Monks Bhikkus and Quantum Physics

by Prof. Nalin de Silva

(March 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have to digress somewhat from the series of articles on Buddhisms Betrayed this week and the next as I have to respond to Dr. Peter Schalk of the Upsala University, Sweden. A Tamil friend of mine has sent me the following comments by Dr. Peter Schalk who is an apologist for the Tamil racists in general and the LTTE in particular, on the series of articles I am presently writing to "The Midweek Review" on Buddhisms Betrayed. He has published his comments in the website "Circle Digest -Tamil Circle" which also carried an article supporting the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha statues by the Talibans.

Dr. Schalk says: 'I have a folder on my harddesk called "Sinhala ethnonationalists". There, I keep the writings of Sinhala ethnonationalists for the future. I have to objectify them sometimes for my research. Several of them are ex-academics and they behave like ex-academics. One of them is the Sinhala extremist Nalin de Silva. He has now reviewed a book written by H L Seneviratne called "The Work of Kings. The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka". It describes in detail what is called political Buddhism. It is an important book and it deserves to be reviewed seriously. Nalin de Silva has got space for long articles in The Island beginning from March 14th, 21st-etc (Midweek) on Internet to give air to his hate, frustration and anti-intellectualism. He mixes Tambiah with Seneviratne and criticises Seneviratne on the basis of a review on the book by a Buddhist monk who was positive in his review. The monk is of course also criticised-because he was not born in Lanka! Nalin de Silva heaps invectives in virulent verbal attacks on the person Seneviratne. He takes in Islam and the Old Testament for which he has no predisposition to handle. These two articles are bewildering-like the journal in which it is published. The Island is the most unsophisticated of all daily papers in Lanka. I cannot accept that an important scholarly book is distorted in such a way.'


I am not surprised to find Dr. Schalk, who advocates to the Circle Digest readers to boycott "The Island", reading its internet edition. It appears that by asking mainly the Tamil readers of the Circle Digest to boycott "The Island", on one hand, he could mislead them on its contents, and on the other hand he could have a monopoly of even that knowledge. Those who are familiar with at least some of the so-called research published by Dr. Schalk will not be surprised with the above comments. Perhaps Dr. Schalk thinks of himself as an academic and I am prepared to identify him as such albeit of below the average type that can be found in abundance in most of the western Christian universities. They are plagued by the publish or perish syndrome and very often what is published in the so-called academic as well as other journals is not worth the paper that is bound to perish like all the conditioned things. Let us analyse the comments by Dr. Schalk published in "The Circle Digest".


Dr. Schalk is of the view that I am reviewing the new book by Dr. H. L. Seneviratne in my current series of articles. I do not know how he came to that conclusion as I have no intention at all of reviewing third rate works that are authored by mediocre academics for their survival and promotions. Perhaps Dr. Schalk thinks that I am reviewing this particular book, because in my current series of articles to "The Midweek Review", I have mentioned Dr. Seneviratne's book . His logic appears to be Nalin de Silva is writing to "The Midweek Review" and he has mentioned a book in his articles to "The Review", and therefore he is reviewing the book. I know that Dr. Schalk is capable of coming to conclusions based on that type of logic. This is a hallmark of the below the average type academics in western Christian Universities who have turned out to be apologists for Tamil racism. For example Dr. Schalk among others have "established" that there are Buddhist artefacts by Tamil Buddhists in the Jaffna peninsula based on the facts that there are Buddhist artefacts in the peninsula, that the Tamils in Chola and other kingdoms in Bharat had been Buddhists many centuries ago and that at present there are Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula. This is certainly not the syllogism of Aristotle that the western Judaic Christian civilisation has inherited and even a very ordinary academic in the western Christian universities should be able to help Dr. Schalk to realise the fallacy of his so-called logic.


