Address at the World Tipiṭaka Presentation
in Memory of Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana
By Prof. J.B.Disanayaka,
Ambassador of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos
13 November, 2008
Your Excellencies,
Hon. Pradeep Nilanga Dela, the chief lay custodian of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka,
Major Suradhaj Bunnag and other members of the M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund,
My colleagues from the academic world,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
As the ambassador of Sri Lanka to the Kingdom of Thailand, I am fortunate to be able to participate in today’s ‘Preview of Tipiṭaka Presentation’ ceremony held in memory of Her Royal Highness Late Princess Galyani Vadhana, Krom Luang Naradhivas Rajanagarindra, Royal Patron of the World Tipiṭaka
My presence in Bangkok at this moment is, no doubt, due to the merits that I have acquired in the past: “pubbeca kata puññatā”
Thailand (or Siam, as Sri Lankans still call it) is the country with which Sri Lanka had maintained the closest cultural relationship in the past. Even though India was the land that gave us Buddhism and the most important elements of Buddhist culture, Buddhism disappeared in India as an institutional religion due to the waves of Brahmanism and Islam and the assimilating quality of Hinduism.
Over the last two millennia, Thailand, originally a part of ‘Suvannabhumi’ (the Land of Gold) and later called ‘Siam’ until 1932, was the Asian country with which Sri Lanka had, and still has, the closest cultural relationship. This is mainly due to the fact that Thailand occupies a unique position in the Buddhist world.
Thailand is the country which has the largest Buddhist population. About 95% of its 61 million people are Buddhists. They, like the Sri Lankan Buddhists, belong to the Theravada school of Buddhism. Though there are minor differences in the practice of Theravada Buddhism in the two countries, they share a common heritage in the Teachings, the Sacred Word of the Buddha, enshrined in the ‘Tipiṭaka.
Thailand is the country which is headed by the most respected Buddhist monarch in the world. While the Buddhist kingdom of Sri Lanka came to an end in 1815, with the entry of Ceylon into the British Empire as a colony, \ Thailand continues to be a Buddhist kingdom, with Buddhism as its state religion. Sri Lankan kings of the 18th century had sent embassies to the court of Siam during the Ayuttaya period.
The fact that the king of Thailand is also the longest-reigning monarch in the world makes Buddhists very happy. The present king, His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej has been in the throne since 1950. His Majesty celebrated his eightieth birthday on December 5th, in 2007, and as the Ambassador of Sri Lanka, I had the rare privilege of participating in the birth anniversary celebrations at the Palace.
The people of Thailand look up to His Majesty as a ‘dhammika rajā’ : a paragon of righteousness, and as a ‘bodhi satta’ : ‘a Buddha in the making’. I take this opportunity to wish His Majesty, good health and long life: “ciraṃ jivatu mahā rajā”
Thailand is a country which has not only a ‘Mahā Rajā’ but also a ‘Saṅgha Rājā’ (His Holiness the Supreme Patriarch), under whose patronage this Dhamma Society is making good progress. As the head of the community of Buddhist monks in Thailand, His Holiness Somdet Phra Ñāṇasaṃvara, provides guidance to this Society to be a very useful organization to propagate the Buddha dhamma for the sake of global peace.
Sri Lanka is unique in the Buddhist world because of its association with the Buddha himself. Our ancient chronicles, the Dipavaṃsa and the Mahavaṃsa, written in Pāḷi, the language of the ‘Tipiṭaka’, record that the Buddha himself visited our island thrice. On the third occasion, he left his foot print (sri pada) on the peak of the mountain in the central highlands, which the Sinhalese Buddhists call ‘samanala kanda’ (the mountain of god Saman) and the English call ‘Adam’s Peak’, because Adam, the first man, placed his foot here on his way from Paradise.
Sri Lanka has the oldest living relic of the Buddha, sri mahā bodhi, at the first royal capital, Anuradhapura, It is considered the oldest historic tree in the world. It was brought from Buddhagaya in India, as a sapling of the original tree under which the Buddha attained Enlightenment, to our island in the 3rd century BC by the Buddhist nun, Sanghamitta, daughter of the Indian Emperor Asoka. It is worshiped as the most sacred ‘paribogika cetiya’ of the Buddha.
