Five days later on 01st August, the DM online had another report that said, the PM had requested President Sirisena to appoint a "presidential commission to determine whether anyone tried to create divisions within the Malwatte Chapter". The report further quotes PM as saying, “A person could be stripped of his civic rights if he is found to have worked towards a division within the chapters of the Maha Sangha". He is then reported to have said. he had suggested a clause in the proposed new Constitution to prohibit the division within the Sangha chapters and to make such an act an offence.
Competing to be better Buddhists or "willing supports" for Buddhism than practising Buddhists, don't serve any in creating an accommodating society for all. We have gone through a protracted war and paid with blood and life for refusing to accept equal status for all. We have denied a secular State and have created a society that refuse to accept equality of status for religions that has led to violent clashes against religious minorities. It is this Sinhala Buddhist supremacy that both Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith and PM Wickramsinghe is pandering to, disregarding equality in a multi religious, multi cultural country.
Leaving the PM's statements aside for a moment, let me say, religious leaders of other faiths should not get involved in any discourse in how Buddhism should be treated in the Constitution, a discourse best left for the lay Citizens to discuss and debate. "Marxists" in coalition with the SLFP government of Madam Bandaranayake, sealed the fate of a secular society 44 years ago, when Dr. Colvin R de Silva as Minister of Constitutional Affairs helped create the first Republican Constitution. Buddhism was then written into it as a privileged religion. For 44 years the State has been gradually fashioned into a Buddhist State leaving other religious leaders outside the discussion on how Buddhism should be treated in the formulation of a new Constitution. That responsibility falls on Buddhist clergy and lay Buddhist leaders. They will have to discuss and debate whether they would take responsibility in nurturing Buddhism or if they don't. IF they as Buddhists don't take responsibility in nurturing Buddhism, then there is no necessity for any other to take over that responsibility.
Larger majority of ordinary Buddhist folks I doubt take any interest in what is written into the Constitution. Those large numbers who flock to temples during poya holidays, those who indulge in rituals like "Paansakoole" (a Buddhist ritual at a funeral), third month or first year death anniversary alms giving, all night "pirith" ceremonies, those who go for meditation classes and those who patronise the new cult of "Ashram Buddhism", all with different perceptions in practising Buddhism wouldn't care what is written in the Constitution for Buddhism. They don't practise their own form of Buddhism, because it is a privileged religion in the Constitution. Nor do they remain Buddhists because Buddhism is given a privileged status in the Constitution. They remain the largest number, the biggest percentage of Buddhists who would go on practising Buddhism the way they know, despite what is written in the Constitution or what is not written in the Constitution. The status of Buddhism in society is largely decided by them and not with the Constitution.
The demand for Constitutional space for Buddhism has other ulterior motives mooted by a very small group of clergy and lay persons. Though small they are vocal groups with Sinhala media giving them larger than life coverage and they seek special social status and State power for which a "Sinhala Buddhist" plate is used. With Chapter II, Article 09 of the Constitution holding the State responsible to "protect and foster Buddha Sasana" the Sangha society became very much politicised. The Constitutional provision gave leaders in Sangha society, privileged access to State power. Most leading monks in powerful major Sanga chapters or "Nikayas" now wield authority to prevail upon government leaders for benefits and privileges. Benefits and privileges political leaders willingly offer to project themselves as "patrons of Buddhism". All that often has little to do with nurturing Buddhism.
On the platform of nurturing and fostering Buddhism, neither political leaders nor leading Buddhist monks have ever taken an interest in improving the quality of Buddhist philosophical education and reforming Buddhism. They are least bothered about weird mystic rituals marketed as Buddhist practices that only promote the temple and its leading monk and not Buddhism. Even as a humanitarian necessity, no thought is given to a social security scheme for aged Buddhist monks to be taken care of with respect and dignity. A situation that compels the elderly monk to hold on to temple property till the last breath. Such has led to conflicts, at times violent, between junior monks who are left to share property owned by the temple. No thought is given to commercialising of temple premises that needs to be consciously discouraged.
Meanwhile, "nurturing and fostering" Buddhism has been reduced to colourful and expensive material gains; annexing more and more land, large and heavy constructions, all material comforts that ordinary people cannot even dream of earning. State power is sought just for that. Like how a large extent of wetland declared a sanctuary was filled up with State acceptance to have a large vehicle park and "Rest rooms" as property of the temple.
The Sangha has never been without rivalry, never been without crisis and feuding in all its history in Sri Lanka. There were times the Kings were part of the conflict and patronised one Vihara over another. Periods the Sangha was not even considered Buddhist monks and were popularly called "Ganin-naanse". It is such degeneration of Buddhism and its Sangha that Article 09 dragged into further degeneration with State patronage. Left in a free market economy Buddhism was also heavily commercialised. Temples as property owned and controlled by individual monks outside any structural or organisational discipline and obligations, became market places and competitive over material life. Traditional one hour sermons by popular monks were given a market price, only the urban middle class could afford. It is such monks and their "Nikayas" that PM Wickramasinghe is promising State patronage and intervention to help survive.
He tries to project himself as a very pious Buddhist by giving a crude definition to "rivalry" among monks, calling such conflicts, "creating divisions" among the Sangha with special mention of the Malwatte chapter. It is leading monks of the Malwatte Chapter who led to the creation of divisions in the Sangha by refusing higher ordination to "low country" monks. They thus compelled Southern Buddhist monks to establish their own "Nikayas", Amarapura and Ramanna backed by Sinhala traders. Since then these Nikayas have had their internal conflicts and personal rivalries that led to over 05 main "Nikayas" and over 03 dozen "sub Nikayas" by now. Amarapura alone has around 24 sub Nikayas.
Let me stress this fact. No "Nikaya" was established on philosophical deviations and interpretations on Dhamma. Most "Nikayas" are geographically restricted like the Malwatte and Asigiriya chapters strictly restricted to the Kandyan nobility and are also caste oriented. What other divisions does the PM talk of in preventing through Presidential Commissions?
Politically decided State patronage always accelerates the decline and degeneration of Buddhism, or any religion for that matter. State interventions have always made certain, leadership of any religion co-opted within its political authority is reduced to political survival. Constitutional provision has made such politicising, legal. This provokes political leaders to project themselves as pious Buddhists, visiting temples and promising better patronage than the opposing politicians. This State patronage is not promised in terms of improving and supporting Buddhism. It is calculated in terms of Sinhala Buddhist votes they believe they could garner at elections. Wickramasinghe is no different, competing with Rajapaksa to be a better Buddhist.
Thus it is time for the larger majority of practising Buddhists to say, they don't need politicians and governments to interfere with their Buddhism. Time to ask politicians to leave Buddhism and the Sangha for the devotees to take care of, the way they wish and could. It is time too for saner Buddhists to tell their monks, they wish to have their temples free of government leaders who are also political leaders. In short, it is time for ordinary Buddhists to decide, they can be practising Buddhists without Constitutional provisions. They can take care of the Sangha, who are anyway cared for by devotees. Constitutional provisions always being wholly irrelevant in how Buddhists, the monks and the temples decide their relationship. Except when monks decide in allowing politicians to use temples as political campaign centres. A culture that needs to be strictly checked by Buddhists for the benefit of Buddhism.
(Kusal Perera - kusalperera.blogspot.com)
