By Darshanie Ratnawalli –
Darshanie Ratnawalli
In Archaeology there is a novel concept called “Public Participatory Interactive multi cultural Museum and Site Presentation” applicable to sites with multiple heritages[i]. This involves being inclusive of all available heritage components in presenting the identity of a site[ii].
Kuragala presents the typical layered heritage pattern. Season 1- It is a pre-historic habitat of Homo sapiens balangodensis[iii]. Season 2- In 2/3rd century BC Lanka, adherents of a new religion make it a raging fashion to dedicate caves right and left to the cave dwelling Sangha (inscribing the donor names on the cave wall) and Kuragala does not escape[iv]. Season 3- Kuragala becomes an Islamic shrine and a retreat.
Nowadays, Kuragala is a very useful site. Trying to assess how much its presentation in Media measures up to the multiple stakeholders concept is a sure way to identify the less obvious faces of intolerance and chauvinism. (As we already know the obvious face, the BBS, the flavor of the season in villainy).
I am going to highlight two recent journalistic presentations that attempted through misinformation (which even a routine veracity check could have shown up), to obliterate one heritage component of Kuragala and up the stakes of another. These presentations were by Latheef Farook and Dharisha Bastians.
Let’s compare these with the presentation of Kuragala (in 1932) by Charles Collins, the British Civil Servant and GA for Ratnapura at the time. Collins’ presentation, “The Archaeology of Sabaragamuwa, Bintenna” (Journal R.A.S (Ceylon) Vol. XXXII, No 85 of 1932) is currently available in the RAS library, Sri Lanka. In the public interest, I have uploaded my scanned copy at http://ratnawalli.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/The-Archaeology-of-the-Sabaragamuwa-Bintenna..pdf.
Collins’ paper is an attempt to give an account of the antiquities of the Ratnapura District which “is generally considered archeological barren”. “The few early Ruins and Inscriptions which are to be found in the District” are practically “in one small corner”. Traversing this ‘small corner’ to get up close and personal with these ruins and inscriptions takes Collins to seven places (Budu-gala, Kura-gala, Diyainna, Handa-giriya, Kottimbul-wala, Sankha-pala Vihare in Pallebedda and Galpaya).
“Kura-gala, the next place that claims our attention…the interest centres not at the foot of the hills, but high up …The archeological interest is confined to two sets of high and rocky cliffs, with a deep cleft between them. In the first set…there are several caves and two inscriptions. The latter are found on a high rock known as Hituwan-gala. The first record (A) is cut in a single line at the South end of one of the caves in this rock”.
Collins then describes the first record (A). “The inscription is cut in Brahmi characters of about the second century B.C.” This “inscription is worn and very difficult to reach, but from a “squeeze” and an “eye-copy” it appears to be as follows…”
Describing Inscription B, as being “on the same rock as A, but inscribed in two lines, about 30 feet or more above a second cave” and “in an almost inaccessible position” Collins gives us its transcript nevertheless. As per these transcripts, these are records of cave dedications by elite donors.
Return to 2013 and witness the obliterative intent in Latheef Farook’s presentation. He transforms the Buddhist layer of the site into a mere claim by “vested interests”, dating from 1961, for which “no proof can be adduced”. The only evidence that the site was a Buddhist monastery of the 2nd century BC, Farook informs us confidently, is “a board placed by the Archaeological Department in 1972”. As we struggle between two explanations for Farook; ignorance or deception, we notice another strange thing.
Far from being ignorant of the writings on the Hituwangala rock he is very much aware of them. The following sentence makes this clear; “For example when Mr. Godakumbura was asked to record and decipher the Arabic writings at Dafther Jailany Mosque especially on the Hittuwangala Rock, his answer was that it was of no relevance…” It is this sentence which ultimately points us away from ignorance and towards deception as the real explanation. Notice the plural ‘Arabic writings’. Also notice the annexation of ‘writings on the Hituwangala Rock’ under ‘Arabic Writings’.
