It is interesting to see how people from other countries have more knowledge about our traditions than an average Sri Lankan.   I am re-posting an artciel I found in “akanezumiya.com”.  This article was initially published in 1998 Sept/Oct,  issue of Arts of Asia Magazine. This has a very nice depiction of the Sri Lankan Masked “Bali/Thowil” tradition.

A MIDNIGHT ceremony. Crowds milling, bodies slick with sweat in the tropical night. Torches lining an earthen arena. A patient is dazed with illness, propped on a low seat. The rhythmic beat of drums. The smell of smoking resin. A figure enters, back first and the rhythm of the drums changes, intensifies. The figure whirls and the patient is suddenly presented with the face of his tormentor!

The yakun natima, or devil dance ritual of Sri Lanka, is nothing if not full of drama. Not just a charade or interval designed to entertain, the yakun natima is a carefully crafted ritual with a history reaching far back into Sri Lanka’s pre-Buddhist past. It combines ancient Ayurvedic concepts of disease causation with deft psychological manipulation. Lasting up to twelve hours, it mixes raucous humour with deep-rooted fears to create a healing catharsis for both patient and community.

But while the beating of the bereya drums, the torchlight, and the smoky resin contribute to the aura of the night’s magic, it is the masked face of the edura, or exorcist/shaman, that personifies the power of the moment-the devil incarnate (1). It is the mask or vesmuna which localises the fears and anxieties of both patient and audience. To the Sinhalese, it is this face, carved of wood, with bulging eyes, protruding nose and gaping mouth, disfigured and fierce, which represents both cause and cure (2).

For the ethnographer, the traditional belief systems and practices surrounding the yakun natima and other masked dance rituals of Sri Lanka’s southern coast provide a rich and fascinating field for research. For the collector, these ritual masks represent a sophisticated folk art form; beautiful and mysterious. Carved of wood and pigmented with natural hues and resins, these masks are infused with a spirit and animation which command attention. The patination of a ritual mask, darkened by years of use, and the repairs upon repairs of cherished examples bespeak their importance within their village communities. Within the context of the dance they are hypnotising. Taken out of that context and viewed on their own they are masterpieces of a rich folk art tradition.

To look at a complete collection of late nineteenth century ritual dance masks provides insight into the imagery and beauty that are the essence of these powerful spiritual talismans.

You can read the Full Artcile at

http://akanezumiya.com/publications/mag4.htm

I know there has being number of scientific explanations on how the “Thowils” actually cured the mental illness and conditions. In the old Vidusara Magazines, there were quite a few articles on the subject (1hen I was reading them in 1988/1989 period). If any of our fellow readers have any articles, new items related to this subject and it will be our privilage to provide a place for that information to get publsihed at the Mandapa.org

Images with courtesy of  http://asiarecipe.com/srimasks.html

We had the first project of mandapa Sri Lankan organisation with Mr Jackson Anthony at Coral Deirah Hotel in Dubai, UAE. Mr Anthony has spent well over three hours in a lecture and a discussion that was looking at the role the Sri Lanka played in the ancient history. He has brought in a wealth of information from the world history that spans from ancient Greek to British Raj era and conducted an informative and interesting analysis on how strong a nation we had in the ancient history.

We are very happy to publish the same for your comments, reviews and discussion.

Our sincere thanks to Mr Jackson Anthony for the great presentation and helping us to make this first event a resounding success.

All seats booked, Sponsorships arranged (Touchwood and Sri Lankan… thank you very much!), Visas done, Hotels bookings done, Menus finalised, Flowers, Oil lamps in place… Only thing pending was to get a new shirt for me…

But unfortunate incidents happen… Our beloved artists Joe Abeywikrama passed away… Jackson, our guest speaker, as one of the leaders in the Sri Lankan art and media community is part of the team that was arranging a fitting farewell to the great maestro.  We mourn his death as the mandapa.org community, we know it’s a bigger loss to our country and a week’s delay for our humble event is excusable…

We had to postpone the event to next friday, thats 30th of Septemeber. We lost our booking with the hotel, so have to move to another venue. We have the place almost finalised. Just need to confirm and let all of you know the new place…

So if any one already has an invitation, please hang-on  to them will send you an update. We have few more seats in the new location, if you want to join us next Friday evening, please send us an email to info@mandapa.org.

