Sunday Times 2
Ties with Nepal on bedrock of Buddhism and President Bhandari’s visit
View(s):By Satharathilaka Banda Atugoda
This story begins in present Nepal, in the Sakyan kingdom of Suddhodana. In the most venerable Narada Thera’s comprehensive, lucid work, ‘Manual of Buddhism’, from which we learnt the doctrine for our Senior School Certificate, the opening paragraph, illustrates this, ‘On the full-moon day of May, Vesak, in the year 623 B.C. there was born, in the Lumbini Park at Kapilavastu, on the borders of Nepal, a noble prince of the aristocratic Sakya clan. His father was King Suddhodana, and his mother Queen, Maha Maya.’ ‘On the fifth day after prince’s birth, he was named Siddhartha Gautama which means, ‘wish-fulfilled’. His family name was Gautama’.
‘Examining the characteristics of the child, seven of them (wise men Brahmins) raised two fingers and gave a double interpretation, saying that he would either become a universal monarch or a Buddha. But the youngest Kondanna who surpassed the others in knowledge, raised only one finger and firmly declared that he would definitely retire from the world and become a Buddha.
Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari visited Sri Lanka to attend the International Vesak Celebrations.
‘Seven days after the birth of the child, the mother died, and Mahaprajapathi Gotami, her younger sister, who was married to King Suddhodana, became his foster mother’.  This book rekindled our interest in Buddhism, as it taught us in simple language the basics of the life story of the Buddha and his dharma. Even the genealogical table was given and the narrative was based in Nepal, a country to which our love and affection was directed on saddha. As our knowledge broadened we knew that during that era Sakya kingdom was a part of the great land of Jambudhweepa. However, his infancy, childhood, and youth were spent in the Sakya kingdom and the great events in his life occurred in this land Nepal. For example, the infant’s feet placing themselves on ascetic Kaladevala’s matted hair, in the first week as a supernatural happening, and also his entering Samadhi at a ploughing festival, King Suddhodana’s salutation in reverence at both occurrences, his excellence at learning and sports like archery, all happened in the Sakya kingdom and is well documented in Buddhist literature. Significant events like his marriage at sixteen to a beautiful cousin Yasodhara, and the luxurious life he led in the palaces built Ramya, Suramya, and Subha in this kingdom, brings Buddhist nations closer to present day Nepal.
Prince Siddhartha’s realisation of truth, (seeing old age, sickness and death) close at hand and his determination to renounce are the next milestones, before the birth of his son Rahula. His compassion to the whole of mankind, by searching for truth overarched his love to the newborn that he had a loving last look at the mother and infant; and left same morning with Channa his charioteer, on a royal horse Kanthaka to the world unknown. It was a sad day for Nepal’s Sakya clan. He was twenty-nine years and for six long years he followed some ascetics like Alara Kalama, and Uddaka Ramaputta, and followed austerity. He ultimately, at the age of thirty-five reached the stage when he realised the truth in the doctrine. Taught as four noble truths, the last truth is the noble eightfold path, right understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, endeavour, mindfulness, and concentration, called samma ditthi, sankappa,vacha, kammantha, ajiva, vayama, sathi, and samadhi. It was the Sakya kingdom on the borders of the Himalayan range, present Nepal, which nurtured the thought process of Siddhartha Gauthama and the spiritual advancement to such heights gifting the ‘path to enlightenment’ to all beings. Sri Lanka received this body of knowledge as decreed by the Buddha himself, and this role of our small island was brought to the fore with spiritually advanced countries following the Buddhist doctrine of the world, and especially with Nepal, obtaining her inspiration. It was appropriate, therefore to have invited madam Bidhya Devi Bhandari, the President of Nepal, for the International Vesak Celebrations held in Sri Lanka. She infact declared in her address at Sri Dalada Maligawa that Nepal and Sri Lanka are two pearls in the sub-continent.
Based on this deep rooted Buddhist connection Sri Lanka and Nepal have developed their relations in all fields, diplomatic, political, economic, cultural, educational and all other facets of friendship. Both countries are non-aligned, belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation. Both countries are tourist destinations, Nepal famous for mountaineering and Sri Lanka for its beautiful beaches. Thus tourists make package tours to the region. The air link between Colombo and Kathmandu should be permanently functional, as sometimes, it is de-linked. Economically, Sri Lanka is becoming a middle-income group country, and within the SAARC, is striving to boost trade and economic links between the two countries. There are students from the two countries studying in each other’s universities. Nepal, in fact, has developed medical studies in private universities and maybe Sri Lanka could emulate Nepal to resolve Sri Lanka’s medical university problems. In the facet of culture there are vast strides made and madam Bhandari made mention of at least the Lumbini Development programme under Lumbini Trust Fund.