Three of the tallest buildings of the Old World, where the pyramids of Egypt were most outstanding, were the three tallest Buddhist stupas (‘cedi’ as they are called in Thai) at Anuradahapura. The stupa at the monastery known as Jetavanarmama rose to a height of 400 ft, to be on par with the tallest pyramids of Egypt.
Sri Lanka also has the most sacred bodily relic (saririka cetiya) of the Buddha : one of his four canine teeth: ‘da:tha dhatu’. It is deposited in a temple in the last royal capital ‘Maha Nuvara’ (which is known in English as ‘Kandy’) . This ‘Temple of the Sacred Tooth’ is called in Sinhala ‘dalada maligava’ (literally, the ‘Palace of the Sacred Tooth, because it was a part of the royal palace of the last of our kings)
I feel very happy that the M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund has decided to present one set of the World Tipiṭaka in the Roman script to this most sacred Temple of the Sacred Tooth. Today, it will be received by the chief lay custodian of this Temple, the diya vadana nilame, Hon. Pradeep Nilanga Dela. who is the chief Buddhist layman of our country.
I am happy to mention that the office he holds, that of the ‘Diyavadana Nilame’, is a unique one, found only in Sri Lanka. The title means, literally, ‘the officer (nilame) who increases (vadana) water (diya).In other words, he was the king’s ‘water increasing minister’. It was his duty to see that its rains in due season, to increase water, to make the land bountiful in crops. Sri Lankan Buddhists chant every day, in Pāḷi:
“devo vassatu kalena”
‘May the gods give rain in due season’
‘May the clouds give rain in due season)
For this purpose, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth conducts a rain-making festival in the month of Asaḷha, (July-August) to invoke the blessings of the ‘rain gods’ (vassa valahaka deva). In this most colorful pageant, which imitates rain, hundred of elephants parade, symbolizing rain-clouds. The relic casket containing the sacred tooth is taken on an elephant along the streets of Kandy.
Sri Lankan Buddhists believe that the ‘Tooth Relic’ of the Buddha has the magical power to cause rain, because it belongs to the Buddha, who had the power to cause rain, as when He visited the Indian state of Vesali at the height of its drought, bringing it rain in abundance. It is this magical power of the Tooth Relic that made the kings of Sri Lanka keep it under high security in their own palaces. Even today, the Temple where it is kept is not called ‘Dalada Vihara’ (Temple of the Tooth Relic) but ‘Dalada Maligava’ the Palace of the Tooth Relic’. Since this Scared Tooth Relic gave the kings of Lanka the right to rule, it is still under high security.
The grand finale of this Rain-making ceremony is the so-called ‘diya kapana mangalle’ (water-cutting ritual) held on the banks of the main river of the island, Mahaveli, which flows by Kandy. Every Buddhist in Sri Lanka believes that on the moment of this ‘water cutting’ ceremony which takes place in the early hours of the morning, it begins to rain.
Today, the Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund will be presenting the 40-volume World Tipiṭaka to this Temple of the Sacred Tooth in Sri Lanka. As Sri Lankan Buddhists we are indeed happy to note that the Tipiṭaka, the Buddhist canon, which was transmitted orally for generations, was committed to writing for the first time by 500 monks of Sri Lanka at a highland temple which came to be known later as ‘alu vihāra’ which means ‘the temple of light or enlightenment’. Today, your decision to present the latest Romanized edition of the Tipiṭaka to Sri Lanka makes us feel very greatly honoured as the first literary custodians of the word of the Buddha.
I have been told that this Romanized Edition is based on the authorized version prepared by 2,500 erudite monks who met at the Sixth Buddhist Council held in Yangon in 1956. Among these monks were some of the most erudite monks of Sri Lanka, who were well versed in Pāḷi and the teachings of the Buddha. As Buddhists we can rejoice that we are now able to enter the new millennium with a precise body of religious knowledge that will stand the test of time and science.
In conclusion, I wish to thank Maj. Bunnag for inviting me to take part in this historic event, held in honour of Her Royal Highness, Late Princess Galyani Vadhana on the eve of her royal cremation. May I take this opportunity to humbly wish that Her Royal Highness may finally attain the supreme bliss of ‘nibbāna’. May I also wish all of you happiness:
“sabbe sattā bhavantu sukhitattā”
May all living beings be happy!