“Anga” in the native tongue is body and “Pora” signified  combat ( Singhala is the native language of the Sinhalese who are the majority in the country ). Body combat also unarmed combat, was called Angampora as only the human body parts were used to fight.

Main parts in Angampora are

• Gataputttu ( Locks and grips)
• Pora Harammba (Offense and defense techniques)
• Maru Kala (Nerve point attacks)

Gataputtu

Gataputtu
is the techniques that Angam fighter using to weak, kill or disarm the enemy. To placing gataputtu  on enemy Angam fighter use his body parts like hands, legs, head..ect..ect. Angam discpile must learn how to place  gataputtu on opponent and also he must learn how to redeem from
gataputtu if some one place gataputtu on him. Without using proper redeem techniques its impossible to redeem from gataputtu. Gataputtu is a
major part of Angampora and it has very big pool of techniques. Machmore detailed information can be read at http://angampora.org/technique/unarmed-combat/

ජැක්සන් ඇන්තනි යනු මේ දේශපාලන ක්‍රියාදාමයේ යන්ත්‍රයට හසු වූ තවත් එක් චරිතයකි. ඔහුටත්, අපි සැමට මෙන්  තමන්ගේම දේශපාලන පිලිගැනීමක් තිබේ. ජීවිත කාලයක අත් දැකීම් මත ගොඩ නගා ගත් තමන්ගේම දර්ශණයක්ද තිබේ. එසේම සෑම නිදහස් පුරවැසියෙකුටම මෙන් තම මතය ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමේ අයිතියක්ද ඔහුට හිමි විය යුතුය…

පසුගිය වකවානුවේ දේශපාලන කරලියටපිවිසි කළා කරුවන් රැසකි. ඔවුන් අතරින් ජැක්සන්ගේ භූමිකාව සැමවිටම විශේෂ අවධානයට පාත්‍ර විය. මීට හේතුව ඔහු බොහෝවිට පුහු දේශපාලන වේදිකාවට බුද්ධිමය පසුතලයක් ගෙන ආ නිසා විය හැකිය. කෙසේ නමුදු, අප ඔහු දැන සිටියේ ආදරණීය කළා කරුවෙකු ලෙසය. පෙර දින ජැක්සන් යන කළා කරුවාට එකාවන්ව ආදරය කල අප, අද දින ජැක්සන් නැමති දාර්ශනිකයා ගැන පිල් බෙදී වාද කරන්නෙමු.

මෙම දේශපාලන වාද විවාද මැද ජැක්සන් ඇන්තනි යන දාර්ශනිකයා, ඉතිහාසඥයා, හා කලා කරුවාගේ අපූර්ව ලෝක දැක්ම, මුඛරි ප්‍රකාශන හැකියාව හා වසර ගනාවක අත් දැකීම් සමබාරය අමතක කල යුතුද? එපමනක් නොව, මෑත කාලයෙදි විවාදයට බදුන් වූ ඔහුගේ නොයෙක් ප්‍රකාශයන් හුදු දේශපාලන වන්දිභට්ටකම් පමනක්ද? එම ප්‍රකාශ සාධාරණීකරනය  කල හැකි ඓථිහාසික, සමාජ විද්‍යාත්මක පදනමක් තිබේද?  අන්තර්ජාල “චැට් රූම්” එකක “බ්ලොග්” අඩවියක “කොමෙන්ට්” එකතු කරනවා හැර, සහෝදර ශ්‍රී ලාංකික සහෘදයන් ලෙස බුද්ධිමත් සංවාදයකට එක්වීමට අපට පුලුවන්ද ?

