Thus have I heard

One is oft urged not to judge a book by its cover, but the beautiful photograph on the cover of 'Thus have I heard' indeed sets the tone for its contents. The image of a lone monk ascending the steps of Mihintale seems to symbolise the journey of discovery on which each reader must embark when perusing this book.

The book takes its theme from the way the teachings of the Buddha were transmitted in times past when they were committed to memory and then retold. Monks would thus begin their discourses with the words "Thus have I heard". Author Gnana Moonesinghe makes no grand claims of having written a learned treatise on Buddhism. What she seeks to do and has succeeded admirably in doing, is to acquaint the layman with the essential teachings of Lord Buddha and the events and places associated with His life. In doing this she has, to use her own words, 'borrowed liberally' from the sources she has read. Two in particular, the writings of Bhikku Nanamoli and Sir Edwin Arnold are to be found extensively in the book.

The book begins with an account of the life of the Buddha. Described in detail is the quest by Prince Siddhartha as he was then, to unlock the answers to the cycle of birth, suffering and death. She then expands on some salient features of the Buddhist philosophy; the impermanence of life; self-reliance and self-discipline; rationalism and self-inquiry; development of the mind; virtuous conduct etc. 

In all these she quotes from various Buddhist volumes to bring home to the reader in those simple beautiful words, the message. In writing of the transitory nature of life, for instance she quotes from Narada, The Buddha and His Teachings, the story of the mother who on the death of her only child remained calm and when queried about this 'unnatural reaction, replied: 

'Uncalled he hither came, unbidden soon to go. 
E'en as he came, he went. 
What cause is here for woe?' 

And again, on Virtuous Conduct as Fundamental Law, she quotes: 

'Hatred does not cease by hatred;
Hatred ceaseth by love
Again
Hatred is conquered by love
The unrighteous by righteousness
The miser by gifts,
The liar by truth"- from Message of The Buddha, an address delivered by Anagarika Dharmapala in New York. 

Gnana Moonesinghe has shown a discerning spirit. What is particularly striking is also the aptness of many of these passages quoted in the context of our country's present woes. 

The second part of the book takes the reader on a journey to the many places sanctified by the Buddha. For the Buddhist pilgrim who has trod this trail to Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace, Buddha Gaya where He attained Enlightenment, \Kushinara where He passed into Mahaparinirvana and many other places associated with His life, the memories will certainly be vivid. For those who are yet to make this journey, the desire to do so will certainly be strong after reading the meaningful descriptions. These are linked to the Buddha's discourses at each place and the events that transpired there. The book is also liberally illustrated with both black and white as well as colour pictures.

Also interesting are the accounts of Buddhist revivalists Anagarika Dharmapala and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar both of whom dedicated their lives to spearheading and upholding Buddhism. Their stories make absorbing reading, especially the less familiar one of Ambedkar who though born into the 'Untouchable' caste, surmounted many obstacles to become a great scholar. In the Buddhist philosophy based on moral justice, he found a rational base for correcting many of the societal ills of the time. 

Gnana Moonesinghe accompanied her husband to India when he was appointed Sri Lanka's High Commissioner there. A graduate of the Peradeniya University she has also edited another book 'Towards nation building'. As she moves on from India she can consider her time there well spent. 

–RS

Anil's Ghost

Michael Ondaatje brings his distinct moral urgency home to Sri Lanka in his most recent, possibly most problematic novel, Anil's Ghost. The book is a fictionalised response to the atrocities and political corruption that have rocked this island over the past two decades.

His choice of the solitary and determined Anil as a protagonist through whose eyes we witness Sri Lanka is interesting. The limitations of her active participation in the actual unfolding of events in the narrative reveal a peculiar reflection of Ondaatje's own ex-patriot stance. 

Anil is irresolvably torn between two worlds; Occident and Orient. Her doomed UN mission as a forensic anthropologist is to attempt to unearth horrors in the country of her birth and childhood. These horrors have been silenced in an antagonistic atmosphere of rationalised paranoia - "a paranoid is someone with all the facts, the joke went" - that Anil, with her Westernised investigative passion fights stubbornly against. She refuses to accept that her position as a young woman, back in her more overtly patriarchal homeland might further restrict her authority. 

She believes that if she can prove that her "ghost", a skeleton, is indeed one of "hundreds" of victims of political murders that have as yet never been investigated then, "one victim can speak for many victims" and the tables might begin to turn. Yet hers is never more than a reagent's role in the book. It is through the unfolding stories of two estranged Colombo brothers, Sarath, an archaeologist and Gamini, a doctor, that the moral crisis of Sri Lanka is revealed. 

Microscopic attention to detail, on the part of the well researched author and his three rigorous main characters is painfully set against the futility of any pursuit of revelatory facts that could incriminate the government of a country where Gamini perceives that "everyone's scared. It's a national disease" and where "truth is bound between gossip and vengeance". His elder brother, Sarath describes Sri Lanka's miasmic three-way horror as "like being in a room with three suitors all of whom had blood on their hands."

Anil's Ghost may be the fiction that comes closest to wresting the reality of war's horrors from reportage and analysis into a more expansive human context. Gamini bitterly remarks, "those armchair rebels living abroad with their ideas of justice - nothing against their principles, but I wish they were here. They should come and visit me in surgery". The brothers' unhappy experiences have led them to a point where all they can do is submerge themselves obsessively, single-mindedly in their work "surrounded by the dead", with hearts that can no longer "step into the world". 

The form of the novel is like a river with tributaries running into it. So the main current is the search amongst closely guarded skeletons for evidence of the government's long rumoured black operations by Anil and Sarath. 

Yet some of the most beautiful writing can be found in several of the more enriching tributaries that initially appear as diversions from the central plot. 

These are the scenes that introduce us to Palipana, a dying monk-scientist who has become enlightened through his final retreat from society and the melancholy world of an arrack-swigging, gifted artist of Buddha eye painting named Ananda. Like in much of Ondaatje's poetry and novels, the theme of sight and spiritual blindness runs strongly through the symbolically inter-linked chapters - "the eyes unformed, unable to see".

If there are low points in the novel they exist in the sections that deal, in an arguably contrived and incidental manner with Anil's past life in the West. Her failed early marriage to a fellow Sinhalese student in London and the inevitable collapse of a love affair with a married American initially seem to simply distract our attention from the mysteries of Sri Lanka. "So what?" we might ask. However, the relevance of these digressions can be justified. 

The prime context for the Ondaatje hero/heroine is explained in a quotation towards the book's end: "The important thing is to live in a place, a situation where you must use your sixth sense the whole time." Whether it be World War II or political terrorism and corruption in Sri Lanka today, catastrophe necessitates the tragic hero. With a serenity and grace of expression, Anil's Ghost denotes a space in a cruel yet magical world that lies beyond even tragedy. Perhaps this time, it is the imminence of the book's context, right here, right now, in the country from which he came, that once again inspires Ondaatje to overwhelm us.

More Plus

Return to Plus Contents