The only writing on the Hituwangala rock as Collins makes clear is in the Brahmi script and by no stretch of the imagination does Brahmi look like Arabic as Collins’ ‘eye copy’ also makes clear[v]. Nor is there a plurality of Arabic writing in Kuragala. There is only one open claim of an Arabic inscription. It’s written on a tombstone allegedly discovered in 1922. (This discovery is unknown to Collins and his local guides). This tombstone is the only Arabic writing Farook’s article mentions upfront. “Among the proofs of Qutub Muhiyuddin’s links with Kuragala was the tombstone discovered in 1922 when excavating to build a mosque about ten feet below a mound of earth with the words stating “Disciple of Mohyiuddin” dated 1322 AD.” It is the photograph of this Arabic writing, which is uploaded and circulated widely as the legitimating evidence. There are no upfront references in Media to Arabic inscriptions on the Hituwangala rock[vi] or any rock in the vicinity (Crucial geology tip- a tombstone is not a rock). Nor photographs. Nor translations.
Instead there are covert acts of annexation and multiplication. Consider the following sentence from Dharisha Bastians’; “Kuragala is home to an ancient Sufi shrine, sacred to Muslims because Arabic rock inscriptions, tombstones and other historical evidence point to a greatly revered Islamic saint having meditated in the rock caves”.
Notice the transmogrification of tombstone into tombstones and Brahmi rock inscriptions into Arabic[vii]. There is a strikingly similar sentence in Farook’s, strongly suggestive of both journalists having dipped into the same source.
“Rock carvings, Arabic inscriptions, writings, tombstones and legends lead us to believe that Qutub Muhyiuddin had spent a part of his meditation at Jailany-Kuragala.”
To be continued.
*The writer can be found at http://ratnawalli.blogspot.co.uk/
[i] This is how the Jetavana site has been presented to the public. According to Sudarshan Seneviratne; “Though this is primarily a religious site, the rationale of the site presentation is to situate Jetavana within a socio-cultural context representing its international dimension to the visitor as well”. He is all for stressing “the multi religious and multi cultural character of this site”. Because “This site, which is primarily a Mahayana Buddhist site, has yielded several statues of Hindu deities. A Mahayana statue carries a 10th Century AC Tamil inscription recording an endowment by a mercantile guild in south India. The discovery of West Asian ceramics and large quantities of imported ceramics and raw material for beads only speak of the multi cultural and multi religious character of this site. The 6th Century AC Nestorian cross (now located at the Anuradhapura archaeological museum) was discovered in the elite Citadel complex adjacent to the Jetavana site.”
[ii] Some others caution against being too heavy handed with the multi-religious -multi cultural approach to the extent of distorting the true ethos of a site. See A look at an Insider’s Challenge to History Brown Sahibs and Cultural definitions by Bandu de Silva. Part I http://www.island.lk/2007/10/10/midweek4.html and Part II http://www.island.lk/2007/10/11/features5.html .
[iii] It appears now that Kuragala is the largest prehistoric settlement ever to be unearthed in Sri Lanka. It’s a success story where a bold decision led unexpectedly to spectacular results. http://www.ceylontoday.lk/59-32242-news-detail-kuragala-back-in-the-limelight.html
[iv] Note that Caves all over Sri Lanka are inscribed in one language(Sinhalese Prakrit) and one script (the variation called Sinhalese Brahmi), even when the donors described are from varying cultural/ethnic contexts. This uniformity across a broad geographic canvass helps to place it within a single genre. For this reason even when the word ‘sangha’ does not occur in the inscription people generally do not make embarrassing gaffes. For example, it would be a rare simpleton who would interpret “The cave of the merchants who are the citizens of Dīghavāpī, of the sons of ….and of the wife Tissā, the Tamil” as a record of a 200 BC X rated cave epic. You don’t have to have the whole nine yards as in “Princess (Abi)Allurādhī, daughter of king Nāga and wife of king Uttiya, and king Uitiya, caused this cave to be established, for the Saṅgha of the four quarters, as comfortable abode of all that are come, and for the welfare and happiness of beings in the boundless universe”. The context identifies the purpose.
