Politics and the feast of fools

By Manik Sandrasagara

The Feast of Fools is one of the oldest rel icts of ritual theatre left on Planet Earth. This is a day in which all order is deliberately inverted (Subha and Yasa is a local parallel); the higher perform lowly tasks while the low do no work and give orders to their usual superiors.

In many villages and towns in various parts of the world the most foolish person is given a title such as the Lord or Lady of Unreason-Misrule-Chaos or the King or Queen of Fools. Not an honour sought, but for just that day everyone has to obey whatever orders, however foolish, are given by the 'chosen one'. Called the Festival of Unreason; the Festival of Fools; Fool-day; the Feast of Fools was also considered most propitious for weddings.

Although the roots of our indigenous culture are hidden in the mysteries of time, to a careful student it reveals itself even now as in the beginning.

My curiosity was first awakened when I learnt about the anonymity of Kings in traditional societies in which human portraiture was 'asvargaya' since the knowledge of impermanence commonsense.

We have had no Royal Court in Lanka since the Kandyan Convention was signed in 1815 as a result of what K.M.de Silva in the History of Ceylon calls a "conspiracy hatched by the aristocracy against the ruler whose government was a threat to their interests as a social group".

Kings, Queens

The real history of a peo ple is not the rise and fall of royal dynasties, nor that of the frequent invasions and constant wars, but that of the steady growth of the people in social, moral and religious ideals, and their ceaseless attempts to realize them in actual life.

The story of Kings, Queens and Royalty concerns the city more than the village and written history nothing but a court record that has little relevance to the country or its inhabitants.

The city then, as it is now, has always been a parasite living off the fat of the land. Only stripping power and control from village regimes and creating structures of governance that excludes the majority have built the modern nation state we know.

A Theocracy on the other hand is where everybody is equal and an unseen deity or Devi-Devata is said to reside at the centre of all ritual. This centre is also the axis that connects heaven and earth. A close look at traditional Sri Lanka and it becomes quite clear that we were once a matriarchal society, a commonwealth of villages under different tribes.

This tribal system was centered on divine service - Rajakariya - based on temperament. Everybody played inherited roles. Leadership was vested with the elders and the centre of ritual in every village an old tree and often a lake or tank. If you ask a person from a traditional village who he is the reply is often an occupation: "I am a cultivator", " I am a blacksmith", "I am a washerman"

Nobody ever replies "I am a Sinhalese" or "I am a Tamil" or "I am Sri Lankan". If you continue and ask him where he comes from he will often answer giving a name that is a composite - a union of a tree and a lake. "I hail from Nikawewa" or "I come from Kumbukwewa". It is always and everywhere the same.

In addition if you study the ritual language of the place and the annual festivities 'fertility' will emerge as the real religion. First principles are enshrined - photosynthesis.

My studies of the Kataragama tradition clearly indicates that Sri Lanka consisted of innumerable theocracies with mythical ancestors and gods ruling over given areas. Skanda, Ganesh, Saman, Aiyanayake Mutta, Dedimunde, Pattini, Kadawara, Kalu Kambili are just a few examples.

With the growth of a city culture court ritual also grows. We are told that the abisheka ritual connected with Kingship was introduced to Lanka at the time of Asoka. With a centralized focus there was also a slow transition in ritual from theocracy to monarchy - from mud to stone, although the last King of Kandy' s palace was made up of mud.

For ritual re-enactment of heavenly principles players had to represent the Priest and King. There had to be a Priest (Brahmin) to perform the ritual and someone on ceremonial occasions had to depict the unseen King (Kshatriya) who ruled from behind seven veils. It was however an open secret and common sense that God alone was King.

In Kataragama there are two main shrines, one to Ganesh the Brahmin and the other to Skanda the Kshatriya. For four days of the annual festivities the King is said to walk about his Kingdom unseen listening to every conversation.

