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The Case of Kataragama Pāda Yātrā in Sri Lanka

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The Case of Kataragama Pāda Yātrā in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences 2017 40 (1): 41-52 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljss.v40i1.7500 RESEARCH ARTICLE Collective ritual as a way of transcending ethno-religious divide: the case of Kataragama Pāda Yātrā in Sri Lanka# Anton Piyarathne* Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, The Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Sri Lanka. Abstract: Sri Lanka has been in the prime focus of national and who are Sinhala speakers, are predominantly Buddhist, international discussions due to the internal war between the whereas the ethnic Tamils, who communicate in the Tamil Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan language, are primarily Hindu. These two ethnic groups government forces. The war has been an outcome of the are often recognised as rivals involved in an “ethnic competing ethno-religious-nationalisms that raised their heads; conflict” that culminated in war between the LTTE (the specially in post-colonial Sri Lanka. Though today’s Sinhala Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a military movement and Tamil ethno-religious-nationalisms appear as eternal and genealogical divisions, they are more of constructions; that has battled for the liberation of Sri Lankan Tamils) colonial inventions and post-colonial politics. However, in this and the government. Sri Lanka suffered heavily as a context it is hard to imagine that conflicting ethno-religious result of a three-decade old internal war, which officially groups in Sri Lanka actually unite in everyday interactions. ended with the elimination of the leadership of the LTTE This article, explains why and how this happens in a context in May, 2009. Scholarly literature on the region suggests wherein essentialisations of ethnic and religious labels prevail, that “ethno-religious nationalisms” in Sri Lanka in fact and relations between groups are still tense following years polarise the country’s ethnic groups, making public life of conflict. Recent fieldwork in the rural village of Pānama difficult for all or at least for members of certain ethnic revealed that people belonging to two different ethno-religious groups. However, the reality is less straightforward. Day- groups, i.e., Sinhala-Buddhists and Tamil-Hindus, tend to to-day experiences in many parts of the country indicate overcome their differences in the context of rituals that that members of different ethnic groups live together, blend Hindu and popular Buddhist traditions. Building upon Turner’s notion of communitas (1969), as recently applied relatively harmoniously, sharing many events in their to the lived religion of pilgrimages (Hermkens et al., 2009), daily lives despite the ethnic conflict, rival nationalisms, and the theory of practice of Bourdieu (McCorriston, 2011), political manipulation and trauma that prevail as causal the annual pilgrimage create space for multi-ethnic devotees factors in the literature. to collaborate, which will be useful in creating a psychological frame for long term relationship building. The following question is raised here: how can people of different ethno-religious backgrounds in such a volatile Keywords: Pilgrimage on foot, ethno-religious nationalism, country develop common grounds to collaborate in their ethno-religious conflict, ethno-religious integration, religious everyday social lives? To date, there are no empirical syncretism, Sri Lanka. studies that provide an answer to this question. This paper discusses this question, approaching ‘common grounds’ INTRODUCTION as an existential reality constructed by people in different ways in their day-to-day lives. Among the many spheres The island of Sri Lanka is home to a multi-ethnic society of in which the people of Sri Lanka collaborate, religion approximately 20 million people. The population mainly plays a major role (See Bastin, 2002; Obeyesekere, 1978; comprises Sinhalas (74.9%), Sri Lankan Tamils (11.2%), Obeyesekere, 1984; Obeyesekere, 1977; Gombrich and Indian Tamils (4.2%), Sri Lanka Moors, often identified Obeyesekere, 1988; Goonasekera, 2007). as Muslims (9.2%), Burghers (0.2%), Malays (0.2%) and other, ethnic groups that have essentially been linked with This paper describes how common grounds particular religions and language groups. Ethnic Sinhalas is reached by means of a religious practice often *[email protected] # A phenomenological account. 