Appreciations
View(s):Archaeology, a calling from a very young age
Professor Sudharshan Seneviratne
Professor Sudharshan Seneviratne, who passed away on January 17, was a renaissance man.
As a student in the Primary School of Ananda College, Sudharshan played the lead role of the Prince in the play “Mal Kumari” staged in 1959. I came to know Sudharshan when he joined the Senior Prep Form. On the first day of the class that I was teaching, I inquired from every student what they intend to do after their school careers. When it came to Sudharshan’s turn, he confidently said that he intended to do archaeology. I was surprised to get such an answer from a boy that young, and when I questioned him, he said that he had already read the Mahavamsa and the Deepawamsa. When I mentioned this to his elder brother, later Professor Harsha Seneviratne, the Gynaecologist, he told me that when Sudharshan was in the Middle School, he had gone to the G. A. Perera second-hand bookshop and bought the book “Indian Archeology” by Mortimer Wheeler, the famous archeologist.
I recall telling Harsha that it must be a “Sasara Purudda” and suggested to him that Sudharshan should go to another teacher, Nimal Abeywardena, brush up his Maths and get through the GCE O. Level exam first. Later in his school career, he was the Head Prefect and the first captain of Rugger at Ananda. In 1969, his final year, he was awarded the Fritz Kunz Prize for ‘the best citizen produced by Ananda’. Sudharshan was a thoroughbred, illustrious Anandian.
At the end of his school career, he proceeded to India for higher studies. He graduated from Hindu College in Delhi University and did his doctorate in archaeology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, under Professor Romila Thapar. Professor Thapar considered Sudharshan one of her best students and they shared a long friendship throughout his life.
After his Indian sojourn he came and saw me and wanted to get an academic appointment at a University. I directed him to Professor Sirima Kiribamune of the University of Peradeniya and he was readily offered a post as Lecturer. Later Prof Kiribamune told me that Sudharshan is a wonderful person and a true professional. At Peradeniya he worked with the students very closely and they, in turn, responded to his academic and personal guidance. He accompanied the students on many field trips and excavations throughout the country. I know that one, along the Malwathu Oya from Anuradhapura to Manthota was a very exciting experience for the students. But the privations on these trips may have told on Sudharshan’s health.
He played a leading role in the Jethavanaramaya and Abhayagiriya restoration in Anuradhapura. He was also instrumental in establishing the Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya Museums. The Bataleeya crafts centre was his brainchild – an incentive to traditional craftsmen to earn a living as well as improve their skills, whilst being a unique tourist attraction.
He was appointed as Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in India in July 2014 and did much to enhance and broaden the relationship with India through his many friends and ex-colleagues there. It was a relatively short assignment of approximately one year.
Later, from December 2020, he was
Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in Bangladesh where he worked very effectively to expand and strengthen relationships between the two countries. He was an admirer of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and was aware of my interest in Tagore, Rabindra Sangeeth and Bengali literature. On his return from Bangladesh in mid-2023, he gifted me with a clay wall plaque of Gurudev Tagore and a table runner and table mats depicting folk art of Bangladesh.
On his return Sudharshan was appointed Executive Director General in September 2023 to head the Secretariat of the Indian Ocean Rim Association based in Colombo. Unfortunately he became unwell and passed away a few months later.
Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne was replete with many great qualities – commitment, professionalism, integrity, empathy, gratitude, humility. A wonderful human being. May his journey through Sansar be short and peaceful.
K.L.F. Wijedasa
He followed the five precepts to the best of his ability
H. Leo Perera
I write this appreciation on the 125th birth anniversary of my father that fell on February 21. He passed away on October 11, 1994 at the ripe old age of 95. He had his early education at St John’s College Panadura and completed his studies at the Ceylon Law College. He was admitted as a Proctor of the Supreme Court on September 25, 1925.
He started practising in the District and Magistrates Courts of Kalutara attending the circuit courts in Panadura. When Panadura received permanent District Courts in1945 he confined himself to Panadura District Court where he enjoyed a lucrative civil practice. He was slow to ask for fees from his clients and accepted what they gave. Many poor clients received his services free. Many of the affluent in Panadura were his clients.
In 1975 the lawyers of Panadura felicitated his completing 50 years in active practice. He refused to attend the usual formal dinner that was accorded to such persons but agreed to attend a tea party in the court premises and the unveiling of his portrait in the Law Library. By that time, I had joined him in the practice.
He last attended Courts in June 1994. That was the 69th year since his admission as a Proctor. Since then, he stayed at home reading Buddhist Literature. He had a good library of Buddhist publications.
He married my mother Vivian Wickremasuriya known as Vita in the family circles and was blessed with three sons and a daughter. Thaththa was a devout Buddhist who followed the five Precepts to the best of his ability. He spent a considerable amount of time in the shrine room meditating.
He observed atasil on Poya days. Every evening he got the family together and recited Pirith.
When I entered Ananda College in 1960, I was in the boarding. Ananda Vihara wasn’t built at that time and the boarders did not have a shrine. Thaththa obtained permission from the Principal and converted a vacant area in the boarding into a shrine for the use of all boarders.
I have seen him purchase in bulk the book, Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold that he used to gift to friends and foreign dignitaries (Buddhists and non-Buddhists) here and abroad. He used to say how some of the Buddhist literature authored by Dr Ambedkar was published in small booklet format for free distribution, the cost borne by him. YMBA, ACBC, WFB, German Dharmadutha Society, Panadura Bauddha Sangamaya are some of the organisations where he actively participated. He helped the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy in many ways.