[v] The only thing that would exonerate Farook from ‘deception’ is if Arabic writing had appeared on the Hituwangala rock face after 1932 when Collins failed to witness any. But then he would be open to ‘gullibility of the most simpleton kind’. If I were a journalist I would prefer the charge of ‘deception’ to gullibility. I could at least preen myself on being a wily fox.
[vi] There is one though. But I am saving it for next week. Too juicy.
[vii] Again if Arabic witting and a tombstone had materialized after Collins’ visit, this would exonerate Dharisha Bastians from ‘deception’ and transform her merely into a ‘bridge buyer’, but is such deliverance worth it?
Darshanie Ratnawalli / May 29, 2013
What’s amusing you Holmes?
Watson in this Nabil we have a gentleman who equates challenging Latheef Farook (A gentleman who would have got full marks in transfiguration of objects, if he had been in Hogwarts, as he transforms a tombstone into a tombstones and Brahmi inscriptions on the Hituwangala rock face into Arabic inscriptions with a few taps on his keyboard) with insulting Muslims.
It’s certainly suggestive Holmes
Also Watson note how this Nabil equates challenging the Aboosallies (who may have indulged in Antique generating activity familiar to any shady antique dealer to judge from the absence of references to these ‘antiques’ except in the books by the Aboosallies and the subsequent body of work that quotes these books. Note that the extremely inquisitive and antique loving to the point of climbing inaccessible rocks in his spare-time GA, Ratnapura Charles Collins had failed to see these antiques in 1932.) with walking all over the Muslims.
So Holmes..you think the alias Nabil..?
I fear so Watson, I very much fear so.
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Trinity of OdiN / May 29, 2013
Your antics has shone enough among the CT punters showcase Rotweiller. Shut up or go to the elementary of your disseminated theories. Do you post here on comparative studies on readers’ posts, it looks like ‘You’ is a Leelananda ditto, we doubt.
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Siva Sankaran Sarma / May 30, 2013
…put down the thesaurus and step away slowly…
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Sharmotha / May 31, 2013
…. Like your swashbuckling Malalasekara bravado.
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Lagrange / May 30, 2013
can you give me another link prior to this article
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rsIjMaZy0rcJ:ratnawalli.blogspot.com/2009/07/first-man-to-look-upon-my-naked-virgin_19.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=it&client=firefox-a
where you use this holmes and watson dialog?
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Nabil / May 30, 2013
Things are becoming ‘curiouser and curiouser’ by the day, Alice.
Watson and Holmes would have to retire for a long time to deliberate on their misfortunes because there are no unsolved mysteries here; just jobless pseudo academics imagination running riot.
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Mohammed Asghar Hussain / May 31, 2013
Did Watson and Holmes get the idea that this woman is having a fetish for Scholars, intellects and people holding a doctorate or Professor titles.
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darshanie ratnawalli / May 29, 2013
Anyone here irrespective of religion and ethnicity, who use this forum to attack categories (Muslim, Sinhala, Tamil, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) and to suggest that individuals behave defectively because of inbuilt and inalienable defects of their categories are invited to leave my fan base.
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Lagrange / May 30, 2013
yes, racism and fascism and inappropriate generalization aren’t going to take us anywhere. good development from your stance in your first article on CT and the comments section there. Warmly welcome the ideas of public participatory multicultural heritage preservation, although it aposteriori. but what was that muslim sect destroying in the corner they were doing their prayers anyway? wasn’t there a way other than the uncondemned bold act of evacuating them by means of force that would have still led to spectacular results? Hope you will also drop the one-upmanship thingy so you will not invite more commenters to get your 500 comments milestone.
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Mohammed Asghar Hussain / May 30, 2013
Oh my dear ‘gorgeous’ Kid,
This comment coming out from YOU??? LOL – Absolutely hilarious!!!
