RELIGION-SRI LANKA: Buddhist Temples Go Down Development Path

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kalinga Seneviratne

EMBILIPITIYA, Sri Lanka, Aug 8 2003 (IPS) - Dynamic Buddhist monks and progressive temple managements in this predominantly Buddhist country are getting more involved in more worldly concerns, by treading a new path down a development agenda.

”If the poor are struggling to survive we need to provide them with the economic means so they can follow the (Buddhist) precepts,” said the Venerable Omalpe Sobhita, who is in his fifties and heads a foundation in this town in southern Sri Lanka that provides services ranging from scholarships to anti-smoking programmes.

He is one of a growing number of Buddhist monks who are driving temples to reach beyond their traditional roles of providing spiritual guidance to the community, and questioning the morality of government economic policies which encourage activities at odds with community norms and Buddhist thought.

While not an entirely new direction for Sri Lankan Buddhism, the vitality of the current swell of thinking is.

The trend of the temple involving itself more with the social issues that concern the community began about 20 years ago, said Dr Amarasiri de Silva, head of the sociology department at Peradeniya University.

It was when Buddhist temples began to ordain people of lower castes – who in turn became involved with their community’s social problems – that the breaking down of the caste system in Sri Lanka gathered pace, he said.

”People of lower (socio-economic) caste who were ordained monks began to go to homes to chant for the sick and attend to funerals,” De Silva explained to IPS. ”These people in turn came to the temple to discuss their family and social problems.”

”Traditionally the Buddhist monks (of higher caste) practised Buddhism (in monasteries) to attain higher spiritual wisdom, which they would impart to the people,” he went on. ”This they saw as the role of the temple in the community. That is now changing.”

Indeed, the change that some examples indicate is startling.

In 1993, Sobhita set up the Sri Bodhiraja Foundation (SBF) and registered it as a non-profit charitable organisation.

Since then, SBF has provided the community it serves with piped water, a kindergarten, scholarships for poor students, a home-based child development programme, an orphanage, free health care clinics, women’s welfare programmes and rehabilitation services for former alcoholics and smokers.

”As Buddhist monks we used to give the people the five precepts such as not to kill, not to steal and not to lie, but if the poor are struggling to survive, that is not enough,” argued Sobhita.

Born and raised here in Embilitiya – at the centre of the second insurrection led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front), a radical Marxist group of Sinhalese youth in the late 1980s – Sobhita holds a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy and a reputation for bold initiatives.

The transformation of the temple as a social development centre for this predominantly Buddhist region was the monk’s reaction to the tragedy that he witnessed unfolding around him at the time.

The then government of President Ranasinghe Premadasa had brutally put down the uprising, leading to the deaths of thousands of youth of this area.

Elsewhere in Sri Lanka, Buddhist wisdom is imparted within the local frame of reference.

In Nattandiya in the north-west of the country, development experts have recommended setting up poultry farming to generate income for the villagers. However, the first precept in Buddhism is not to kill living creatures.

Thus, the local priest there obtained the assistance of the Dhammavijaya Foundation to turn down this proposal and adopt an alternative that ensures the economic survival of the village.

Finding that coconut fibre was not being used by the community, the foundation provided financial assistance to the temple for the creation of a local cottage industry that utilised the fibre as raw material. The shift proved to be a resounding success. Today, Nattandiya supplies the Sri Lankan army with all the brooms and mattresses it needs.

There are however areas of serious disagreement. As the negative aspects of the country’s development model dawns on communities, there is now a new awakening toward adopting age-old Buddhist principles for solving modern economic problems. This has begun to be seen in large-scale mobilisations.

On Jul. 26, over 10,000 people representing Buddhist organisations and schools marched through the capital, Colombo, calling upon the government to introduce Buddhist morality into its economic policy.

Speakers at the rally pointed out that the government supports the economy with a gambling and a liquor tax, breaking two of the five Buddhist precepts in a country where 70 percent of the population are Buddhists.

One speaker pointed out that Sri Lanka is second only to France in per capita consumption of alcohol. Another referred to the insensitivity of an advertisement in the government-owned ‘Daily News’ calling for tenders to establish a cattle slaughterhouse in Anuradhapura, which is the most sacred Buddhist city in Sri Lanka.

”This is a conspiracy to undermine our Buddhist culture,” thundered firebrand Buddhist preacher Maduluwawe Sobitha at the rally. ”We have to demand from the government that our country’s development schemes are in tune with our treasured Buddhist values.”

While a firm believer in the need for monks to involve themselves more in providing social services to the community, especially in rural areas, Omalpe Sobhita warned that it is important to safeguard and nurture the temple’s traditional role of being the spiritual education centre for the community.

Hence the core of the Sri Bodhiraja temple in Embilipitiya is the ‘Pirivena’ (traditional Buddhist college), which currently educates over 60 young monks who are between eight and years old.

”We can mobilise a large volunteer force to carry out our social services,” he noted. ”In addition, we educate our monks to lead an exemplary social life in the service of the community.”