Talk:Nagadeepa Purana Vihara

Ambiguity

I copy edited the page for grammar and clarity, but there were 2 parts that are ambiguous. The first was:

A deity named Samiddhi Sumana who had made the above banyan tree his abode, in Jetavanarama accompanied Thathagatha holding the uprooted tree as an umbrella to him.

Is Thathagatha a person or a place? This name wasn't mentioned before. I assumed that Jetavanarama was the region or place of departure, and that Thathagatha was the destination, but I have no idea. The second ambiguity was:

History records that it was developed and reconstructed by pious kings like Devanampiyatissa, Dutugemunu and converted into a fully accomplished sacred place. According to the golden Sannasa Wallipuram, committed to writing during the reign of king Vasabha.

I assume that "it" means the temple and not the throne or umbrella?Editfromwithout (talk) 18:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

"Contextualization"

@Oz346: so it appears we have an issue about "contextualization" again. Now, marat Oz claims that the event must be given its 'full context', which would be as retaliation for the murder of the Panadura priest. Of course, full contextualization would dictate that Oz also mention that anti-Tamil violence in Panadura had been sparked by stories, factual or fictional, of anti-Sinhalese violence in the East. But frankly, given that this page is about the temple, it's rather unnecessary to fully contextualize the event. Oz may genuinely believe that all events deserve full contextualization however briefly we refer to them, but that does not at all reflect how things are done on Wikipedia. For example, the page Shyam Selvadurai says that he fled the Black July ethnic riots but doesn't mention that those riots were triggered by the killing of 13 Sinhalese soldiers. The introduction to the page Paul Rusesabagina says that he sheltered Tutsis during the Rwandan Genocide but doesn't mention that the genocide was triggered by the assassination of President Habyarimana (the rest of the page does so, but gives waaaaayyy more context that just the assassination). I could cite, many, many more examples, but my point is that such 'contextualization' is unnecessary and subtly distracts the reader from the main point: the temple was destroyed in an act indisputably rooted in racism and religious bigotry, regardless of its antecedents. I've dealt with these 'contextualize Tamil violence' types over the years, and I know how they think: "those saintly Tamils would never hurt a fly without the nasty Sinhala Buddhists causing trouble."

Besides, let's actually take a look at what Emergency '58 actually says about the temple's desecration:

On the same day, at Kayts, some Government boats were destroyed. And then occurred one of the foulest and most provocative examples of goonda activity in the course of the riots.

The Buddhist Temple of Nagadipa stood on the island of Nainativu, eight miles from Kayts. According to hoary legend Nagadipa has direct connections with the life of Gautama Buddha. In the old days only a shrine existed, but by dint of devoutness the temple had grown to sizeable proportions. Isolated as it was, and lacking financial support from a steady flow of pilgrims, the temple had still managed to survive and preserve its atmosphere of quiet holiness.

In commemoration of the Buddha Jayanti celebrations the Burmese Government had given to the Nagadipa Vihare a magnificent bronze-alloy statue. This image had been taken round various centres in the south so that as many persons as possible could see it before enshrinement in Nainativu.

One afternoon a gang of goondas, suspected to be among those who had earlier destroyed the boats at Kayts (presumably with a view to preventing any chance of being pursued by the police) set out on the eight-mile trip to Nainativu.

There they acted swiftly and skilfully. This act of desecration was, without a doubt, premeditated and planned. With vicious zeal they set about destroying the temple. They dynamited the dagoba, snapping off the tapering top section. They burnt every building except one, an outhouse. A small detachment of the gang wreaked their anger on the Buddha image from Burma. They hauled it off the pedestal and carried it away with them. Perhaps it proved too heavy for them to carry across to the mainland for display as a trophy, because it never reached Kayts. With what surely must have been demoniacal purpose, the goondas sawed through the neck, one arm and some fingers of the image. Their intent was to damage it beyond repair in case it should be recovered later. Then they tossed the truncated body and its smaller parts into the sea at various points.

Nowhere does it say that the act was triggered by the Panadura incident. Vittachi says that only of the initial Jaffna violence. One might reasonably infer that the desecration of the Nainativu vihara was revenge, but this is not at all stated in the source. In fact, it may have more to do with the anti-state violence (on the basis that the government is seen as a Sinhala Buddhist government) that occurred on the same day.

