Midweek Review

Historical context of politicisation of Mahavamsa, and Tamil translation of the last volume

- BY CHANDRE DHARMAWARDANA [e-mail]

The sixth volume of the Mahavamsa, covering the period 1978-2010 has been rendered into Tamil by N. Saravanan, a well-known Tamil journalist and activist based in Norway.

The first three volumes of the Mahavamsa (including the Culavamsa) are now a part of the UNESCO world heritage. They were the work of individual scholar monks, whereas the modern volumes (V to VI) were produced through state-sponsored collective efforts [1].

Although state-sponsored writing of history has been criticised, even the first Mahavamsa, presumably written by the Thera Mahanama in the 5th CE, probably enjoyed Royal Patronage. Furthermore, while it is not at all a sacred text, it is clearly a "Buddhist chronicle" compiled for the "serene joy of the pious" rather than a History of Ceylon, as compiled by, say the University of Ceylon. The latter project was a cooperative venture modeled after the Cambridge Histories. Unlike the Mahavamsa, which is a religious and poetic chronicle, the University effort was an academic work using critical historical methods and archaeological evidence. Hence the criticism [2] leveled against the Mahavamsa editorial board for lack of "inclusivity" (e.g., lack of Muslim or Hindu scholars in the editorial board) may be beside the point. The objection should only be that the ministry of culture has not so far sponsored histories written by other ethno-religious Lankan groups presenting their perspectives. In the present case the ministry of culture is continuing a unique cultural tradition of a Pali Epic, which is some nine centuries old. There has been no such continuous tradition of cultural historiography by other ethnoreligious groups on this island (or elsewhere), for the cultural ministry to support.