Poson as a national New Year

The concept of any New Year celebration or festival, in reality, only marks a date and a point of time from which a group of people of specific identity wish to re-start another period of 365 or 366 days, with a new awareness and a new determination to make their lives within this incoming period better than what they have been.

Many cultures of the world, especially in India, made use of the movement of the sun and the moon in the zodiac to determine these, thus giving us the solar and lunar calendars. These implied a lot of planetary conjunctions, 'nakkhatta' or 'nakat', yielding many moments which are believed to be both auspicious and inauspicious for humans on earth. Experts in the field, both monks and laymen in Sri Lanka, would offer you unquestionable advice on these. These guide many people with a harmless degree of credibility as to when to start and when not to start work, even in their day to day life, avoiding for instance, the ill-foreboding 'ràhu-kàlaya' on every single day of the week. Many Sri Lankans of today, we know for certain, wise and less wise, elite and less elite strictly observe these.

The word festival implies some form of celebration which is either religious or secular. But it is no secret that in Sri Lanka today, concepts like religious and ethnic are taboo. It is the one or the other through which the weapons used in the present conflict in Sri Lanka have been forged and turned out. Until very recent times, we freely used to say Sinhala and Tamil New Year, with the words Hindu and Buddhist being thrown in with as much ease. Even with both parties concerned, the Hindus and the Buddhists or the Sinhalese and the Tamils, sitting apart and eating and drinking severally, let the dawn of a new year be adequately celebrated. It is good for both men and women, young and old and even for those yet unborn, to carry with them thoughts of goodwill and well-wishes to one another.

Let me start with something very personal. The year was 1949 and that was exactly 58 years ago when I was a young bachelor. The scene was set in Wales, a part of the island cluster of what goes with great pride as Great Britain. On the night of December 31, I was spending a holiday there in Cardiff with a group of student friends and we were invited to a country home-party to usher in the New Year. The guests that night were happily of diverse ethnic groups and from many different parts of the world. We were all very glad to be together. We were equally happy to be able to jointly wish one another.

Out of a moderate gathering of about twenty or thirty people at that house party, I was picked to go out of the house as the old year was winding up on the 31st night of December, and mind you that was just a few minutes before midnight, and on a freezing winter night, with a little bit of snow around. I was to re-enter the house as the clock struck twelve, vigorously ushering in the New Year for the benefit of everyone. I had to bring into the house with me a piece of white bread, obviously for abundance of food for the coming year, a silver coin symbolising wealth in gold and silver, and forget not, a piece of black coal to keep the winter fires burning for warmth in the cold weather. Believe me, it was my dark Sri Lankan complexion which made me the winner that night, because they believed at that time, and I hope they still do, that our dark colour effectively keeps the devil away and the evil he brings along with him.

In Sri Lanka, there are very many things which we, as people, have shared together for centuries, even if we wish to ignore and forget them today, for reasons which cannot be better described except as being stupid and petty. We call each other chauvinists, being needlessly arrogant and critical, without for a moment realising that the pot is calling the kettle black. Using a common solar calendar, we have learnt to reckon the commencement of our year, the so-called Hindu or Sinhala New Year, with a particular position of the sun in the zodiac in the month of April. The calendar man in the village, the 'nakat rala', made a living from generation to generation, providing us this information seasonally, and carrying home in return bagfuls of red country rice, 'kekulu hal' and not Basmati, and other provisions from the gratified village folk who were amazingly generous, a few days before the event.

Even from more than thousands of years before the Buddha, Vedic Aryans of India had learnt to venerate the Sun God, Savitar as the life-giver. He is undoubtedly the chief guest at any life-welcoming ceremony. So as we celebrate the New Year, following the solar calendar, as Hindus or Buddhists, Sinhalese or Tamils, let us not forget that we owe a word of thanks to the Sun God. For he stands in the sky well above the Hindus and the Buddhists, Sinhalese and Tamils. Can we not learn to share peacefully these gifts of nature, and in such sharing, sense a pulse of brotherhood amongst us?

Beyond this point, if any group or groups resists cultural syntheses of any sort, let them feel free to do what they like, but please, without any venom or bitterness, to part ways and get their identities established, whether they be religious, ethnic or any other, thinly veiled and subtly camouflaged. The choice legitimately is theirs. But it is best we do not forget that everybody would be equally mindful not to allow any trespass in the expression of one's own rights and identities.

In pre-Mahindian Sri Lanka, such a great festival day was the full moon of Poson or June. While Venerable Mahinda's flight from his father's land of India was scheduled to touch down at Mihintale at a later hour in the afternoon, King Devanampiya Tissa had already instructed his people to commence their festivities for the occasion or 'nakat keli' with water sports in the Tisaveva in Anuradhapura. For a better brand of sport, misguided as this royal master Devanampiya Tissa was, he set out on the deer hunt. For the luck of Sri Lankans, or of humanity anywhere in the world, Tissa's encounter with Thera Mahinda brought a complete halt in Sri Lanka to this kind of stupid buffoonery, of royal or state pastime, of hunting for pleasure, whether that be fox, deer or Bengal tiger.

The culture of this country, let it be remembered by the state and the people here, took a remarkable new turn in their attitude to life. A serious error was detected and somebody had the courage to point it out and get things corrected. We very much regret the absence of such characters in our midst today. Within a couple of centuries, the rulers began to set up sanctuaries, with an island-wide ban on slaughter of all animals or 'ma ghata[ ('Maghatam karayi dipe sabbesam yeva paninam.' Mhv. 41.v.30). Amandagamini, Silakala, Aggabodhi IV and Mahinda III are among kings who pursued this policy. In extending this sense of mercy to the world of animals, birds and beasts and even fish are all equally included ('Macchànaü migapakkhãnaü' . Mhv. 48. v. 97).

If Sri Lankans need a festival which is well and truly national for Sri Lankans as a whole and which meaningfully marks the birth of a New Year, where could they find one better, besides Poson. Poson indeed marks the birth of a new culture, hence of a new era in Sri Lanka. There is no denying that Poson has a religio-cultural identity which is truly national. No matter as to the source of its genesis, who brought it here and from where it came, it has stayed long enough in this country to be all-embracing.

Think seriously of making Poson, from this year onwards, the National Annual Festival of Sri Lanka which we shall celebrate more meaningfully and for our edification. This will re-awaken us to the vastness of our cultural inheritance and our identity on the world scene. This is the way for peace on earth and goodwill among men.