Dr. Schalk sometimes get support from Sinhala Bhikkus to substantiate his conclusions. For example in another volume of the circle digest of the Tamil circle he refers to Ven. Siyambalagasweva Vimalasara Thero in Vavuniya. Dr. Schalk has said :"This monk is evidently a person demonstrating civil courage of a high and rare degree. He holds views that makes him an anomaly among Sinhala ethnonationalist. He thinks that Buddhism is not Sinhala only; it is Tamil also and that Kantarotai belongs to Tamil Buddhists." To Dr. Schalk Buddhist Bhikkus are monks and Ven. Vimalasara Thero is also a Sinhala ethnonationalist. The westerners think that the world is what they have created in the sense that the knowledge (the word) of the world is their creation. They are the people who define concepts, formulate theories, and all that the rest of the world has to do is to follow them. They almost always refer to the Bhikkus as monks ignoring that the concept of a monk in the Christian tradition, is different from that of a Bhikku. They try to understand the Bhikkus, Sinhala or otherwise, through their concept of monks and when the behaviour of the Sinhala Bhikkus does not agree with the image of the "monks" that they had created they blame the Bhikkus. As the westerners have the monopoly of knowledge, they use their concepts even to describe phenomena not found in their cultures and civilisation. They look at the world through their concepts and theories and they want us to behave according to the models that they have constructed. This is nothing but cultural imperialism and academic thuggery. I do not know how Ven. Vimalasara Thero came to the conclusion that this particular temple belongs to the Tamil Buddhists, but I can quote from the thesis of Dr. K. Indrapala former Professor of History at the University of Jaffna on how these temples were created. "The gold plate from Vallipuram reveals that there were Buddhists in that part of the peninsula in the second century A.D. At the site of this inscription the foundations of a Buddhist vihara were uncovered. These foundations are in the premises of a modern Vishnu temple. There is little doubt that the Vishnu temple was the original Buddhist monument converted in to a Vaisnava establishment at a later date when Tamils settled in the area. Such conversion of Buddhist establishments into Saiva and Vaisnava temples seems to have been a common phenomenon in the peninsula after it was settled by Dravidians." When one considers the fact that there were no permanent Tamil settlements in Sri Lanka or Sinhale before the 10th century, according to the same thesis, nobody other than academics of the caliber of Dr. Schalk would conclude that these Buddhist temples were built by the Tamil Buddhists.

Now what did I say on Drs. Thambiah and Seneviratne?. Did I mix them up as Dr. Schalk claims. Did I criticise " Seneviratne on the basis of a review on the book by a Buddhist monk who was positive in his review". Did I criticise the "monk" because he was not born in Lanka? All that I had said in the two articles on Drs. Thambiah and Seneviratne and the "monk" is given below. "Sinhala Buddhists are supposed to have betrayed Buddhism. Sometime ago Prof. Thambiah wrote a book entitled Buddhism Betrayed. Recently another book has been written by another western sociologist Dr. H. L. Seneviratne, that has been reviewed favourably by Bhikku Bodhi, an authority on Theravada Buddhism according to scholars on Buddhistic studies and a non Sri Lankan by birth. The general idea behind all these is that the Sinhala Buddhists are not practising the Dhamma preached by the Buddha. The Sinhala Bhikkus are interested and take part in political activities and are supposed to be anti Tamil."


"When the Trotskytes thought that Stalin did not follow the Marxist method they called it revolution betrayed and Trotsky wrote a book entitled "Revolution Betrayed" though Marx's revolution did not preach any kind of permanent or uniturrupted revolution in one or many stages. That was long before Prof. Thambiah wrote his Buddhism Betrayed. However there is a difference. Trotsky believed in some kind of revolution and also wrote a book entitled "In Defence of Marxism".




"Now before we get on to Anagarika Dharmapala and the Sinhala Bhikkus a la H.L. Seneviratne the western Judaic Christian sociologist, let us discuss whether the Talibans have betrayed Islam."


"When Dr.Seneviratne visited me to research on the Jathika Chinthanaya, I found that he did not understand the concepts Paradigm or Episteme, let alone Chinthanaya. Yet, he has the audacity to comment on the Jathika Chinthanaya in his new book for his western masters and I will briefly respond to them later."


I am writing a series of articles on Buddhisms Betrayed and in the process I have referred to Drs. Thambiah and Seneviratne. Dr. Schalk may be under the impression that I am wring on Buddhism Betrayed. If he reads carefully the title of the series of articles he would realise that I am writing on Buddhisms Betrayed and not on Buddhism Betrayed. Not only these two authors but also Ven. Bhikku Bodhi (monk according to Dr. Schalk) and others make the mistake of considering an "objective Buddhism" and then comparing the behaviour of Sinhala Buddhists with the Buddhism that they have created to come to the conclusion that the Sinhala Buddhists have betrayed the Buddhism, that these authors and others have constructed. Dr. Schalk should have waited till I conclude my series before sending his comments to the "Circle Digest".


