We continue our serialization of the book Mary and Human Liberation- The Other Side by Manel Abhayaratna
4. Question: What made you take up this matter finally?
Answer: First of all, as Bishops and chief Pastors of our churches, it is our duty to safeguard and defend the integrity of the doctrinal heritage of the church. This is part of our overall mission to "strengthen the brethren". (Lc 22:32).
It is in the light of this same responsibility that canon law states that as Pastors we have "the duty and the right to demand that where writings of the faithful touch upon matters of faith and morals, these should be submitted to their (Bishops) judgment" (Canon 823).
The same canon further states that Bishops "have the duty and the right to condemn writings which harm true faith or good morals" (Canon 832).
5. Question: Isn't there any requirement of ecclesiastical law to submit such writings for ecclesiastical approval prior to publication?
Answer: Certainly, Canon 827 states Books or other written material dealing with religion or morals may not be displayed, sold or given away in churches or oratories, unless they are published with the permission of the competent ecclesiastical authority.
In the case of this book, no such permission had been obtained. Fr. Balasuriya once challenged the application of this canon to his book stating that it is not sold in churches or oratories. But that was after the issue was taken up by the Bishops. Earlier this book was freely sold through some of our own church establishments and he was surely aware of it. Besides, we are told that the Centre for Society and Religion, which is the Publisher of this book, is selling it even now. The Center is located in a church compound.
6. Question: Fr. Balasuriya has been repeatedly stating that proper procedure was not followed in this matter. Is that correct?
Answer: This talk of proper procedure by Fr. Balasuriya is totally one sided. One has to ask who really broke proper procedure? He ignored procedure set out by Canon law and published his book in 1990 - two years before the Bishops moved in on the matter. Even many of his other publications on some aspects of the faith had been already published without adhering to such required procedure. When he had violated procedure, the Bishops were required to follow what is laid down for them as duty to "condemn writings which harm true faith" (canon 823:1).
Every time I read an official teaching on Mary, I feel alienated from the Church. Somehow I just cannot identify with this superhumanised being.
The "immaculate" woman who cannot be tempted to sin. The virgin most venerable who is above the sexual intimacy that is such a vital part of married life. The "Queen of Heaven" who seems untainted by the poverty and human degradation of this world.
I feel sorry for this woman, burdened with so many hidden agendas. Manipulated by a theology that misunderstood human sexuality, she is used to reinforce the "higher state" of celibacy. Handmaid of a patriarchal, hierarchical ideology, she serves to encourage obedience to authority, and the domestication of women. The only woman with divine connections, she is made into an ideal that stands in opposition to the "fallen" feminine.
Faced with this larger than life image, it is easy to lose sight of the simple, earthy woman Mary really was. The woman of courage and commitment who affirms the sacredness of womanhood. The flesh and blood woman whom Tissa Balasuriya put me in touch with.
I can feel her fear at the Annunciation - the point of no return. The leap in faith as you accept that unexpected life within your womb: rearranging your mind, your body, your emotions, your life, as you take on this role of co-creator. For Mary, it is a "yes" that makes her an active partner in God's plan of salvation and the struggle contained therein.
It couldn't have been easy for her as a mother to be disowned in public. Or to put up with the taunts that her son was out of his mind. I can imagine her fear as she hears rumours that the Jewish authorities want to kill her son. And I am filled with admiration. When I think of what it must have taken for her to open her home to her son's friends - tax-collectors and prostitutes, the scum of Jewish society. It is a sign of her constant evolution in faith, in love, in involvement.
For me, a woman, the meeting of Mary and Elisabeth is very special. I see two women reaching out to each other in solidarity. Mary, young and strong, offering help and support to the ageing Elisabeth in her late pregnancy, and Elisabeth, mature and experienced in the ways of God, offering counsel and encouragement to the frightened young girl as she embarks on her journey of darkness. Two women coming together when the events in their lives are too big for them to handle alone. Two women so far apart in age, yet united by a common cause - meeting the demands of God in their lives.
The meeting of Mary and Elisabeth is also the setting for the Magnificat. Both these women have been chosen to play a part in the history of salvation: both are pregnant with prophetic life.
Her words are a prelude to the Sermon on the Mount. They place her in the midst of GodÕs own people, the marginalised, who are desperately in need of personal and social liberation. She is the shelterless woman who gives birth to her first born in a stable, the smell of dung in her nostrils - like the woman in the slums. She is the political refugee hounded by Herod - like the defenceless woman who is terrorised for political or communal gains. She is the "lowly handmaid" a member of the labour class.