Folks,
Just after the Sinhala chauvinist DGB (Bandu de Silva), the most famous Sinhala biased (trained) researcher declared that he is a ‘non’ racist and had warm and cordial association with the minorities (to maintain his dignity and standing in the society), one of his pet poodles (our ‘gorgeous’ Kid) has also declared that anyone who attack categories (Muslim, Sinhala, Tamil, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) are invited to leave her fan base.
Knowing this bunch (DGB de Silva aka Bandu, Chandre Dharmawardana aka Gamvasiya, Darshanie Ratnawalli aka gorgeous Kid, Malinda Senaviratne, et al) very well, I am not surprised but I just could not stop laughing.
There is a huge difference between the most famous and well known polemics expert and an ardent Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinist racist Prof. Nalin Silva (popularly known as Pissa) and the above mentioned bunch. Nalin Silva is direct and straight forward where as this bunch beats around the bush, indirect, ambiguous, and wants to hide their true nature (Racism) to maintain dignity and standing in the society.
Since most of the readers do not know the ulterior motives of this bunch, it is high time that someone should expose them. I find Lagrange’s comment in this regard highly commendable.
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Nabil / May 30, 2013
Dear Asghar,
This lady suffers from “Narcissistic personality disorder” (NPD)- here’s what she is going through- according the Mayo Clinic website:
NPD is a disorder “in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. Those with NPD believe that they’re superior to others and have little regard for other people’s feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
She needs all the sympathy she can get. :)
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Mohammed Asghar Hussain / May 31, 2013
Nabil,
So, the next time if I need a clever advice or a smart idea I should visit this kid at the mental institute?
This kid says,
I am ‘Gorgeous’.
May be in one of the parallel Universe where WITCHES rule.
Then she says,
I am always ‘Right’, I am ‘Clever’, I am a ‘Scholar/Intellect’, I am above all and ‘Unchallengeable’, nobody can checkmate me, etc, etc, etc.
She may be talking about a different planet where one eyed Witch is the queen.
If she say all these to her ‘FANS’ at the Mental institute where she rightly belong, they may give her a standing ovation (much better than her 300 milestone where more than 90% ridicule her).
But, unfortunately she is dumping all her rubbish in a public forum meant for normal people.
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Kangavena / May 30, 2013
Your defective base is the ideal limit to fix an exhaust fan. Sucked, mucked and puked aren’t you still unashamed to live in a rat hole.
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Trippo / May 30, 2013
You apologize of your ignorance, I will post a 1000 post similar to your pseudonym to appease your upside-down-triangle mence.
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sulaiman / May 29, 2013
Thanks for your research. Ignore the sexist and vitriolic comments. If it’s not too much trouble could you point to some authority which corroborates your point about the cave inscriptions all being gifts to the sangha even if they don’t refer to that fact? This sees too be the crux of your argument, right?Thanks and keep up the good work.S
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Darshanie Ratnawalli / May 30, 2013
next article revolves around that point. await.
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Ovum / May 30, 2013
If its navel, it’d be quite interesting.
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Vichara / May 30, 2013
Ratnavalli’s article is a scholarly presentation. It is regrettable that most of the blogs are ad hominem and sexist and do not contribute in anyway to the knowledge on the subject. The proposal that the debate should await the completion of the archeological excavations is reasonable.
Ratnavalli must congratulated for the original contributions and for her patience to respond to inane interventions.
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Nabil / May 30, 2013
Ratnavalli’s article is a scholarly presentation??????????? Bah bha bha haaaaaa :(
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American Mama / May 30, 2013
This article does have some scholarly aspects to it.
Everyone including the Sinhalese as well as Nabil and the other Muslims here are either overtly or covertly (subconscious ) defending their own kind / interests, and therefore can be called “racists” or whatever other term is deemed appropriate.
This is called “tribal instinct” & is part & parcel of nature. Can never be changed.
Therefore Nabil and others should stand down, stop already with the name calling and limit their replies to scholarly or historical proof.
No body is fooled by attempts to shut the writer up by using the infamous “you are a racist” excuse.
