Sathara Varam Deiyyo - The Guardian deities and the International Community

By Gam Vaesiya

(May 12, Ontario , Sri Lanka Guardian) When the chattering classes in Colombo talk approvingly of the "International community" (IC), they mean the Europeans, Americans, and their close allies like Canada and Japan. Although the United Nations may have over 200 nations, it is this small but super-IC that we hear about.

Sri Lanka has been repeatedly visited by highly placed emissaries of this super-IC. They come to "intervene with the government", and "make it do the right thing". The super-IC has taken the mantel of the Guardian deities of the people. The "Right to protect" (their interests) was the basis for going into Iraq, Vietnam or Korea. The Sri Lankan conflict does not directly impinge on the interests of the super-IC, and yet, egged on by the vocal pro-Tiger diaspora, these emissaries see an "easy catch".

What if David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner had managed to twist the arm of the Sri Lankan leaders, gone to the No-Flee Zone (euphemistically called the No-Fire-Zone) and dispatched the Tiger leaders to unknown exile? The Nobel peace prize? After all, even Menacham Begin and Henry Kissinger were given Nobel Peace prizes, totally ignoring their culpable roles in world conflicts.

Fortunately for the world, the Sri Lankan leaders did not budge under pressure. Now Miliband and Kouchnerare trying to get even by pressurizing the UN, claiming that a bloodbath is taking place in Sri Lanka. Although "no confirmed information is available", these ministers point the finger at the Government, ignoring the fact that the government has stopped using heavy weapons. News vendors like the British channel-4 have fallen to a new low in news reporting, where extreme claims of rape and rotting dead bodies are reported, based on "hearsay" of unidentified individuals, ignoring the existence of a deliberate disinformation campaign when news gathering has to be done with extreme caution.

The Mahavamsa, the ancient historical chronicle of Sri Lanka, tells us how four guardian deities, Natha, Vishnu, Kataragama, and Saman were assigned the job of guarding Sri Lanka. Vishnu is also "Upulvan", the deity who gave Vijaya's men magical protective threads for their wrists. Natha is replaced by 'Vibeeshana' in later writings. 'Paththini' is also a supplementary guardian deity in our local folk traditions. After all, even the Greeks sacrificed to Apollo or Aphrodite as the case may be, and to the local God.

Who were these "Guardian deities" of ancient times? The Gods were themselves conquerers deified into the ancient Sumerian-Persian-Indo-Asian evolution of our belief systems. By the time the Mahavamsa was penned, many of the legends had reintegrated into other similar legends. In the ancient world, there was no clear distinction between miracle and physical process. The natural world met miracle with invocations, sacrifice, and sacred rites. The God of Katharagama, "Skanda", is none but the Persian "Iskandar" whose Hellanic name was Alexander. Skanda was a conquerer God who vanquished the Asuras and other opponents. The people of the south (i.e, the "Dravida") merged him with their local God, Murugan. The writers of the Pali chronicles made no mistake in including Skanda as one of the Guardian deities.

Vishnu is another powerful God, a Bodhsattva for the Buddhists. Vishnu represents the spiritual power of South India, at that time a Buddhist nation which sent out monks like Buddhagosha to Sri Lanka. Significant pockets of south India used Sinhala as the local language, and even today Tamil Nadu has place names like "Nagarjuna Kanda (Nagarjunakonda)". The Mahavamsa writers correctly handed over to Vishnu, representing South India, the task of protecting Buddhism.

Natha is none other than the power of the Sumerians, Etruscans and other who filtered into India and merged with the Gods of the Rig Veda. In later times, Natha changes to Vibeeshana, acolyte of Rama. Natha and his surrogate Vibheeshana represent North India, i.e., the spiritual power of the Gods of the Ramayana, directed against the "Yakkas", a Kirat people who had even colonized Sri Lanka prior to the legend of Vijaya.

Saman is the home-made Guardian deity, overseeing Lanka from Samnathakoota or "Samanalakanda" (Adam's peak). We should however note that Vibeeshana (but NOT Natha), is partly a Lankan prince (Raavana's clan) who had fallen out and joined Rama.

The Ancient "Sathara Varam Deiyyo" represented the deified international powers of the ancient world, as seen via the lens of legend. Today, in a world where the fire of the Gods has been replaced by guided missiles, mines and other tools of technological war, the biggest weapons merchants are also the capitalists of the IC. It was this set of Gods that the Chandrika-Ranil governments invoked, in the "Cease-Fire-Agreement (CFA)" with the Tiger leaders.

When one set of Guardian Deities fails to deliver, we invoke another set. The new Guardian Deities are China, Russia, Iran and Libya", with India a hidden :kurural". These nations are held in low esteem by the super-IC. However, the destruction of Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, client militarization of Pakistan, Vietnam, and Korea are vile evidence against the super-IC. Fortunately, as long as the LTTE is a regional problem, we can do without the supr-IC, and retain the new Guardian Deities who have been successfully invoked by the Rajapaksa administration. The human-rights record of these new guardian deities is probably no worse than that of the super-IC, although their reputation, as orchestrated by the super-IC journalists, is quite the opposite.

-Sri Lanka Guardian