Christianity came to Sri Lanka only after arrival of Portuguese in 1505

Shenali Waduge

A reply to E Weerapperuma's 'Christmas celebrated before the arrival of the Portuguese' in the Daily News on December 25.

No one questions that there is no Christmas without Christ for all Christians just as we all know that Catholicism is a subset of Christianity after its split in 1054AD (Roman Catholic Church in Rome and Orthodox Church in Constantinople - Eastern and Western Churches) and split again to create the Church of England.

We also know that Eastern Christianity began in Palestine (in the Middle East - including Syria and Egypt) and swept west into the Roman Empire to develop a firm base in Europe. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Persian Empire stretched from Syria to what is now Pakistan and deep into central Asia and with them spread Nestorian Christianity.

By the 8th century in China and South India members of the Nestorian Christian church used a distinctive symbol in which the cross is joined to the lotus, symbol of Buddhist enlightenment. Nestorians were excommunicated by the Catholic Church therefore there is little use referring to Nestorian Christianity to highlight presence of Christianity in parts of Asia. Weerapperuma is also attempting to project the existence of Christianity in Sri Lanka and projecting that the Mahavansa has failed to give Christianity its due place. This is to possibly counter the allegations that Christianity is an imported imperialistic tool. It is also an attempt for present day Christians to disassociate from the atrocities of the Portuguese era by propagating the myth of St Thomas.

The myth of St. Thomas and the destruction of the Mylapore Shiva temple by the Portuguese was thoroughly exposed by Ishwar Sharan in his landmark book, The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple, first published in 1991.

Then in 1953 by Father H. Heras, SJ, the then director of the Historical Research Institute, St Xavier's College, Bombay, when he wrote to T K Joseph: "I am fully convinced that the tomb of St Thomas has never been in Mylapore. In November 2006, Pope Benedict XVI categorically stated that St Thomas never visited South India. This statement is important for many reasons and refutes a host of false premises being promoted as heresay.

Which then raises the question of whether Catholic Indian missionaries are fabricating fables to mislead the Indian masses for the purpose of mass conversion (harvesting of souls) and certainly questions the film on St Thomas being produced by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chennai.

If the arrival of St Thomas to India is rejected by the head of the Roman Church and the fact that it was the Nestorians who arrived to parts of Asia from the 6thcentury though both Christians and Catholics reject Nestorian doctrine that Jesus exists as two persons - man Jesus and divine Son of God rather than as a unified person there is little reason that modern day Christians/Catholics would desire to associate with Nestorian presence simply to prove a point. What can be simply said is that there is no evidence of Christianity in India or Ceylon prior to Nestorian Christianity.

Weerapperuma goes on to mention about Migara Senpati and infers to the blessings Christians received by Sinhalese kings. Migara Senpathi was King Datusena's (410 to 432 A.D) Army Commander though there is no evidence to prove that Christianity existed for Migara to be referred to as a Christian and to accept this Weerapperuma may like for forward evidence.

As for Weerapperuma's inference that Christians had the blessings of the Sinhalese kings the only evidence or the only King who betrayed the principles of leadership taken by all kings (to protect the nation, the Sinhalese and the Buddhists) was Don Juan Dharmapala. There is no King of Sri Lanka or any Sinhalese who would ever want to be associated with Don Juan Dharmapala for that great betrayal in handing over the kingdom to the Portuguese, changing his name, changing his religion, converting his wife, changing her name to Dona Catherina and watching the Portuguese subject his people to such atrocities does not deserve any mention by any of us.

The global village concept ironically appears to apply only to nations that are non-Catholic and non-Islamic because neither the Vatican nor Muslim nations would ever consent to having anything that is not Catholic nor Islamic in their self-declared "holy lands" - how can they then claim "multi" tags when their actions are only to promote, protect and propagate their faiths only with little respect for the religious beliefs of others? Would Weerapperuma care to respond to this point.