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HardNut / May 30, 2013
Oh stop it Leela for heavens sake.
You are a coward. You cant fight. when you lose
you divet the subject. Nabil and all others had given you
your Rathnawalli some solid answers. Just back off man.
Stop spreading hatred.
Save your cock and Bull story for another article, Mama.
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lagrange / May 30, 2013
there is some truth in american mama’s evaluation of the commenters. however, american mama has only read this article where ratnawalli has actually followed some instructions given to her by her ‘fan base ( :D ) under her previous article in order for a wider acceptance and for a damage control on her public image as some put it. some speculate that it was an overnight advice from malinda, her superior columnist/editor at nation. others maintain that it could be part of an artificial meditation technique, which began the night suddenly apologized to the examiner, to trick her own conscience to induce some natural sleep. for a proof that the infamous ‘you are racist’ isn’t a mere excuse, he is referred to her first article on CT and the comments under that, especially her conversation with the examiner, which is also compiled at http://pastebin.com/tag0Zh8k. ratnawalli does try a bit of academic style writing, but trying too hard on it and to promote herself more than it appears natural makes her look like a wannabe/ pseudo intellectual. but if american mama thinks this is a paper that deserves being appearing in a peer reviewed journal and in ratnawalli’s CV then it shouldn’t republished in CT with the author’s constant feedback to her ‘fan base'( :D ). CT is a place where people make their opinions for others to read and comment during their coffee breaks.
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lagrange / May 30, 2013
there are typos. please fill the missing words yourselves. guess there is not much ambiguity anyway. and this coffee break, pastime internet comment is not my ‘magnum opus’ (as the examiner would put it) to judge my writing style or anything. :D
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Nabil / May 31, 2013
Dear CT Readers
01. While American Mama calls her work scholarly, she herself doesn’t claim to be one. Neither does she have the experience nor the credentials. I checked her profile out on her web page before I made my first comment- she is in advertising and marketing!
02. We welcome objective journalism. That these particular inscriptions are Brahmi was established in 1932, which one contests. What we are contesting is the exclusion and lack of interest in examining artifacts presented by Muslims; for example a tomb stone which Muslims believe dates back about 900 years, is dismissed quite patronizingly. Ratnawalli does not and will not know if Collins did exhaustive research; all we wish is an unbiased authoritative opinion.
03. Muslims BELIEVE that Dafther Jailany (Kuragala) has been a place of worship for a long, long time. It is established fact, at least based on published data that it has been in existence since the late 1800′. So there is no dishonour in laying claim to Dafther Jailany as a Muslim place of worship.
04. Buddhists have the right to know the history of Kuragala and I am sure the trusties of the Mosque have cooperated; what is disheartening is the attempt to destroy an established place of worship in an uncivilized manner by accusing Muslims of being devious. The trustees (Ms. R Aboosally and others) represent Muslims and therefore insinuating that the Aboosally family is devious is akin to tarring all Muslims as devious!
05. Muslims too have the right to contest as vigorously as they can within the laws of this country, without malice, making sure that we don’t offend the feelings of Buddhists to ensure the continuation of Dafther Jailany as a Muslim place of worship.
06. The author dismisses Lathif Farook as devious without substantive facts. Since she is neither an authority on Archeology, nor has proof other than pure journalistic instincts, she makes disparaging remarks about him. She doesn’t stop there; she thinks that a respected Muslim leader, Marhoom Al. Haj Aboosally, who has been a philanthropist, as well as a Member of Parliament, Minister of Labour and was elected to parliament by a predominantly Sinhala electorate is devious as well!
07. Racism from any quarter is offensive. I am surprised that I am called a racist; the Oxford English Dictionary defines a racist as “a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another”. I have not made any such claim. All I have said is that the writer presented a one-sided argument with a predisposition to humiliate Muslims as devious.