Ven. Bhikku Bodhi may be an authority on "Theravada Buddhism", but he is not an authority on Sinhala Buddhism and it is difficult for a non Sri Lankan who believes in a Buddhism and not Buddhisms to grasp the meaning of Sinhala Buddhism. Except for some Bhikkus of German origin who lived in Sri Lanka many Buddhists including Colonel Olcott who came from the west were unable to transcend their cultural limitations that they inherited from a Judaic Christian civilisation built around Aristotle's two valued formal logic and come to terms with Buddhisms that were constructed around "an athakkavachara Nibbana". This limitation has to be contrasted with the involvement, in the freedom struggle, of Ven. S. Mahinda Thero who came to Sri Lanka from Sikkhim. Ven. Mahinda Thero would not have been an authority on "Theravada Buddhism" according to the Buddhist scholars but the Ven. Thero knew the strengths and weaknesses of Sinhala Buddhism, himself becoming a Sinhala Buddhist (by culture), and was known to all the Sinhala speaking Sinhala Buddhists in the country and not only to a handful of English speaking Sinhala Buddhists. I will come back to the rational realist objective Theravada Buddhism of Ven. Bhikku Bodhi and others later in the series of articles on Buddhisms Betrayed.


Dr. Seneviratne is a western Judaic Christian sociologist and it is not a case of "heaping invectives in virulent verbal attacks on the person Seneviratne" to call him so. Dr. Schalk apparently does not know that knowledge is constructed by people and the knowledge so created is relative to the cultures and the civilisations. The western knowledge like any other system of knowledge is relative to the cultures and the civilisation in which it is created and as such all those who are engaged in creating or practising that knowledge is a western Judaic Christian sociologist or physicist or some other as the case may be. Einstein was a western Judaic Christian Physicist who had problems with understanding Quantum Physics that defies two valued Aristotelian logic. For the last seventy five years or so the western Judaic Christian civilisation has failed to come up with a satisfactory interpretation of Quantum Physics, which itself is more than hundred years old. Bohr who was instrumental in formulating the Copenhagen interpretation was influenced by Ying Yang philosophy of the Chinese but even that interpretation has shortcomings. The hidden variable theory and the implicate - explicate order of David Bohm has its own problems not to mention the many world and other interpretations. There are at least six major interpretations of Quantum Physics in the west though none of them is satisfactory. It is very unlikely that the western civilisation, with its formal two valued logic and the concept of being will produce a satisfactory interpretation of Quantum Physics without borrowing or assimilating eastern logic and Chinthanayas. Dr. Schalk could find out more about these things from his colleagues in the Department of Physics. Incidentally the Physics Department of my "ex-university" (University of Colombo) has a link with Upsala and when a Sri Lankan visits them next time Dr. Schalk could learn from him/her about Sinhala Buddhist interpretation of Quantum Physics based on Chatuskoti (four valued) logic and the concept of becoming.

I am not attacking anybody personally but only trying to expose the myth of projecting western knowledge as the objective knowledge common to the entire mankind. Rather than calling them Physicists or Sociologists I refer to them as western (Judaic Christian) Physicits or Sociologists. The moment I (or somebody else) do so Dr. Schalk gets disturbed as when the myth is debunked people like him would not be in a position to maintain the hegemony of the western knowledge systems. It is a fact that Dr. Seneviratne has commented on Jathika Chinthanaya without understanding it and if Dr. Schalk does not think so I am prepared to have an open discussion with Dr. Seneviratne when he visits Sri Lanka next time and expose him on this count.

Dr. Schalk refers to me and some others as Sinhala ethnonatinalists. This is another example of western hegemony of knowledge. There is a contradiction in the term ethnonationalism. Ethnic groups are not supposed to be nations but perhaps due to the bankruptcy in their conceptualisation the westerners have been forced to use nationalism with the prefix ethno. The westerners think that the nations came into existence only after the sixteenth century or so and they refuse to identify the Sinhalas as a nation, as their theories would not allow them to do so. The Tamils in Sri Lanka or anywhere in the world for that matter, have never been a nation not having being able to create a Tamil state any time anywhere in the world. The westerners according to their theories consider both Sinhalas and Tamils to be ethnic groups thus denying the rightful place for Sinhalthva in the country. The problem in this country is nothing but this refusal by the Tamil racists and their apologists to accept the significance of Sinhalathva in this country. People like Dr. Schalk are only making use of Tamil racim in this country to weaken the Sinhala nation and Sinhalathva. Next week, unless something very important happens in politics we will discuss anti-intellectualism and the role of an ex-academic.

(To be continued)