acknowledged Buddhist leader of the world. He initiated the reintroduction of Buddhism to India and set up the London Buddhist Vihara. Thanks to him and late to Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka, Sri Lanka became the leading focal point for the spread of Buddhism in the modern world. Institutions, which were developed in Sri Lanka like the Vidyodaya and Vidyalankara Pirivenas, were the models for higher learning institutions in the Buddhist countries of Asia. Mater Tai-Xu, the pre-eminent reformer of Buddhism in China in the early 19th century, acknowledged that Sri Lanka was his exemplar.

In the meantime, Sri Lankans took every advantage of being exposed to Western literature, science and technology.

Placing the highest priority to education of the younger generation, facilities were utilized to gain professional and technological leadership in diverse fields. Students going to foreign seats of learning led student organizations and displayed their capacity to function internationally.

Diplomatic relations

Sri Lankans ventured to seek new pastures in the extensive British Empire. With their superior intellectual gifts and admirable work ethics, they were welcome all over. Progressively their representation in medical, educational, engineering, accounting and technical sectors of not only developing countries but also in Britain and other advanced British dominions was numerically far in excess and higher in visibility when compared with its size. Sri Lankans went out to the world not as seekers of help but as welcome contributors to development.

A few landmarks in our foreign relations since our entry to the socio-political community as an independent nation deserve to be highlighted. I have been told that the suggestions of two Sri Lankans, namely Professors Gunapala Malalasekera and K N Jayatilleke, led to the formulation of the motto of UNESCO, whose Buddhist and Sri Lankan inspiration is obvious: "As wars begin in the minds of men it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed."

In 1951 it was the Sri Lankan representative to the Peace Treaty Conference of San Francisco who quoted Na hi verena verani. From the Dhammapada and freed Japan from war damages to grow into an economic giant. Not only was Sri Lanka praised in the New York Times saying "The voice of free Asia eloquent, melancholy and strong with the tilt of an Oxford accent dominated the Conference" but we also gained the eternal gratitude of the Land of the Rising Sun. During the Korean War of the 1950, Sri Lanka asserted its freedom by continuing to supply rubber to China against the pressure of the United Nations exerted through Britain and thereby gained entry to the world body. In 1956, Sri Lanka terminated the provision of a naval and air base to Britain and expanded its diplomatic relations with China and USSR, It became an active member of the Non-aligned Movement whose summit in 1977 in Colombo is remembered as a landmark.

Significant contribution

Representatives of Sri Lanka play decisive roles within the United Nations and its specialized organizations and have made significant contributions in every field. Important positions like the President of the General Assembly and chairmen and key office-bearers in commissions and committees have been held by them winning much prestige and recognition for the country. So have several hundreds of high level professionals of all fields served and continued to serve not only in the head offices of the United Nations system but also as experts adivising and conducting operations all over the world. Sri Lanka initiated in the United Nations the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless and also the steps to have Vesak recognized as a UN holiday. Through UNESCO-WFP-Sri Lanka Cultural Triangle Project, the international community was involved in safeguarding the cultural heritage of the country.

UNICEF had held Sri Lanka as a model for human development with minimum resources but with deep commitment. With the recent success in dealing with the terrorist menace, the experience of Sri Lanka is sought by similarly affected nations.

It has been said of Sri Lanka it is too small to have enemies but big enough to have friends.

We have gone to the world with our readiness to contribute to the welfare of humanity. Our pan-world socio-political influence is in a measure far in excess of our size and limited resources.

On this day that we most affectionately recall the admirable example of devoted service set to us by D A Rajapaksa, let us rededicate ourselves to more and greater international service through all available human and material resources. We sure can continue to make a mark on the world.

May I conclude with my own grateful thoughts for his lifetime of service by wishing that his journey in Samsara be short and be attains the ultimate bliss of Nibbana.

Concluded