He had his regular evening exercise by digging a huge pit in a corner of the front lawn of his garden under the streetlight and filling it back. To dig daily the soil was soft and he completed his exercise without hurting himself. He never smoked or consumed alcohol. I could not keep pace when walking with him – that is how fit he was.
His final request was that his skeleton be donated to Meetirigala Aranya Senasanaya Nissarana Vanaya Meditation Monastery for meditation purposes. We buried his body and later sought court permission to remove his skeletal remains from the grave to fulfil his wish. We engaged a person from the Colombo Medical College to clean the skeletal remains and connect the pieces with wire.
His skeleton in a glass cabinet was offered to the Meetirigala Aranya Senasanaya. I make it a point to see his skeleton at the Meethirigala Aranya Pahala Pansala whenever I am in Colombo and I feel that he is still with us.
May he attain the Supreme Bliss of Nirvana.
Hemal Perera
A leader among men who rose above nationalistic and religious boundaries
H. Sri Nissanka
In the dawn of pre-Independence, Mother Lanka was blessed with several iconic leaders dedicated to the upliftment of civil society. Privy Councillor Herbert Nissanka Mendis (H. Sri Nissanka) was an unsung leader among them. Though educated in Europe, he preferred the common villager’s simple way of life. His own was a lifestyle tempered with the Buddhist way of simplicity, purity and humility. He was an intellectual who could never be bought over.
He was born in 1898 at the famous Garumuni walauwwa in Balapitiya, the only son of Diveris Mendis and Anoma Wickremeratne Soyza, followed by three daughters. After he completed his primary education at Ananda College and then Royal College, it was the joint view of the family especially that of civic leader Sir D.B. Jayatilleke that he should enrol at Oxford University and gain an expert knowledge in law. This was most fortunate as it was where he met Ceylon’s future prime minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike.
Prior to sailing to England, young Nissanka had been an ordained Buddhist monk for four years in (then) Burma and he had an uncanny knack of discerning character and the future of people. Perhaps it was that, that enabled him to see the future of young Solomon Dias Bandaranaike. The friendship that blossomed between them was the main influence in moulding a more Lanka- oriented Bandaranaike in time to come.
After his return from the U.K., he brilliantly defended and exonerated many in very difficult criminal proceedings, establishing himself in the legal sphere in the 1930s and ’40s. It is reported that J.R. Jayewardene, later Executive President of the country had understudied him as a junior lawyer.
He became so popular as one who rose above nationalistic and religious boundaries that he was elected uncontested as the Municipal Council member of Wellawatte. Subsequently he was elected as the Member of Parliament for the Kurunegala electorate in the first Parliament of Sri Lanka. It was during this period that he was also President of the Sri Lanka Buddhist Congress.
He was also nominated to represent the country at many international forums. Despite such a busy life he wrote several books – a critical analysis on the Ceylon Penal Code, the History of England, Salgala Puda Bima (the Salgala monastery) and Athugalpura Satana (the Battle of Kurunegala). He was also the editor of two newspapers – Sankha Nadaya (The Clarion Call) and ‘Hela Diwa’.
But it was for his great service as a politician and founder of the SLFP that the common man will remember him for generations to come. Being a man of liberal views, he soon realised the need of the hour – a driving force gathering the Sangha, ayurvedic physicians, teachers, farmers and workers under one humble symbol to compete with the decaying aristocratic political parties reigning then.
Sam Wijesinha, the long-time Secretary General of Parliament delivering the commemorative oration at a felicitation ceremony in 2012 said that Sri Nissanka’s liberal views, political maturity and farsightedness became manifest through his way of championing commoners by creating a platform for them through the SLFP. “Sri Nissanka was a man of wider knowledge – both local and international; the way he solved nationalistic and religious extremist conflicts without allowing them to become national calamities was truly impressive.”
His own mansion ‘Yamuna Ashram’ in Kirulapone, Colombo was the fertile ground where the young like-minded elites of the day gathered and seeds of liberal views of national progression were planned. He was truly a selfless man – he spent his wealth growing that sapling party into a giant tree and resounding national victory in the very first general election it faced. Then he selflessly entrusted its leadership to his friend SWRD, but continued to be the guiding force behind the scene.
An anecdote related by his faithful driver shows that even when he was a prominent Privy Councillor he was conscious of his fellow man. During the malaria outbreak in 1934-35, Sri Nissanka went to the affected areas to distribute medication. While returning he had swallowed quinine by mistake and had developed serious side effects. Always having presence of mind, he directed his driver to take him to the Wariyapola police station which was the closest at that point; there he officially informed the Police of the circumstances, with instructions that the poor driver not be held responsible in the event of any tragedy. However, the OIC personally transported him to the Colombo General Hospital for timely treatment, averting a disaster.
Even if we disregard all his humanitarian services, creating the SLFP alone makes him a national icon and his mansion a museum. Unfortunately current leaders do not have a correct reading of those great times. Even the table and chairs that witnessed those great moments are still there but no one is interested in preserving them for posterity.
In 1954, when the country was at a critical period, Sri Nissanka passed away at the age of 56, leaving a great void in the party. That was indeed a great loss to the country.
Nissanka’s beloved life partner Mrs Muriel Sri Nissanka and his children Yamuna, Geetha and Ranjith supported him throughout in his work. And his grandchildren, among them Dr Avanthi Nissanka Karunaratne, Prof. Randiv Nissanka Karunaratne, Ranjith Abeysekera and Devika Wickremaratne have rallied round to continue the family tradition of service.
A simple commemorative ceremony along with a book donation campaign will be held on February 26 at Methmanga Meditation Centre, Rathgama, Galle to mark his 70th death anniversary.
-Tharaka Seneviratne
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