It is unfortunate that none of this is reflected in traditional Marian spirituality. Marian apparitions speak of sin and the need for prayer, but there is no hint of our own role in social transformation. Similarly, invocations to Mary focus on her motherhood, her virginity and her intercessory power without communicating her witness to the revolutionary message of her son. As Balasuriya points out:
The liberative aspect of transformation of values, relationships and structures is absent. We are made suppliants, without a motivation for an active participation in social liberation of an integral nature.
So preoccupied are we with dogmas that bestow on Mary a quasi- divine status, that we have neglected the socially radical significance of the Mary of the Magnificat. A Mary who challenges us to get out of our own private lives; to take the side of the powerless; to overturn unjust structures; to put the common good of persons before individual or corporate profit; to challenge the oppressive power of religious, political and military leaders; to persevere in the search for global peace; to fight technological "advances" that destroy the integrity of creation.
This Mary is Tissa Balasuriya's forte.
He speaks as one of Mary's anawim. His world is one of deprivation, where children die due to starvation or are sold into the sex trade while millions elsewhere have a surfeit of food. He has seen the pain and devastation of war, and questions the role of arms exporters who support "low intensity conflict" so that they can grow rich at the cost of the poor countries. He understands well the implications of foreign debts that can never be repaid, of unequal distribution of the goods of the earth, of domination of the world scene by the politically mighty, of the development of thought patterns by religious establishments to legitimise their power. Maybe too disturbing for some
A region in the Uva and Eastern Provinces has suddenly become the subject of controversy in both electronic and print media. Buddhist clergy supported by laymen joined protest campaigns and marched on the streets carrying posters demanding that the Government intervene to protect this area.
The subject was Digavapi.
Many people think Digavapi is only a Buddhist Dagaba in the Ampara District built during the Second Century B. C. It is true that an enormous Dagaba was built by King Sadda Tissa, brother of Dutugemunu. According to the Mahawansa, the Buddha on his third visit to Sri Lanka, after spending the day at the foot of Samantakuta (Adam's Peak) set out for Digavapi and seated himself with the brotherhood at the place where the Cetiya (afterwards) stood. He gave himself up to meditation to consecrate the spot.
However, Dipavamsa, the older Chronicle says that the Buddha travelling through air, went to Digavapi from Kelaniya thupa and that "at the place of Digavapi Cetiya, the Buddha who was full of compassion to the world, descended from the air and again entered upon mystical meditation.
Therefore Digavapi Cetiya has become one of the sixteen most sacred places of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka.
Digavapi Mandala or Digamadulla is supposed to be the settlement named after Prince Dighayu, one of six brothers of Baddha Katyana, the queen of King Panduwas Deva. It is said that the Indo-Aryan ancestors of the Sinhalese who came from North India and colonized the Island, named those settlements after them.
Similarly, the five other brothers too (of queen Baddha Katyana) Rama, Uruwela, Anuradha, Vijitha and Rohana had their settlements named after them.
It is also a belief that the word Digha Vapi (long tank) was used to identify this region by the existence of such a reservoir during the reign of Kakavanna Tissa, father of Dutugemunu, in the 2nd Century B. C. It is possible that one of the tanks in the district was called Digavapi, named after the district. In "Ancient Irrigation works in Ceylon" R. L. Brohier states that it was "Mahakandiya Wewa" that was called Digavapi.
The Digha-vapi was undoubtedly an ancient work of very great importance. It is occasionally mentioned in the ancient annals, but the reservoir has never been definitely identified. There are, however, two very strong clues which assist in attesting almost to a certainty that it is the abandoned tank now known as Maha- Kandiya Wewa or in the Tamil version Kandia-Kattu.
The first of these clues hinges on very definite data which confines Digha-vapi to the South Eastern region of the Island. The other is based on a not unreasonable assumption that one of the characteristics of the old tank has been perpetuated by its name.
The only "long tank" (Digha Vapi) in the South East of Ceylon is the totally abandoned work alluded to which has relapsed more or less to its original wild forest. The latest topographical and contour sheets assist more readily than data available in the past to visualize the latter of these two clues, and to weigh the probability that Maha-Kandiya was the Digha-vapi of old.