Politically, Sri Lanka with all its party conflicts and dissensions moves on, in a ‘democratic ‘trajectory’. Nepal on the contrary has followed a thorny and circuitous pathsince it became a Unified Kingdom under a Gurkha ruler Prithivi Narayan Shah, who set up the capital in Kathmandu, in 1768. As these foothills of the Himalayas consist of many tribal enclaves, since ancient times they were ruled by independent chieftains. At certain times in history they unified and then disintegrated, as there were insufficiently binding nationalist commonalities, to rally round like language and ethnicity. The only rallying points were religious, Hinduism and Buddhism. The boundaries too could not be expanded due to the mountainous nature of the land and the two giant nations China on the North-East and India bordering on all the other sides. In fact in 1792 when Prithivi Narayan’s expansion to the North East was halted by China, India had a Border and Transit Agreement with Nepal restricting Nepal’s exits. Being a landlocked nation Nepal has to live with this geographical reality as does with Sri Lanka having a giant neighbour India in the north. Perhaps, the cultural links of the nations should be adequately used to resolve mutual problems. The current boundaries of Nepal were established with the Anglo Nepal Treaty at the end of the Anglo-Nepal War from 1814-1816. Tracing political history Nepal had been moving out from monarchy to feudalism, partial democracy, and now multi-party democracy. In 1846 Nepal came under the rule of feudal family of Ranas interspersed with the monarchy. In 1951 this phenomenon ended and sovereignty was laid on the king, and Tribhuvan became king, and Nepalese Congress Party dominated the political scene. In 1955, King Tribhuvan died and King Mahendra ascended to the throne, and Nepal became a member of the United Nations. In 1972 King Mahendra passed away and Birendra became king and tragedy struck the nation on June 1 2001 when Crown Prince Dipendra assassinated King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and several members of the royal family; the crown prince shooting himself cast a dark scar on Nepal’s political history. The king’s brother Gyanendra was crowned king but there was resentment to the royalty of Nepal, in the midst of political turmoil in the country. In fact there had been instability in the political sphere since the 1950s, of governments falling, resigning, prime ministers resigning, (Girija Prasad Koirala, and Dr. Sher Bahadur Deuba being the powerful premiers) and guerrilla groups gaining ground, the major one being Maoists. It is a convoluted political narrative requiring more space. Even the palace tragedy, was linked to conspiracies connected with feudal families of neighbouring lands.
It was a trying period for the nation – Nepal, from 2001, the monarchy facing instability, the Governments being dissolved, and elections being held in May 2002; Governments which came into power were unstable due to insurgency, but peace talks continued with Maoists. It resulted in the king empowering himself with absolute powers in February 2005 but bowing to international pressure, reinstating the Government in April 2006, but in May 2006, Parliament voted to curb the king’s powers. Under a temporary constitution Maoist rebels entered Parliament, and formed an interim government. In April 2007 simultaneously, the Constituent Assembly with powers to establish a new constitution and abolish the monarchy went ahead. In December 2007, Parliament approved the abolition of the monarchy, and in May 2008 Nepal became a republic, bidding farewell to a long standing monarchical rule, under a new Parliament elected in April 2008, Ram Baran Yadav became the first President, and Maoists won a majority of seats. However, the Maoist leader Pushpa Kumar Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, formed a coalition Government in August 2008 but resigned in 2009, on differences of opinion in drawing rebels into Parliament. The Constituent Assembly appointed in 2006 took long years to draft a constitution due to political turmoil. There was an earthquake in April 2015 killing 8,000 people, Sri Lanka mourns these deaths and sympathises with political problems.
Sri Lanka should assist Nepal overcome these constitutional problems as a neighbour bound by close Buddhist ties. Perhaps, the Mahanuwara Declaration is a conduit for such assistance. Nepal’s intelligentsia and academic circles are all highly respected and educated in spite of the political vicissitudes of the country; in other words they have a wealth of educated personnel who can resolve their own problems; what they need is a soft direction. Having been an accredited deputy head of mission from New Delhi I had the opportunity of discussing mutual relations with my Nepali counterparts in the early 1990s.The present government consists of such persons and madam Bhandari too belongs to a political family; her husband Mr. Madan Bhandari, was communist leader who was very popular but unfortunately died in a car accident in Dasdhunga. Some view it as a politically motivated one but not clearly resolved. Madam Bhandari, who was active in left-leaning politics was elected to Assembly in 1994 and 1999 defeating K.P. Koirala and Daman Nath Dhungana respectively, and held ministerial portfolios of defence, and environment under the new secular constitution under which she was elected in September 2015 as the second President and the first lady President of Nepal. K.P. Sharma Oli is the Prime Minister.
Sri Lanka had extremely close relations with Nepal since the Buddhist period. Modern diplomatic links were established on July 1, 1957. Since then relations with Nepal were looked after by our high commission in New Delhi until a resident mission was set up in November 1993. State visits from both countries have taken place frequently. King Mahendra was a special guest at the Buddha Jayanthi Celebrations held in Sri Lanka in 1956. Governor General William Gopallawa was invited as a guest to the wedding ceremony of King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev in 1970.President William Gopallawa made a State visit to Nepal in 1975. King Bir Bikram Shah of Nepal attended the non-aligned summit in 1976, and made a State visit in 1980. President J.R. Jayewardene made a State visit to Nepal in 1978 and also attended the SAARC Summit in 1987. Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa made an official visit to Nepal in 1988. Prime Minister G.P. Koirala made an official visit in 1991 and attended the sixth SAARC Summit. The presidents and prime ministers of both countries made such visits to strengthen bilateral relations.
The SAARC Secretariat was established in Kathmandu and Sri Lanka promoted regional links between our countries. Bank of Ceylon and Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka have established branches in Nepal and joint ventures have been established. Agreements have been signed in areas of investment protection, air services and double taxation. Bilateral trade has been developed in tea, rubber, industrial products and food processing. Culturally, Sri Lanka has established a pilgrims rest in Lumbini and a fund has been set up called the Lumbini Trust Fund. The Sri Lanka Aramaya has been constructed in Lumbini which benefits Buddhist pilgrims to Nepal who venerate in places where the Buddha trod. More Buddhist links are envisaged by the Sri Lanka- Nepal Friendship Association. President Madam Bhandari’s visit reinvigorated all these age-old links between our two nations.
(The writer was a former Deputy Head of Mission in New Delhi, accredited to Nepal.)