Confronting the Complexity of Loss

past’. 10 Sasanka Perera offers a similar interpretation, and argues that ancient wars
between regional rulers were fought for the purpose of capturing territory and economies
rather than on racial or religious grounds. In his paper The Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka:
A Historical and Socio-political Outline, Perera observes that the subsequent ‘retelling’
of history in the Mahāvamsa by Buddhist monks contributed to race consciousness by
characterising these wars as ‘Sinhalese campaigns’ undertaken to ‘protect Buddhism and
the Sinhalese nation’. 11 Gunawardana also refers to the Mahāvamsa’s account of the
Buddha charging Sakka, the ‘king of gods’, with the protection of the island of Sri Lanka
because it is the country in which Buddhism will be established. 12 Gunawardana
characterises these myths contained in the Mahāvamsa as subsequent ‘validation[s] of a
particular socio-political order’, and ‘embodiment[s] of a state ideology seeking to unite
the dominant elements in society and to bring them under a common bond of allegiance
to the ruling house’ 13 These subsequent narratives sought to establish the claim that the
Sinhalese were the first to establish a civilisation in the country, and that Buddhism was
their religion.
Contemporary educational curricula, including school textbooks, reinforce some of these
narratives, which eventually became accepted as historical fact. History textbooks draw
heavily and uncritically from the Mahāvamsa. Chapter 6 of the Grade 6 history textbook
details an account of Dutugemunu, a Sinhalese ruler, defeating Elara, a Tamil ruler
somewhere between 161 and 137 B.C.E. The text cites directly from the Mahāvamsa and
begins by claiming that the Tamil ruler was ‘foreign’ and that the Sinhalese ruler aimed
to ‘liberate the country from foreign rule’, ‘reunite the country’ and ‘protect Buddhism’. 14
By contrast, Gunawardana’s interpretation of the original text of the Mahāvamsa and
alternative historical sources paint a very different picture of history. He argues that
Dutugemunu’s campaign was unlikely to have been a ‘Sinhala-Tamil confrontation’, and
was merely aimed at capturing territory—not only from Elara, but also from multiple
other regional rulers. Yet the accounts contained in the Mahāvamsa have dominated the
consciousness of the Sinhalese majority and have formed ‘an important aspect of social
and political socialisation in contemporary Sri Lanka’. 15
10 Ibid. at 1. The author presents a compelling critique of the view held by historians including S.
Paranavitana that ‘almost everyone was a Sinhalese’ even as early as pre-Christian times. See S.
Paranavitana, Inscriptions of Ceylon, Vol. I (1970), at Ixxxix. To the contrary, Gunawardana argues that at
least three distinct groups may have existed in the country during its early history and that only a particular
ruling group referred to themselves as ‘Sinhala’ before others were later assimilated.
11 Perera, op. cit. at 8.
12 Gunawardana, op. cit. at 5. According to the Mahāvamsa, the Buddha stated: ‘In Lanka, O lord of gods,
will my religion be established, therefore carefully protect him with his followers and Lanka.’ See Wilhelm
Geiger, The Mahavamsa or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon: Translated into English (1950), chapter VII,
verse 4.
13 Gunawardana, op. cit. at 14.
14 Remarkably, the Tamil version of the history textbook carries a different formulation. For example, the
concluding line of the chapter in the Sinhalese version states that Dutugemunu liberated the country from
‘foreign’ rule and united the country for the first time in 44 years. The corresponding line in the Tamil
version states that Dutugemunu, for the first time in 44 years, conquered Anuradhapura where Elara had
been ruling ‘with justice’.
15 Perera, op. cit. at 8.
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