By Premakumara de Silva –

Prof. Premakumara de Silva

Book Review: Mountain at A center of the world: Pilgrimage and Pluralism in Sri Lanka – Author:  Alexander McKinley – Year of Publication: 2024 – Publisher: Columbia University Press, New York, 331pp with illustrations

Sri Pada or the Peak has become famous as a site of religious pluralism. How such pluralism is best conceptually understood and practically managed at the peak is the central question that this book deals with.  Does pluralism actually exist at the Peak? “Presumed pluralism” it assumes that pilgrimage provides a neutral context where religious spaces are freely and harmoniously shared. According to Alex, this presumed pluralism does not really exist at the Peak and he wants to provide an alternative discourse of ‘planetary pluralism’. In the face of increasing Buddhist hegemony, he wants to counter that Buddhist thought while promoting an unbounded understanding of interactive ecological and religious pluralities within the concept of planetary pluralism. Instead of assuming shared pilgrimage means equal worship spaces or an automatic overlap of religious values, Peak pluralism begins from the mountain up, considering how common ecological entanglements interweave diverse human assemblies. He urges us to move away from an Anthropocene centric thinking to an Ecological centric thinking where humans become a part of the planetary ecological structure not as a dominant figure of that structure. The world that we live in today is dominated by humans, and they push hard on the planet while the planet is pushing them back. The peak forces us to rethink about the path to be taken and not taken in the endless journey of living and non-living on the planet. In my view, the book challenged the very foundational doctrine of the European Enlightenment of progress which embraces the idea of the destiny of humanity is to exercise dominion over the rest of creation. They have nevertheless come at the cost of mounting social injustice, conflicts, and ecological degradation. The book has forced us to think of the humans’ own life histories with the stories of other beings into an ongoing story for the world rather than their separation from it. The Peak itself suggests that the importance of humans’ commitment to coexistence rather than domination, and sustainability rather than progress.

It is not a book of merely focusing on the content of pilgrimage and religion, additionally it presents an ecological view of pluralism by providing the mountain’s point of view as well. He suggests that making meticulous intervention is necessary for both cultural and ecological pluralities to continue flourishing on the Peak. He argues that the Peak itself provides the best perspectives for an awareness of pluralism in all its potentialities in making a unique bio-physical world including geological, hydrological (the Peak’s reputation as a watershed), and biological formations…while recognizing the mountain’s agentive role in human history. Therefore, it is not a book about the Peak but it is a book on thinking through the Peak both ecologically and culturally. The peak is not just a place of the modern man to go on pilgrimage but prior to that it was a place of early human habitation, including Vedda, and the place of worship by other living creatures like butterflies and elephants. Moreover, it became an abode for dynamic interactions among living and nonliving forces where the landscape remains important to visitors as environmental experiences are often cited as a reason for climbing the Peak. Thereby, within this place a strong interdependent of human culture and ecological diversity existed. The book explains how multiple religious traditions (Buddhist, Hindu, Islam and Christian) are shown in both coexistence and conflict with each other and the natural forces of the mountain. This is quite vividly narrated by Alex through multiple stories of coexistence and conflict at the Peak.

This book has three parts which contains five chapters except the introductory and concluding chapters. Chapter 02 is about the gradual change of ecological landscape through pilgrimage infrastructures development projects: Kings (peak as symbol of rule), Colonial (open up of tea plantation) and Postcolonial States (Military and corporate involvement) to facilitate pilgrimage gathering and human activities on the mountain. Those projects have created serious ecological imbalance in the peak’s wilderness and also marginalized of non-Buddhists to participate in certain activities at the temple. He explains how those state and corporate infrastructure projects have further strengthened Buddhist hegemony over the Peak in ways that deconstruct rather than build up the pluralism of the Peak. Buddhist hegemony also leaves a little room for non-Buddhist traditions on the mountain. The Buddhist redefinition of the Peak is one of the many cases where Sinhala nationalists claim places in Sri Lanka as exclusively Buddhist by citing archeology inherited from Europeans but Influenced by Buddhist myths. Chapters 03 and 04 explained how Buddhists are admitting and forbidding historical and mythical claims on the Peak (Sri Pada) by Muslim and Hindus, but unfortunately he has ignored the Christian and Catholic stories on the Peak. As a final note let me say this, Alex and I are both interested in studying at the sacred mountain. I completed my research in 2001/02 during the period of the protracted ethnic war and he did it 2015/2016 in the context of postwar period. Interestingly, both studies draw a common conclusion that challenges historically driven religious pluralism at the Peak under the advent of Buddhist hegemonic interventions, which I have conceptualized as “Buddhicization”.    

*Premakumara de Silva, Ph.D (Edinburgh), Professor of Sociology (Chair), University of Colombo