Taste of detachment

The term ‘Niramisavalokanaya’ for a Buddhist reader may mean many religious factors. It generally means reflections on the phenomenon of detachment where the term ‘niramisa’ means not clinging on to bonds or being detached from desires basically. The Buddha taught that a person should possess a sense of being detached only when h/she develops how to get rid of lobha (craving) Dvesha (ill will) and moha (ignorance) and avalokanaya means reflection in a deeper manner.

The Sinhala novel ‘Niramisavalokanaya’ by Swarna Kanthi Perera (Sadeepa 2011) revolves round the life of a young daughter of a rich treasurer who lived during the time of Buddha, in the most splendid manner possible. She was given in marriage to a rich young man, a person who could not gauge the inner feeling of this young woman, who was given to less interest in seeking pleasures of a lay life. Her innermost inclination was to give up the luxurious life of a daughter of a rich family and to go in search of a spiritual bliss as taught by the Buddha. She discusses the matter wither husband, who then understands her mentality. This paves the way for her to join the dispensation of the order for females as formed by the arch enemy of the Buddha, when he broke off from the Buddha due to various reasons recorded in the history of the career of the Devadattta.

Marital life

As she happened to have led a marital life for a few months, numbering to three months, she had conceived. This gradually gets a physical visibility to the onlookers. But the innocent woman was driven away from the order of the Devadatta under the pretext that she will bring defame to Devadatta. Several bitter dialogues ensue where she is made to face a dilemma. In this plight, she has nothing but to seek the help of other Bhikkhunis who warn her that she should meet the Buddha in the first place. This paves the way for her to see the Buddha and reveal the truth about her condition. This was done and finally as the Buddha appoints senior most feminine disciples. The resultant enquiries prove the reality of her life. Then she is requested to continue her willingness to lead a sanctified search despite her pregnancy.

As time goes on she gives birth to a boy who is being fostered by the queen of the king Kosala. He is named Kassapa who later becomes a monk, and to cut a long story short the mother is made to find her son continuously. As the son is named Kumara Kassapa, the mother is known as Kumara Kassapa matha or the mother of Kumara Kassapa. This storyline as gathered from various texts goes into the making of a narrative giving a twist to a religious over tone and a subtext of keeping a suspicion as to the impending happening. The story may be of certain unbelievable events but the reader may not find them as faults, but as willing suspension of disbelief. The narrative is found reconstructed as Sinhala ballads or kavikatha and sometimes as radio plays and stage dramas. The most striking point about this narrative is the gathering of most creative sources already recorded in the traditional patterns of narration and giving the text a reconstruction as a short and readable series of episodes that run into twelve chapters.

Presentation skills

The reconstruction on the part of the writer Swarna Kanthi Perera is based on the skill of presentation as an adherent of the orthodox texts. But she deviates sometimes through the dialogues that ensue between the female characters where the reader finds more material embedded from various sources such as the Jataka tales, Dhammapada and folklore utilized for the betterment of the narrative. Kumara Kassapa Matha or the mother of Kumara Kassapa is made to live in two worlds, the world of her spiritual anticipation to meditate and obtain a higher bliss and the world of her son with maternal love. Whether this is clearly knitted and sensitively captured via the narrative is questionable, as it needs deeper analysis of the inner self which may have been an arduous task on the part of a creative writer. She is made to look more as a mother who is deranged mentally owing to the maternal love and from the point of view of the son who by now is a disciplined monk of higher stage of mind. Kumara Kassapa is shown as a skilful preacher of Dhamma.

One example is shown as to how a heretical king called Payasi is made to argue on spiritual matters and visualizes the calibre of knowledge the monk possesses. This is further observed when the Buddha reveals who his mother is. By this time he is shown as intuitively guessed who she is. But he is far more detached to his mother than his mother towards him. Perhaps my feeling for the central narrative is that it is not psychologically expansive, even if the theme is broadened, but instead remains as a long short story of the conflict of maternal love and spiritual bliss. I commenced this note with an explanation of the term reflections on detachment (Niramisavalokanaya) as explained in basic teachings of the Buddha.

But on reading this work, a reader may see a deviation from this theme giving more emphasis on the development of a storyline than the thematic treatment. This may be a popular way of thinking as the story is quite powerful as a human interest narrative. The mother comes to know that the son is now ordained and cultivates himself to achieve the state of bliss as taught by the Buddha. The son too comes to know that the venerable ‘therani’ is his mother. But they are poles apart.

Writer’s intention

Perhaps this is the intention of the writer and one cannot simply condemn that point of view as blasphemous. This is one of the rediscovered narrative traditions of the modern Sinhala writer as well as the cinematographer. While more and more creative works emerge in this direction, perhaps the tendency is to visualize a new classical genre that needs more scrutiny and authenticity.

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