As such, this obsession with contextualization is more like whitewashing, and even conceding that there needs to be contextualization, the stated source does not explicitly connect the two events. SinhalaLion (talk) 21:43, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@SinhalaLion:It is very clear from Tarzie Vittachi's account that the attack on the vihara was sparked by the prior violence in the south. Can you deny this? It is as simple as that. It is a fact. My edit clearly says the desecration followed the anti-tamil violence in the south. This is indisputable from his own writing as shown in the preceding text to your quote:

"Jaffna Reacts

Police sources are certain that while shops in Colombo were being looted, people assaulted and killed, and the Prime Minister was being pressed to advise the Governor-General to de- clare a State of Emergency, the whole of the Northern Province was still comparatively quiet. In some parts, mainly in the town of Jaffna itself, a few stragglers were still around—tar brushes and pots in hand—on the look-out for vehicles bearing the Sri number-plate, and there had, of course, been an increased tension in the atmosphere from the time that rumours of what was happening in the North Central Province started trickling through after May 22. The Sinhalese residents of the area, however, who had lived through the June ‘~6 riots with- out encountering so much as a jeer, did not feel that either their lives or their property were in danger. In fact one Sinhalese police officer who was stationed at Jaffna told me that when he spoke to some of his Sinhalese acquaintances and told them that there were some indications that what was happening in other parts of Ceylon might spread to the peninsula, they shrugged it off with a smile and reminded him that in 1956 they had been safer at Jaffna than they could have been anywhere else.

The change came on May 28. By then rumours of what had allegedly been done to Tamils in the south had come through. As with all rumours which were spread during this period, many of them were totally groundless. But nobody stopped to check them. And what finally unleashed the fury of the Tamils in Jaffna was the story—repeated in various forms by different people-of the fate of the Hindu Kovil and its incumbent at Panadura."

If anyone read this article in its current biased state without knowing anything, it would seem that these 'dastardly Tamils' were constantly attacking the vihara because they just happened to be murderous anti buddhists. This is wikipedia not rupavahini propaganda channel (where you will only hear about LTTE atrocities, brainwashing another generation). It seems certain people want to propagate a false narrative of one sided violence from 'dastardly Tamils' over the decades in this article. In fact these attacks are anomalies, most Jaffna Tamils have no issues with the vihara, i've personally visited it.

It is funny that you accuse me of white washing, when you are the one erasing the fact that this desecration was a reaction to the violence in the south. Do you seriously think that this section is a fair narrative of events? I am not afraid of the truth. Oz346 (talk) 23:40, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@Oz346: Yes, the retaliation happened in Jaffna. The attack on the temple was perpetrated by rioters from Kayts. Hence, there is no explicit confirmation that the Nainativu attack was a retaliation for what happened down south. Furthermore, the attack on the temple came three days after the Panadura murder, and two days after the Jaffna violence. Think of it this way: Black July was triggered by the LTTE's killing of the 13 soldiers, but was every attack on Tamils in Black July directly attributable to the LTTE's killing? Of course not.

Anyone (at least reasonable people) reading the article would not come to the conclusion that "these dastardly Tamils were constantly attacking the vihara because they were murderous anti buddhists". It clearly says which Tamils (Tamil mobs, LTTE) were doing the attacking, and that the two attacks on/near the temple occurred 28 years apart. If you feel that simply saying that Tamil mobs desecrated the temple in 1958 or that the LTTE destroyed a boat near the temple is an indictment of Tamils as a whole, then that is a personal issue. Most others, myself included, do not subscribe to such a line of thinking. There's nothing biased about merely stating that the temple was blown up by Tamil hooligans. Again, this is a page about the temple not about the event (nor the perpetrators). On a local level, the violence against the Nainativu temple was certainly one-sided against the Sinhalese in the sense that Sinhalese from Nainativu weren't attacking Tamils, the same way that anti-Tamil violence in the south was one-sided locally despite the fact that there were attacks on Sinhalese in the Batticaloa area preceding it. So yes, not mentioning the "reaction" aspect of it (again, still technically your speculation) is a completely fair narrative of events and definitely precedented. If there was a Wikipedia page about the Panadura kovil, I would not feel the need to add that the attack on it was spurred by rumours of a Sinhalese woman being mutilated in Batticaloa. Unless the priest was killing Sinhala Buddhists in the temple (or something like that), there's no need to add that the attack on the temple was a retaliation. Saying that the Nainativu attack occurred during the 1958 riots is contextualization enough. SinhalaLion (talk) 01:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@SinhalaLion:You are unaware of the geocultural identity of Jaffna and how far it spans. Kayts is a part of 'Jaffna'. I'm a Jaffna Tamil, my family are from Kayts (Karampon/Velanai). 'Jaffna' and 'Jaffna Tamil' regional identity does not only just refer to the town in common parlance, it can refer to the whole district (Valikamam, Vadamarachchi, Thenmarachchi, theevu -islets).