However, many other scholars did not agree with the above theory, and in "Historical topography of Ancient and Medieval Ceylon", C. W. Nicholas wrote:
.... and Dr. Paranavithana has made an important observation on the connection between Digayu and Dighavapi... In the identification of Dighavapi, it is, therefore, not necessary to look for a long tank. The construction of a tank named Dighavapi is nowhere recorded, and the medieval Sinhalese name for the region did not include the element Vapi (Tanks. vapi).
Digavapi Mandala of ancient fame could now be identified as the area of Authority of the former Gal Oya Development Board. It is extended over both banks of the Galha Ganga (Gal Hoy, presently called Gal Oya) covering a vast area.
Mahavamsa states that Kakavanna Tissa stationed his second son, prince Tissa at Digavapi with troops and chariots in order to guard the open country. (MV 23-16, 24.2) After defeating the Tamil King, King Dutugemunu appointed his brother Tissa to reside at Digavapi and to develop agriculture as this was one of the most important areas of food production.
Prince Tissa's development work in the region could be assessed by the number of ruins that were found there at the start of the Gal Oya Development Board. A map showing archaeological ruins within the Gal Oya Valley prepared during this time shows over 60 such sites. However, a 1:250,000 map prepared by the Survey Department in 1992 shows only four or five such sites.
On ascending the throne in B. C. 137 King Saddatissa built the Digavapi Cetiya together with the Vihara of that name. The Sinhala chronicles call it diganaka or Naka Vihara and the ruined Monument near Irakkamam too was locally called Nakha Vehera prior to its occupation by the Sangha about 1924, and probably it is identified by its correct name, Digavapi Cetiya.
King Saddatissa's two sons Lan Jatissa and Thulathana built Girikumbhila vihara and Kandara vihara respectively. Girikumbhila or Kumbhila Vihara is identified by the recent finding of inscriptions in situ near Bakkiela, but the other, Kandara Vihara has not yet been discovered.
Several other inscriptions belonging to more recent times too have been found in the area, one such finding being the discovery of a gold leaf inscription in 1986 deposited inside a reliquary made of thin gold sheets near the western Wahalkada of the ancient stupa, Digavai Cetiya.
Along with the reliquary which contained the gold leaf, two other gold reliquaries were found, all deposited in a stone casket embedded in the aforesaid frontispiece.
On the eastern side of Divulana tank (Bordering the Southern boundary of Batticaloa district) is a large rocky hill with many ancient caves. These were the former abode of eremite monks and many of these caves bear rock inscriptions of the 2nd and 1st Centuries B. C.
Among them are three inscriptions of a more recent time, the 8th Century A. D. These inscriptions relate to the grant of lands by local rulers of Rohana to a monastery called Artitara Vihara of which remains are now seen at Rasahela in this region.
The donors of these lands were Apay Dalsiva or Adipada Datasiva, a Prince whose name figures in the reign of Udaya I (also called Dappula II), Sena, a high dignitary of Rohana and Viramkura, the Administrator of Lam Janau area of Digavapi Mandala. The areas where the lands so granted were at:
i. Four payal of Kalavali (in Lam Janau district, around present Divulana);
ii. A payal of Soruyar in Digapidulla (on the southern bank of Galoya, below the area of present Digavapi Cetiya;
iii. Four payal of Mhavagna is Saravaga (Area below Malavattai),
iv. Four payal of Malatta (around the present village of Malattai);
v. Four payal of Mivamgamu, Cularalla (this may be Miwangamuwa, near Ampara) (Payala is a term of land measurement) EZ Vol. IV- P. 175.
There is also reference in Culawamsa (75.5, 45.60) that Malwattu Mandala a sub District was around the village of Malwattai and that the said village was granted to Ariyakara Vihara, a monastery in Rohana in the middle of the 7th Century. (JRAS Vol. VI-P.29)
Past Colonization Schemes which settled citizens who respected and cared for these priceless historical and religious monuments have, at least to a fair extent, prevented the destruction of such monuments, which is the heritage of all Sri Lankans irrespective of their race or religion.
It is our duty to protect these valuable historical monuments and their surroundings as they treasure the glorious past of a nation which existed two thousand years or more, shining above most of the nations of the present "Developed World."
Continue to Plus page 3 - "Writing today is vibrant and exciting": Sri Lanka's Booker Prize nominee Romesh Gunasekera * Sandglass: flirting with death: Romesh on his new book
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