Loin cloth

Strangers are consequently treated with respect, especially elderly people and young boys. On the fifth day a man appears grandly dressed signifying prosperity. 80 to 90 yards of cloth in all are draped around him to make him look immense. A villager who knew the freedom and comfort of a loincloth would never dress up like this except to play a role.

According to traditional culture the King was never seen. Where he dwelled was both a Temple and a Palace. He could move around at will since nobody knew him. The King was represented by his standard or insignia. In the case of Skanda, the God-King of Kataragama, he is represented by two inverted triangles the yantra.

When the British first marched to Kandy to sign the Convention, in the absence of photography, they would have carried their King's standard not his physical likeness.

What the British found in Lanka they could not comprehend. They had lost their own traditional culture with the renaissance although Lanka still lived in a mediaeval mind-set. In their ignorance the British created a new elite based on their own experience. Having killed all the old guard they gave their titles, names and holdings to new aspirants, often - illegitimate children of the old guard who would champion their cause. This new 'radala' elite soon became personality oriented, pompous and possessed by the role they had to play forgetting their real peasant origins. With the introduction of English and parliamentary democracy this new elite was polarized into a class - 'the novae-riche'.

Very soon the notion of emptiness was replaced by belief in self-importance. Svaraj which was originally self-rule was turned into homerule and independence. Symbols were inverted. An upside down world had arrived. The fool stops seeing life as a stage and is soon seduced into believing in his or her divinity. Falling in love with one's own reflection mortality follows and with it hubris. Whom the Gods want destroyed they first make mad.

What we are witnessing today is the dismemberment of the nation state this class created and called Sri Lanka. This dismemberment is being achieved as a result of the ignorance of our political leadership. We are daily losing our independence to determine our own future, and if peace were to come we will become a service nation catering to the greed of emerging elites. In this age of darkness, namely the Kali Yuga, Name (Nama) and Form (Rupa) are deified, with personality cults making monsters out of the nicest people.

Instead of the governing principles being enshrined, a mug shot of the political 'Leader' is displayed everywhere, even in toilets. This loss of anonymity makes the 'Leader' a prisoner to the palace guard and to the palace. The 'Leader' because of this alienation is controlled by a file-culture with all the information made available carefully filtered by an ill informed and often self-serving inner circle with an agenda all of its own. Information is today a commodity and trading in information the biggest growth industry. Every gossip and storyteller who has access to the 'Leader' has a field day. The mass media also becomes a part of this syndrome as 'money', 'circulation' and 'personal power' replaces 'principle'. The number of interested players' increases and the 'Leaders' lack of ease and public paranoia a clear indication of such a state of affairs. Chaos and anarchy follows.

Traditionally personal power is only possible over one-self and trying to rule another ignorance. The story of Prince Siddhartha is a perfect example. Even in his last incarnation he chose to be born a Kshatriya but he gives up temporal power for sacerdotal power - namely enlightenment.

With enlightenment comes anonymity, and the notion that all life is just a passing show. True wisdom reinforces the notion that all are equal, and that every man and woman is born alone, dies alone, eats, drinks, sleeps and goes to the toilet by themselves. So common sense dictates that there are no great people and small people - all being the same. From this awareness arises 'common consensus' or Mahasamatta.

This is a state in which all agree. The farmer waits for rain and all agree on what should be done and when. The fisherman does the same when drawing his nets in. It is a collective undertaking. Traditional societies were all about collective undertakings, but modern society is just the opposite. Ambition, greed, personal glory and social mobility are considered virtues. Politics represents this breed. Consequently there is decline and decadence. Monitoring election violence merely measures the level of the lust for personal power. It achieves nothing more.

Obsession

Our obsession with pre serving democracy is similar to our obsession with cricket, English and other remnants of Western culture. Whether these are worth preserving and fostering is never questioned. At whatever cost we are forced to appreciate these alien standards of measuring our civilization.

The present buzzword is globalization. Everybody we are told must be alike. Bio-diversity is spoken of on the one hand and genetic engineering on the other. The contradictions inherent in younger cultures are obvious to us from older cultures. What is required is maturity. Maturity dictates that unless the King is a Chakravartin or Boddhisatva or as Plato says a Philosopher the society he rules is destined to collapse.