08. Here are examples of her Islamophobic predisposition and I quote
a. Darshanie Ratnawalli – May 27, 2013,1:17 pm- “perhaps you are wrong to say that the Sri Lankan non-Muslims feel the same aversion to the tent dress as the Westerners”- she could have called it the Hijab!
b. Darshanie Ratnawalli –“As we struggle between two explanations for Farook; ignorance or deception,…….”
c. Darshanie Ratnawalli – May 29, 2013 8:52 am- ….”Aboosallies (who may have indulged in Antique generating activity familiar to any shady antique dealer to judge from the absence of references to these ‘antiques’ except in the books by the Aboosallies…”
Since Lester, Leela and American Mama don’t measure up as people who are objective, I ask other readers to let us, Muslims, know if we have valid enough reasons to be concerned about Darshanie’s racist writing.
Nabil
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Nabil / May 31, 2013
I missed out the word “no” and the corrected version should read
That these particular inscriptions are Brahmi was established in 1932, which no one contests.
regrets
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American Mama / May 31, 2013
Hi Nabil
1/ I did not say the article is scholarly. I said the article has SOME SCHOLARLY ASPECTS to it : big difference.
2/ I did not say you are a racist. Defending one’s religion is not racism per se. BUT U ARE DEFENDING YOUR SIDE /INTERESTS. SO U ARE NOT IMPARTIAL. Everyone is like U. defending their interests.
3/ Even a “non-scholar” can write something useful quoting valid material from scholarly journals. Bill Gates is not a scholar. Simply because something did not appear in a peer reviewed journal we cannot discount it. Also the fact that the author lacks academic qualifications does not mean the article has no value.
BTW Long time no see :)
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Nabil / June 1, 2013
Hi Mame,
The very reason I was asking for objectivity, If you were to read through my rejoinders, you would notice that I was questioning her motives. Had she written a balanced article these questions would not be asked of her.
Balanced as in looking for evidence from both sides of the divide, instead of elevating her position to gospel and rubbishing the other side.
Your premise should be “what if she was objective, would you still call her a racist?”. The rest,such as what if she wrote supportive of Muslims is conjecture. My position is that she is not balanced and therein lies the challenge
Nabil
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Mohammed Asghar Hussain / May 31, 2013
Nabil,
When people fail to excel in their chosen fields, they engage in such cheap activities to get some recognition, and in doing so they expose their hidden nature (racist). For example, consider Dr. Chandre Dharmawardana, after obtaining the PhD what matters is not only the brains but peer recognition which is more important when you are at that level but unfortunately he NEVER had it.
I have heard Dr. Sudharshan Seneviratne repeating several times that you should leave the history and archeology to the experts (those who are qualified and trained). He is one of the very few Scholars who has done an extensive research on both Sri Lankan and Indian history and archaeology. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has thrown up a breed of pseudo-historians, fringe archaeologists, and bogus scholars (charlatans) who are seriously undermining the traditions that the Peradeniya School has been seeking to establish. Prof. Nira Wickramasinghe once said, unlike India and many other countries, in Sri Lanka anybody and everybody is allowed to write (abuse) history.
Pseudo-historians and bogus scholars (charlatans) can speculate or create anything by twisting, turning, manipulating and misinterpreting the Sri Lankan history and write glamorized articles to convince a few confused and misguided individuals but calling their writings/articles as FACTS is simply ridiculous. Rational thinking and Logical assumptions based on unobserved facts leads to falsehood and that is what these people are trying to do. When you quote the name of a scholar on what he has said/written, the readers should know who that person is and what credentials/credibility he/she has to speak/write on that particular subject. We should never trust the history written by some Pseudo-historians based on unobserved facts/logical assumptions and NOT on archeological evidence.
Most of their arguments are based on assumptions, hypothesis, analogies, etc. They never came up with any solid evidence to prove what they says but simply quote another author whose credibility is in question (either a racist like them without any “verifiable data” or some biased researchers with hypothetical assumptions/interpretations or un-authoritative/officially un-published, half-baked historical work of some researchers completely neglecting the controversial nature of their research or their arguments are based on the findings/writings of old (obsolete) historians or half-baked European Orientalist ‘scholars’ of the late 19th century and early 20th century or some comedians during the colonial period (Colonial officers/historians) who misinterpreted the Sri Lankan history.
