Peradeniya and K.N.O. Dharmadasa

" Prof. Dharmadasa stands out as an academic not only because of his varied contribution to university life as teacher, Head of Department, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, chairman of the University Arts Council, warden of Hilda Obeyesekere Hall and member of the Council as Senate Nominee and so on, but also because of his singular contributions as scholar, having his work published in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. He is one of the very few academics in the arts disciplines, especially in Sinhala studies, to have an international reputation."

by P.B. Galahitiyawa

(January 26, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) On December 15, 2010, the University of Peradeniya felicitated one of its distinguished alumni, Professor K.N.O. Dharmadasa, at a ceremony chaired by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. S.B.S. Abeykoon. Also present were Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. K. Premaratne, and Dean Faculty of Arts, Prof Anoma Abeyratne and several other deans and teachers of Peradeniya along with those of other universities. A Felicitation Volume titled, Penasara, of 994 pages, containing 43 scholarly articles which represent Prof. Dharmadasa's research interests, was presented to him at this ceremony. Prof. Dharmadasa has been a worthy successor to the pioneering greats of Peradeniya, Prof. G.P. Malalasekera, Prof. D.E. Hettiarachchi, Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra, Prof. D.J. Wijeratne, Prof. P.E.E. Fernando, Prof. Ananda Kulasuriya and others, who with their superb scholarship placed Peradeniya on the map of the world of learning in the 1950s and the '60s. Sarachchandra with his multifaceted contribution to literature and theatre was the key figure in what came to be identified as "the Peradeniya School." And Dr. M.W.Sugathapala de Silva, a student of Hettiarachchi and Wijeratne and having trained as a linguist in University College, London, was to be the founder of the discipline of Modern Linguistics at Peradeniya, producing eminent scholars, such as, Professors J.B. Dissanayake, P.B. Meegaskumbura and K.N.O. Dharmadasa. As was the tradition established by the great figures of this inceptive institution of higher learning in the country, all these scholars were not narrow specialists. They have been equally at home in language studies as well as in the field of arts, sometimes being creative artistes themselves.

Prof. Dharmadasa stands out as an academic not only because of his varied contribution to university life as teacher, Head of Department, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, chairman of the University Arts Council, warden of Hilda Obeyesekere Hall and member of the Council as Senate Nominee and so on, but also because of his singular contributions as scholar, having his work published in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. He is one of the very few academics in the arts disciplines, especially in Sinhala studies, to have an international reputation.

Having being introduced to the discipline of linguistics by Dr. Sugathapala de Silva, young Dharmadasa obtained post graduate training in Sociolinguistics at York (England) and Monash (Australia) and came back to Peradeniya to start introducing the subject to Sri Lankan academia. As the pioneer he had to write the first text books in the discipline himself. Thus came out Bhasava Ha Samajaya (1972) and Bhasavehi Sambhavaya Ha Sanskrutika Muhunuvara (1989), which, along with Dvibhashakatvaya (1996) and Bhashanaya Ha Lekhanaya Hevat Bhashadvirupatava (1999) remain to this day standard texts used in all the universities. As a linguist Prof. Dharmadasa was the first Sinhala scholar to do an in-depth study of the phenomenon of linguistics and is identified as "Diglossia", i.e. having two codes in the language; one for speaking and the other for writing. In fact his M.Phil research which he did at the University of York was on this subject. He has brought out several publications on this subject, such as, Diglossia and the Sinhala Identity in the Language Problem in Sri Lanka (in the Journal Vaag Vidya) and Nativism, Diglossia and Sinhalese Identity in the Language Problem in Sri Lanka (in The International Journal of the Sociology of Language, published in Holland).

His other major research interest was the interconnections between language and nationalism. The Ph.D. thesis which he submitted to Monash University on this topic was later published as Language, Religion and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka, by the University of Michigan Press in the USA. Studying the phenomenon of nationalism in a world perspective he brought out in 2002 the monograph Jatyanuragaya (nationalism), the only comprehensive study in Sinhala on the subject, which won him the state literary award for the best scholarly work of the year. Prof. Dharmadasa is also well known as a scholar who has worked on the Vedda language. One of his early international publications was The Creolization of an Aboriginal Language: The Case of Vedda in Sri Lanka, published in 1972 in Anthropological Linguistics, Indiana University, USA. Subsequently, he edited a volume titled, The Vanishing Aborigines: Sri Lanka's Veddas in Transition, an ICES publication co-edited with S.W.R de A. Samarasinghe. Prof. Dharmadasa's interest in Sri Lankan folklore led him to collaborate with H.M.S.Thundeniya to bring out the most comprehensive study about the deities venerated by the Sinhala people titled, Sinhala Deva Puranaya (1994). There are many other aspects of his scholarship which I do not intend going into for lack of space. But one special contribution Prof. Dharmadasa has made as a nationalist scholar needs mention.