මන්ඩප ශ්‍රී ලාංකික සංසදය, විදේශ ගත ශ්‍රී ලාංකිකයන් අතර අපගේ ජාතික උරුමය සහ අනන්‍යතාවය වර්ධනය කිරීමේ අරමුණ ඇතිව ඇතිකර ගත් සංවිධානයකි. අපගේ පලමු ව්‍යාපෘතිය ලෙස මේ ජැක්සන් ඇන්තනි නම් වූ අපූරු පුද්ගලයා අප අතරට ගෙන්වා අප දන්න-නොදන්නා ලාංකික ඉතිහාසය පිලිබඳ කථාවක් හා සංවාදයක් කිරීමට බලාපොරොත්තු වෙමු.

දිනය: සැප්තැම්බර් මස 23 වන සිකුරාදා

වියදම: එක් අයෙකුට ඩිරාම් 75ක් පමණ

තැන හා වෙලාව: ඩුබායි නගරයෙදී

ඔබ මෙම වැඩසටහනට සහභාගි වීමට කැමතිනම් info@mandapa.org ඉමේල් ලිපිනයට ලියන්න.  වැඩි විස්තර සඳහා www.mandapa.org වෙත යන්න.

Sri Lanka is covered with a network of thousands of manmade lakes and ponds, known locally as ‘tanks’ (after ‘tanque’, the Portuguese word for ‘reservoir’). Some are truly massive; many are thousands of years old: and almost all show a high degree of sophistication in their construction and design. Indeed, Sir James Emmerson Tennent, the 19th century historian, is fulsome in his admiration for those who built them.

In particular he marvels at the numerous channels which were dug underneath the bed of each lake in order to ensure that the flow of water was “constant and equal as long as any water remained in the tank”. Frequently, he notes, those channels had to be cut through solid granite with the most rudimentary of tools:

“Their ruins present illustrations of determined perseverance, undeterred by the most discouraging of difficulties and unrelieved by the slightest appliance of ingenuity to diminish the toil of excavation.” [1]

Today, the majority of the tanks which so impressed Tennent, have either totally or partially silted up. Nonetheless, numerous smaller tanks still survive (although many of these, too, are now partially silted up) and continue to provide the basis for irrigation agriculture in the dry zone of the island.

The complete Article can be read at  http://www.edwardgoldsmith.org/1034/traditional-irrigation-in-the-dry-zone-of-sri-lanka/

Any history lesson we get is an as accurate as the perception of the presenter. Therefore we will never know what really happened. However, if we listen to various theories, ideas and interpretations from various intellectuals, we may be able to get a basic understanding…

• Was there a Tamil Kingdome in ancient Sri Lanka?
• Are we really the decedents of King Vijaya?
• Is King Dutugamunu really related to Lord Buddha
• Are you sure that last Sinhala King of Sri Lanka is Sree Wikrama Rajasinghe ?
• What is the Heritage of Sri Lankan Moors?

These are some subjects that even lead in to Bomb blasts and suicide killings. But if we examine them like true intellectuals, we might be able to understand what others believe in and why they believe such.  If so can we create a debate that would result creating harmony among the social groups by understanding each other?

Let’s start this with by reexamining some of the historical aspects well established among us. Is it really true, what is the evidence that support such or otherwise.  Let’s debate on what the history really means. Let’s discover the facts that were hidden under the generations of folklore.

Who else could kindle the light for the debate than Mr. Jackson Anthony?  He has created controversy in the last few years, first when he presented the famous television series on Sri Lankan History and then famously was (mis) quoted as stating “President Rajapkasha is related to Dutugamunu”. Can we have an opportunity to listen to his ideas, Question, debate and even learn few facts?

We have invited Mr. Jackson Antony to visit us in Dubai, provide us with few drops of knowledge on Sri Lankan history. Then share the debate, discussion and a Tea with us to rekindle our interest in the history of our mother nation on 23^rd of September at … Hotel …

This event is by invitation only. Limited seats available.  AED 75 per person charge includes snacks and refreshments.  If you wish to get involved please send an email to info@mandapa.org