There are enough of well qualified and renowned Historians/Archeologists/Epigraphists/ etymologists/anthropologists out there in Sri Lanka but none of them have written articles like this, WHY??? The controversial articles on history written by bogus Pseudo-historians can be dissected and nullified but mostly it goes unchallenged because nobody likes to lose their dignity by engaging in CHEAP arguments especially with nasty, arrogant and sarcastic Racists like Darshanie Ratnawalli who thinks if her article is filled with rhetorical devices the readers will think of her as highly educated scholars/intellects or academics.
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Mohammed Asghar Hussain / May 31, 2013
sorry for the typos and spelling/grammetical errors, my coffee break was not very long to check them.
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Amerucan Mama / May 31, 2013
What if the writer had written an article SUPPORTIVE of the claim of Muslims that they had a holy site in Kuragala ??
Would U still be maintaining that she is a “racist ?”
I don’t think so.
If the writer is a racist then what are you? An ISLAMOPHILE ??
Everybody in this world has an agenda and you as well as the writer are no exceptions
It is NOT the predisposition of the writer that matters but the substance value of the article. If you have compelling proof to the contrary present them. OTHERS WILL DECIDE.
But refrain from using the “YOU ARE A RACIST BECAUSE YOU WROTE SOMETHING THAT WE DON’T LIKE ” card. It is outdated and obsolete.
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Amerucan Mama / May 31, 2013
The above comment was in reply to Mr Mohammed Asghar Hussain
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Darshanie Ratnawalli / June 2, 2013
I quote from end note iii of https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/kuragala-lessons-2-using-pr-to-obliterate-heritage/
[iii] Almost delusional levels of ignorance pertaining to the History of Sri Lanka is far from uncommon among Sri Lankans specially of a certain vintage. In the comments section of an earlier article, my attempts to clarify a point by quoting from “Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script:R.A.E. Coningham, RR. Allchin, CM. Batt & D. Lucy: Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6:1 (1996), pp. 73-97” was violently contested by a gentleman named Mohammed Asghar Hussain who continued to insist throughout the entire length of the comments section that Robin Coningham was an Orientalist scholar of the late 19th century or the early 20th century. One can’t discount the possibility that Coningham was an Orientalist scholar in his previous birth. But in this life he was part of a Sri Lankan-British team of archaeologists who conducted excavations in Anuradhapura from 1989 and discovered a very large number of inscribed potsherds with Brahmi writing going back to the fourth century BCE. (Read Indrapala: 2005; p 138). Coningham et al: 1996 was the publication which resulted from those excavation s. Since Mohammed Asghar Hussain also claimed to be familiar with the ‘sayings’ of Sudarshan Seneviratne and Neera Wickramasinghe, I surmise that he is a gentleman who took to history late in life, (after the mind had hardened into a rigid mould) for an agenda and not through a thirst for knowledge.
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Wicca / May 30, 2013
Vikara… If you make more sensible ‘vichara’ with a sound knowledge, you could find the proof of the spoof of her imitations of a burrowed argument. If you skew CT’s motto a bit, you will get it, like “In Journalism, truth is processed”, it is what you see everywhere the plain truth.
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Lombardy / June 1, 2013
American Mama alias patta Leela, what’s that “WE” thing you always quote about, are you referring to the “Wicca club” of the cohorts you are affiliated with. Mind your words lousy filth, do you try to rule on others fate? Your trump card is obsolete and you will see the vicissitudes of it in the near future.
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American Mama / June 1, 2013
barking up the wrong tree :)
BTW who the hell is LEELA ?
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Muliyawaikkal / June 1, 2013
History is written by the winners.
So who are the winners of the Kuragala episode 2013?
That means history is being created!!
Thank you DR for your exceptional knowledge and links. A well researched article.
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