As the brief account given above will show Prof. Dharmadasa has not confined himself to the discipline of Sociolinguistics. He has been a bilingual writer, not only publishing his work in scholarly journals but in both Sinhala and English newspapers as well. Here, I wish to mention an interesting debate between him and Prof R.A.L.H.(Leslie) Gunawardene in the 1980s which got wide coverage nationally and internationally. The debate arose from an article by Prof. Gunawardena published in The Journal of the Humanities of the University of Peradeniya titled, The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Ideology in History and Historiography. The main argument put forward by Prof. Gunawardena was that the Sinhala ideology as a mark of group identity has a history which can be traced only to about the 12th century and that before that time, being "Sinhala" was confined primarily to the royal family and later to their close kin group, if not the nobility. Building upon this, he pointed out that in more recent times, i.e. after the 19th century, the racist Aryan theories promulgated by scholars, such as Max Muller (in his early writings), were avidly taken up by Sinhala protagonists and a totally new and more virulent ideological Sinhala identity came to be promoted.

With Prof. Gunawardena's international reputation as a historian, this view of the history of the Sinhala identity came to be widely accepted among those engaged in Sri Lankan studies. But there was another aspect to the matter. This view about the brittleness of the Sinhala identity came to be utilized by pro-Eelamist groups to their advantage, this being the time when the Eelam war was in full swing. Curiously no historian in Sri Lanka (or elsewhere) came forward to examine critically Prof. Gunawardena's views. Finally, a critical response was to come from an unforeseen quarter. Prof Dharmadasa published in the same journal a paper titled, The People of the Lion: Ethnic Identity, Ideology and Historical Revisionism in Contemporary Sri Lanka. Although Dharmadasa was no professional historian like Gunawardena, his arguments and the array of historical evidence he marshaled in support of his repudiation of Gunawardena's "revisionism" would have convinced the referees of the journal to publish it. And they were proved right. The debate was to appear in the Sinhala newspapers as well and even some historians came forward to support Dharmadasa. Even Prof. S.J. Tambiah, well known Sri Lankan anthropologist, now in Chicago in his famous Buddhism Betrayed?, was to state that both Gunawardena and Dharmadasa are saying the same thing in different ways! On a later date, Gunawardena himself was to write a separate booklet seeing Dharmadasa's attempt as an exercise in history- writing "at a time of ethnic conflict." But he too had to accept that he had overlooked the key source Dharmadasa was citing, the Dhampia Atuva Getapadaya of the 10th century which records a view held widely in society at the time that the Hela (Sinhala) people were all those speaking the Hela language who had descended from the retinue of the lion slayer Sinhabahu's son Vijaya, who, just like the leader, were identified as Hela.

This was a debate which captured popular interest because of a series of articles Prof. Dharmadasa wrote to Irida Divayina in the 1980s. I remember how eagerly we waited every Sunday for the next installment of his writing on the historical roots of the Sinhala identity. I am compelled to quote here what Gamini Sumanasekera, the editor of Divayina, said recently, referring to this incident: "I believe that the whole nation should salute Prof. Dharmadasa for dispelling the misconceptions that arose about our national identity and nationalism." (Irida Divayina, Dec. 26, 2010, p.21).

Talking of nationalist historiography, I have to say this about Prof. Dharmadasa: like his teachers, those great academics of Peradeniya, such as, Sarachchandra, and Hettiarachchi (who were my teachers as well), Prof. Dharmadasa, while being fully immersed in his own national tradition was appreciative of other national traditions as well. Having collaborated with him in three scholarly ventures, Sara Sangrahaya and Tradition, Values and Modernization: An Asian Perspective (collections of the writings of Prof Sarachchandra) and Commemoration-Maname (forthcoming), I am aware of this aspect of his scholarship.

His nationalism is not narrow-minded and exclusivist and in defending the Sinhala identity he was keeping within the confines of scholarly finesse and propriety. In fact, it is no wonder that the American anthropologist Valentine Daniel states in his chapters in an Anthropology of Violence, (Oxford Univ. Press, New Delhi, 1997, p.220), that he found in Dharmadasa's work (1992) "the most scholarly argument against the claim that Sinhala (linguistic) nationalism is recent."

Peradeniya has done well in acknowledging the contributions of one of its distinguished alumni. Let us hope that the upcoming generation of academics, especially in the arts disciplines, would continue the tradition so well continued by the generation represented by Prof. Dharmadasa.