It is pretty obvious that the desecration happened as a reaction to the violence in the south. It did not just come out of nowhere, if that is what you are suggesting. My late grandfather was affected in the 58' pogrom, as he worked in a shop in Colombo, so i know it affected all Tamils in the capital, regardless of regional origin.

The comparison with black july is incorrect. Unlike black july which was building up for weeks, with talks of 'teaching the Tamils a lesson', and clear substantial anger at Tamil economic success in Colombo, and lots of evidence of prior planning etc, in Jaffna, there was no such build up as the Jaffna Sinhalas said themselves of the cordial atmosphere existing at the time:

"he spoke to some of his Sinhalese acquaintances and told them that there were some indications that what was happening in other parts of Ceylon might spread to the peninsula, they shrugged it off with a smile and reminded him that in 1956 they had been safer at Jaffna than they could have been anywhere else. The change came on May 28. By then rumours of what had allegedly been done to Tamils in the south had come through."

The kayts incident is under the 'Jaffna Reacts' section of Tarzie's book for obvious reasons. The desecration was clearly a reaction to the violence in the south, and it is self explanatory to any objective reader of the account.Oz346 (talk) 11:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@Oz346: Tamils from Kayts may identify as 'Jaffna Tamils' but their regional identity has nothing to do with what may or may not have triggered them. It's their geography and what information was relayed there and when it was relayed that matter. I don't dispute that the term 'Jaffna' may be used broadly, the same way 'Batticaloa' or 'Polonnaruwa' are, but if it does refer to the entire district, then the infamous saying "no Sinhalese was killed in Jaffna" is false. That, however, is a story for another day. Right now, it seems that when Vittachi says Jaffna, he means Jaffna.

Obviously, the Nainativu attack didn't come out of nowhere, but whether it was a response to the Panadura incident is a different question altogether. Black July did have its antecedents, but many rioters saw the breakdown of law and order as the perfect opportunity to engage in hooliganism, be it for racial and/or economic reasons. See Richard Gombrich's Is the Sri Lankan War A Buddhist Fundamentalism? and Francesca Bremner's Fragments of Memory, Processes of State: Ethnic Violence through the Life Histories of Participants for example. Speaking of prior planning, Vittachi says this about the dynamiting: This act of desecration was, without a doubt, premeditated and planned. With vicious zeal they set about destroying the temple." How long ago it was premeditated, I don't know.

The Sinhalese in Jaffna were obviously oblivious to the racism around them. Again, another story for another day. But given everything we know thus far and what we've discussed here, here's an equally plausible perspective of the rioters: "Okay boys, our friends in Jaffna have given the Sinhalese what they deserve. We showed this pathetic government who's boss when we raided the Custom station and destroyed the boats. Now it's time to do our share and give these Sinhalese what they deserve."

And regardless of all of this, my point still stands that the motive for the dynamiting is utterly and wholly irrelevant since the article is about the temple. SinhalaLion (talk) 17:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

"Okay boys, our friends in Jaffna have given the Sinhalese what they deserve. We showed this pathetic government who's boss when we raided the Custom station and destroyed the boats. Now it's time to do our share and give these Sinhalese what they deserve."

Friends in Jaffna? Absolute nonsense. This is implausible, baseless speculation you have conjured up from your own imagination to fit your false narrative. You have no knowledge of Jaffna society, and how fragmented it was, village by village. Or indeed, how fragmented Tamil society was in the 50s.

For example, Jaffna was not greatly moved by the prior violence in the east, as it did not affect their families. It is more likely that relatives of the Kayts mob were affected by the violence in the south, and they were further incensed by the the burning of the priest. The latter event is explicitly mentioned by Vittachi as the final trigger for violence in Jaffna, under the section 'Jaffna reacts', where the Kayts violence is also included.

Again the vihara and Sinhalese were not targeted at all in Jaffna until the violence in the south, where many Jaffna Tamils were living and first got hit. The idea that the vihara attack was premeditated before the violence in the south is laughable. And shows a complete lack of knowledge of the Jaffna Tamil mentality. Jaffna Tamils did not care that there were Sinhalese or a Vihara in their midst, and they were not brainwashed from birth to have animosity to "Sinhalese invaders" in the 50s. My grandfather (shopkeeper), for example had a Sinhalese driver called Silva. No one gave a damn about his ethnicity.