42 Anton Piyarathne identified as “Pāda Yātrā” or ‘a pilgrimage on foot’ to embodied subjectivity in a society that is often burdened the multi-religious site of Kataragama. In this article, with conflict, tension and war. the prime focus is on pilgrimage making, not on the rituals conducted at the religious site of Kataragama The recorded Sinhala history of the country suggests as discussed by many scholars, including the writers that for over 2500 years it has had a ‘poly-ethnic’ society. mentioned above. Pilgrimage making is part of the local As explained in the historical records, two conflicting history which is often hegemonised by both the dominant ethnic groups, Sinhalas and Tamils, arrived in the island Sinhala nationalism of the South and the separatist Tamil from various parts of India during different periods. nationalism of the north (Whitaker, 1990). This research Muslims also have landed in Sri Lanka in different periods. is based on a rural village called Pānama in the eastern Careful analysis of history prior to the 19th century, the coast of Sri Lanka. ideal resemblance of race, language, religion and political territory subsidised by nationalist discourse today, was The Pānama village, an example of both Sinhalas not as particularly well elucidated as it is today by Nissan and Tamils living in one social setting constructed as an and Stirrat (1990), Tambiah (1986), Obeyesekere (2004) amalgam of Sinhala and Tamil caste systems or Sinhalas and Rajasingham-Senanayake (2004). Pre- and post- and Tamil participation in pilgrimage to worship Hindu colonial history does not comply with the model of two (i.e Tamil) god Murugan, is an example for the above conflicting nations imposed upon it by contemporary argument. The everyday collaborations of members of Tamil and Sinhala rhetoric (Nissan and Stirrat, 1990: multi-ethnic community is taken-for-granted and I will 24). Tambiah (1986) identifies three types of differences, engage in a very brief overview in the following section i.e., caste, geographical and communal aggregates on the construction of rigid ethnic boundaries out of that existed in Sri Lanka in the pre-colonial period. It complex identities, in order to set a background for the was evident that the migrant communities from India discussion on possibility of negotiating ethno-religious had been absorbed into local Sri Lankan communities boundaries as explained in the Anthropological discourse during the pre-colonial period as a means of maintaining on ethnic identity construction. The construction of social equilibrium. The island’s native people had been ethnic groups through colonial and postcolonial project living constituents of local or regional socio-political is “more or less elaborate and effortful attempts by complexes - the kingdoms of Kotte, Kandy, and Jaffna groups to forget, deny, or obscure their resemblances” – free from rivalry, unlike the “Sinhalas” or “Tamils” as (Harrison, 2003: 345). they are increasingly imagined today. THE INVENTION AND MAINTENANCE OF AN At the time of the Portuguese arrival in Sri Lanka in ETHNO-RELIGIOUS RIVALRY: A REFLECTION 1505, there were three kingdoms in the country; Jaffna, ON COLONIAL LEGACY IN POST-COLONIAL Kotte, and Kandy (Arasaratnam, 1998: 302-303). The PRESENT Portuguese colonists initially united the kingdoms in the low-country to simply for administrative purposes. My embodied subjective realities and the writings of In time, the Dutch used almost similar tactics. Tambiah scholars, including Daniel (1996), are witness to the (1986) writes that during the Portuguese and Dutch difficulty of creating essentially combative ethno- colonisations, people increasingly became “enumerated religious categories, e.g., Buddhist-Sinhala and Hindu- and aggregated” according (a) to the Sinhala caste Tamils, at risk of forgetting the complexities and structure: Karāwa (fishermen), Salāgama (Cinnamon fluidities of these groups. Some Buddhist-Sinhalas peelers); and, (b) Tamil castes: Mukkuvār (matrilineal also practice Hinduism, Christianity and Islam or other Tamil caste), Vellāla, and Karaiyār. This caste forms of beliefs on the whole or bits and pieces of those distinction, which was evident in ancient chronicles religions in their everyday lives, as do some Tamils. It such as the Mahavamsa was allegedly “biased towards can be argued that the Sinhala/Tamil ethnic divide, with [the] Sinhalas” (Horowitz, 1975: 117). Percival’s writing its stigmatised link to the Buddhist and Hindu religions, on Ceylon’s capital Columbo (today’s Colombo) at the is a colonial invention supported by post-colonial beginning of nineteenth century is a powerful testimony maintenance and augmentation. Though the literature to the island’s “mixture of nations, manners and highlights about Hind-Tamil nationalism, I understand religions”, and “caste” and “class” groups, all of which the practical involvement of Catholic priests is higher had their unique “manners, customs and languages” than the Hindu priests in constructing and maintaining (Percival, 1805: 136). Tamil nationalism. I also see the history of the rivalry, which is essentially a history of politics
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