Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA)’s promotion of the ‘Ramayana trail’ package came in for heavy criticism at a Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka (RASSL) meeting at Colombo recently.
The issue was whether it was advisable to promote a fiction for the sake of marketing Sri Lanka. The participants at the meeting did not rule out possible negative consequences of this promotional campaign in the long term.
The academics, scholars and archaeologists attending the RASSL event included Dr. Malini Dias, Jt. Secretary – RASSL and former Director Epigraphy Dept. of Archaeology, Dr. K.D.G. Wimalaratne former Director Archives, Prof. Sirimal Ranawella (Emeritus Professor) Bandu de Silva former diplomat, Prof. Jayadeva Tilakasiri, Dr. Susantha Goonatilake, Prasad Fonseka, Mahesh Kannangara, Dr. R.H. Wickramasinghe, Hemantha Samarasinghe, Ramani Samarasinghe, K.S Pieris, Bindu Urugodawatta, Lakshmi A. Perera, C. Gaston Perera , Dr. W.M.K. Wijetunga, , B.A. Ariyatilake, Piyasena Dissanayke and W.A.D.I. Wisumperuma
In 2008 the Sri Lanka Government appointed a sub-committee to work out a Buddhist Pilgrim Travel Trail programme covering the SAARC region. The objective was to promote two-way pilgrim traffic – between Sri Lanka and other South Asian countries.
However during the same year the SLTDA came up with the idea of wooing Indian Hindus to visit what they believe are sacred sites associated with the Rama-Seetha legend. Last month the Tourism Ministry introduced the ‘Ramayana trail’ tourism package covering sites associated with the epic poem Ramayana.
To the intelligent observer the Tourism Authorities moving from the Buddhist Travel Trail programme to the Ramayana Trail seems to be a case of descending from the sublime to the ridiculous in relation to hard archaeological facts.
Among the points raised at the meeting was India’s scientific community rejecting the characters in Ramayana as having no proven historical basis. What is evident was that if not for the Sage Valmiki there would have been no Ramayana epic. In fact the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) earlier filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that there is no historical and scientific evidence to establish the existence of Lord Rama or the other characters in the Ramayana.
Attention was also drawn at the meeting to the Delhi High Court dismissing on May 19, 2008 a petition alleging that scholar A.K.Ramanujan in an article on Ramayana had defamed Lord Ram, Lakshman, Seetha and Hanuman by depicting them in bad light by saying that these are folklore and interpreted in various ways. The Court declared that the article was well-researched.
The Ramayana legend is known in even countries like Thailand. But there is a vast difference between legend and fact. A legend may be true but remains a legend until is proved beyond doubt to be fact.
In Sri Lanka the sites associated with Ramayana in Sri Lanka include Ravana Ella (Ravana Falls), Manawela Falls, Seetha Eliya, Hakgala, Rumassala, Sthripura Kanda caves, Laggala and Ritigala. But none of these places have yielded hard archeological evidence to prove that the Ramayana is a historical fact. As for the so-called Rama’s bridge in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka no evidence has been found in aerial photographs taken by the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration),USA, to prove that it is man-made bridge but a natural formation – despite Hindu fanatics raising a hue and cry over the Indian Government’s decision to dredge this area.
According to one Indian version Ramayana happened in the Thireyathaya yuga i.e., nearly 1.70 million years ago. If that was the case in does not seem like there was a separate land mass called Sri Lanka in that period. It was then part of the Indian sub-continent. It means there was no need for Rama to build a bridge.
Participants at the RASSL meeting also noted that Sri Lanka’s Great Chronicle Mahawamsa goes to the extent of referring to many Buddhas that lived in India before the birth of Siddhartha Gautama, but makes no reference to Rama or Ravana. This has also led to the speculation whether the Lanka cited in Ramayana is Sri Lanka or some place in India. On the whole Ramayana occupies a very small place in Sri Lanka’s history compared to references to Buddhist literature.
The Rama-Seetha legend no doubt occupies a special place in Hindu mythology and therefore Sri Lanka figures prominently in that literature. But it is also a fact that politics of India’s rightwing Bharathiya Janatha Party and the Hindu fundamentalist Shiv Sena are partly tied up with this legend which has had an unshakable hold on millions of Hindus. It is therefore not far fetched to conclude that promoting this legend to attract Indians can lead to the belief among Hindu zealots that this country too is really part of Maha Bharat (Greater India). Hindu temples linked to the Ramayana legend have come up in recent years in the Sri Lanka’s Central hills, patronized mostly by Tamils in plantation areas
Another curious aspect of this legend is that while Rama is a hero to North Indian Hindus he is a villain to some South Indians. Their hero is Ravana. The Dravida Munethra Kazaham which fuelled Tamil racism hero worshipped Ravana at one stage. Ironically Ravana is also a hero a section of the Sinhalas – the Hela Group - which insists that Ravana truly reigned in Sri Lanka and that he was a Hela (Sinhala) – that he invented the first flying machine Dandu Monara by which he abducted Seetha Devi. Now the question is whether Ravana was Sinhala or Tamil if he really existed. This is confusion confounded.
The issue is not whether there was a highly developed or great civilization existed in Sri Lanka before recorded history – the period associated with the Ramayana – but whether Rama, Seetha, Hanuman, Ravana and other such characters were real. The disturbing factor in the ‘Ramayana trail’ is the possibility that it would lead to a dilution of Sri Lanka’s true historical image.
India is promoting all its ancient Buddhist sites to attract Buddhists worldwide. So are several other Asian Buddhist countries. Cambodia after decades of devastating armed conflict has now successfully promoted Angkor Wat the 12th Century Buddhist temple complex is now drawing millions of tourists.
Yet Sri Lanka – supposedly the centre of Theravada Buddhism - seems to be giving priority to Ramayana trail over real historical sites in the Cultural Triangle and elsewhere that needs to be much more popularized worldwide among both Buddhists and non-Buddhists.- Asian Tribune -
By Janaka Perera
Colombo, 20 November, (Asiantribune.com).
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