You are projecting the common Sinhala mindset of phobia/dislike/apprehension to 'Tamils' (rooted in historical fears, invasions, perceive dominance etc) onto the Tamils and mirroring it. It simply did not exist to a significant level, and this is why the Jaffna Sinhalas said that statement. There was no diabolical conspiracy to attack the Jaffna Sinhalas prior to the pogrom in the south. They were well integrated into society with no large animosity or phobia. I see you are trying to create some false equivalence.

If aliens had attacked Jaffna Tamils in the south, and their relatives in particular, i'm sure those mobs would have attacked aliens in Jaffna.Oz346 (talk) 18:26, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I'm well aware of the divisions in Tamil society, at least on a political level, in the 1950's. After all, their attempt to create a United Front for the 1956 election failed. I just know that in certain moments, race wins above all else. 1958 was one of those moments apparently. Also, why would they respond to violence in the east when it was mostly Tamils rioting against Sinhalese?

Your big argument against there being anti-Sinhalese racism in Jaffna was that there were Sinhalese there who coexisted with the Tamil community? Such coexistence is pretty par for the course; after all, Robert Kearney wrote in 1967 of Ceylon:

Communalist sentiments do not appear to be as conspicuously aggressive, competitive, and exclusive in other spheres of behavior. Relations between communities seem normally to have been relaxed and marked by little if any overt hostility, although they have tended to be somewhat restrained and impersonal, and there are indications of latent unfavorable attitudes by members of each community toward the other.¹⁶ Communal violence in 1956 and 1958 followed the excitement of communal passions by intense political agitation and resort to communal appeals in competition for political support. Except for these periods of communal violence, the seeming paradox has existed of amicable relations among members of different communities, readily observable at the lowest levels of interaction in the everyday lives of ordinary Ceylonese, at the time that the communities appear to be locked in mortal struggle in the political sphere.

I knew a Tamil lady who lived in Panadura during the 1958 riots, and she said that the Hindu priest had gotten along well the Sinhalese there, and that many Sinhalese visited the kovil prior to the attack. In fact, after the riots, the Sinhalese community in Panadura helped to rebuild the damaged temple. The anti-Sinhalese in attacks in Jaffna were said to have had the appearance of being organized. I'm not claiming that every Jaffna Tamil was an anti-Sinhalese racist, but there were definitely racists there. Or do you deny even that much?

I'm not trying to create a 'false equivalency' of racism as you allege I am, but I am merely calling a spade a spade. I'm not going to accuse you of it, but many Tamil nationalists downplay the history of anti-Sinhalese violence from their own community prior to the rise of the LTTE (and even during the LTTE's time but I digress). I've been shocked at the level of ignorance on the Jaffna and Batticaloa violence of 1958, and some even are so arrogant in their ignorance to claim that Tamils never rioted against Sinhalese. And you see, if these nationalists are ignorant of or omit the anti-Sinhalese violence of 1958, can they be trusted to give a fair account of racism in their own community? The Federal Party can sing songs of how they're not against the Sinhalese, but when push comes to shove, the racists will emerge.

You say that the fact that the Nainativu attack is mentioned in the section "Jaffna Reacts" is evidence that it was part of the collective Jaffna reaction. Yet the same section talks about anti-government violence (in the form of attacks on Customs stations) which had less to do with ethnic rioting in the south and more to do with an animosity of the state for interference in the smuggling industry. Vittachi simply chose to put it in the same section because its location and chronology was close enough to the Jaffna violence that an entirely separate section was unwarranted. It would be very awkward to create a new section just for the Nainativu attack; as you can see, Vittachi's work is generally chronological (with perhaps the exception of Batticaloa Killings).

Note that I've never claimed that the Nainativu attack was not motivated by the attacks in the south, but again, Vittachi doesn't explicitly say it, and there are certainly other factors that could very well have contributed to the violence. All this said, you haven't addressed my point that mentioning the cause is utterly and wholly irrelevant. Allow me to qualify this statement. If the Nainativu temple, or someone associated with it, was responsible for anti-Tamil violence, then sure it might be worth mentioning. But it wasn't; hence, I'm merely following the general pattern of how Wikipedia is. Heck, forget about Wikipedia. When writing about the victims of violence, how many people feel the need to add the perpetrator's incentive, especially when the victim had nothing to do with said incentive? You certainly have odd priorities, but I guess I'm hardly an authority on oddness since I'm quite an oddity myself.

Anyways, it appears that dialogue isn't going to work here, and I assume we'll just get into a pointless edit war if I tried editing it. Whatever, you win, you can keep it (for now at least). I've had my fun here. Cheers. SinhalaLion (talk) 21:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)