Politics in traditional societies like Lanka has always been a sacrificial altar unless Dharma rules. This is the hidden message of our indigenous culture. In the absence of principle there will always be bloodshed. The LTTE is a symptom not the cause. It is hypocrisy, conceit, delusion and lies that confront us not justice and mercy. As a result although we have banned animal slaughter as burnt offerings to the Gods every ancient spirit is still being propitiated with human blood.

Kapurala

Hatred is not the preroga tive of just the suicide bomber. The suicide bomber is motivated by passion. Love and hatred comes from passion and fire. To douse a fire we need cooling water. Fire is also Tanha or desire. Desire for power, money, position, rank, separate state - they are all the same. It is for this reason that in an enlightened society nobody accepts personal power. They enshrine power and worship it. The Dalada or the Triple Gem is a good example. Those who are foolish enough to symbolically play the role of a leader have to cope with Vas-Dos or evil eye. The bigger the political cutout the greater the envy.

In Kataragama only after the ritual purification of the officiating priest is concluded is anybody permitted to even gaze at the Kapurala who conducts the water-cutting ritual - the climax of the annual festival

At every election more and more sacrificial lambs are offered up on the altar of democracy. It is always the same. Politics makes 'a nobody want to become a somebody'. Death glorifies these nobodies. It is well to remember in this context that in nearby Kerala the King at the end of his cycle of office had to commit ritual suicide.

It is a lust for power 'Bala Kama' that creates a King and with it comes the threat of death and assassination.

Karmic twist

In every Kingdom when the King dies it is immediately stated 'Long live the King' because Kingship and not the King are the symbol of power. As we enter the new millennium let us not forget this maxim. It is the institution not the person.

Given the karmic twist of fate that has created the present situation in Lanka it is well if the players in this drama understand the dynamics instead of dragging the common folk of this protected theocracy into the quagmire of their personal fantasies and inadequacies.

In this context the JVP uprising of 1971 is also worth studying. The basis of the JVP's 'five Classes' was a book by J.R.P. Sooriyaperuma and another by Dr. S. A. Wickramasinghe. Many joined the movement and these ideals were enshrined. Since 'on going' revolution was the core philosophy no single leader could emerge. All were equals ready to die for the cause. In fact seven leaders were mentioned, like the puppet kings who surfaced when the British took Kandy.

One man however was different. He wanted personal power. Nandasiri returns from the Soviet Union and turns into Rohana Wijeyweera and projects himself as the leader. A traditional concept was abandoned and a leader replaced it. It was this act that made it possible to destroy the movement.

Goddess Kali

Similarly today the LTTE has a supreme leader called Velupillai Prabhakaran. His likeness adorns his supporter's homes together with their Gods, Goddesses and heroes. It is this vanity that will eventually destroy him. His anonymity blown he too is a prisoner.

Hence the so called ethnic war like all wars is not the product of free men and women but of prisoners caught in an urban mindset over who controls power.

Till both contending parties find out what real power is we will continue to shed human blood for our transgressions. We cannot blame someone else for reaping the benefits of our own karma. Cause and Effect it is called.

Enlightened self-interest on the other hand should make wisdom and svaraj our only goals.

Lanka is a blessed land but Lanka strikes back. She is the land of 'Balance'. That is her contribution to global culture from mythic times. Only the Goddess Kali rides the tiger and with it comes the initiation into the teaching of annica and impermanence.

The cyanide capsule can thus become an amulet. Only when all ignorance is destroyed and the power hungry transformed will peace reign. Lanka is in no hurry. She like Kali devours 'time' since she is older and wiser than all her children.

In the meantime till wisdom prevails her sacred bosom will be bathed in the blood of her ignorant progeny. Either we take the old way, the ancient way, that other wise ones trod before us or we take the new road to a world of infinite possibilities? This is the only question.

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