There are many Christian/ Catholic churches throughout Sri Lanka some of which are built on top or adjacent to that of destroyed sites of ancient Buddhist temples (the time has come for the Department of Archaeology to carry out a comprehensive archeological survey of places of worship of the Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant faiths particularly in the Western Province and put to rest the false denials of the Catholic and Christian Churches, which were both accomplices and beneficiaries of the colonial plunder, seizure and transfer of the titles of lands originally belonging to Buddhist and Hindu Temples, to the Catholic and Christian Churches) and a plethora of bogus faith healers and Jesuits all spreading their faiths throughout Sri Lanka unabated.

The wide freedom that both Christianity and Catholics enjoy in Sri Lanka rebuts effectively the false accusation that they are not given due recognition. It is for the Church which has still to respond to allegations that they have used the terrorist situation in Sri Lanka to carry out mass conversions and its links to the LTTE terrorist movement through various Christian/Catholic organizations with Church leaders openly canvassing for these terrorists.

Some of these Church leaders have openly encouraged suicide terrorism as well as encouraged Tamil children to become child killers. These links will soon be unearthed if and when the Sri Lankan government opens an inquiry into the links NGOs/INGOs have had to LTTE throughout the decades of conflict in Sri Lanka and raises eyebrows as to the extent of influence being exerted to stop the Government from actually opening such an investigation.

It is in this context that anyone would be bewildered by a statement that Christians live as "aliens" in Sri Lanka. In fact in spite of Sri Lanka having Buddhism enshrined in its Constitution, with over 64 percent of the Sinhalese being Buddhist - the mass media in Sri Lanka is effectively controlled by non-Buddhists, they will hardly entertain even right of replies when Buddhist culture, philosophy etc has been attacked through their newspapers, journalists mainly non - Buddhist, working for these media agencies are handsomely rewarded to humiliate and denigrate Buddhism at every turn, very few newspapers even entertain Buddhist writings and thoughts except allocate a page on a routine basis every month for the full moon Poya supplement, it is often non-Buddhists who end up speaking on behalf of the Buddhists - such is the fate that has befallen Buddhists in Sri Lanka.

It is within these discrepancies that the calls to have a new national media commission established along the lines or similar to the Press Commission headed by former Justice K D de Silva that was established in 1963 by the government of Sirima Bandaranaike, is once again suggested.

The K. D de Silva Press Commission in its Report released in 1964 held among other things, that local newspapers were guilty of acting in a manner hostile towards the national interests of the country and Buddhism, the religion of the majority. That status quo exposed in 1964 by the Press Commission remains the same today not helped in the least.

Moreover, when issues related to such misuse surface on account of all communications channels owned by non-Buddhists who end up securing things officially leaving Buddhists to follow the motto of "grin and bear" since there is little backing from their own leaders except to make bogus and false promises to win their votes at election time.

As for the local Buddhist associations who are ever ready to issue statements on behalf of other faiths and entertain others in local Buddhist Temples on days of religious significance to others, which is a meritorious gesture, would do well to issue similar sentiments regarding their own faith and it raises questions why such solidarity was not shown when groups totaling over 25,000 Bangladeshis attacked ancient Buddhist sites in Bangladesh recently and completely destroyed historical Buddhist Temples and valuable and irreplaceable historical data or why there is any reluctance to openly back the Buddhists of Burma or any other Buddhist country facing threats to their very national existence for that matter. Ironically, in Sri Lanka it appears that it is the Buddhists who are "aliens" in their own country because it is always their space that is being compromised using a global dictum called "multiculturalism" - none of the other minorities ever consents to even compromise and it is always the Buddhists that end up extending the hand to always be bitten.

As for the Mahawansa it is only a historical source and is not the source of the history of the Sinhala race. Almost everything mentioned in the Mahawansa can be corroborated with inscriptions both in Sri Lanka, in India as well as other contemporary writings and historical maps.

Therefore, the Mahavansa can hardly be faulted for not including heresay or fables. Therefore, whilst there is no argument as to the importance of Christmas it is suggested that Weerapperuma responds first by forwarding archaeological evidence to prove because as Thomas Paine (1737-1808) said: "It has often been said that anything may be proved from the Bible; but before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it doubtful, it ceases to have authority and cannot be admitted as proof of anything."