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Title: The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art and Politics of Late Medieval Sri Lanka by John Holt, John Clifford Holt ISBN: 0-19-510757-8 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Being a Buddhist in 18th century Sri Lanka
Comment: As the second in a line of four regents of the South India derived Nayakkar dynasty that succeeded the last of the ethnically Sinhalese kings in 1739, Kirti Sri (1747-1781)'s linguistic heritage was Tamil and his given religious tradition was Hindu Saivism. The last of the ethnically Sinhalese rulers of the Kandyan kingdom Narendra Sinha (1707-1739) had died without a legitimate heir to the throne. His chief queen was a princess from Madurai , a practice that had been inaugurated during the 11th through 13th centuries in the Polonnaruwa period. The first of the Nayakkar kings, crowned Sri Vijaya Rajasinha in 1739 was the brother in law of Narendrasinha. Kirti Sri, the object of this book, was the brother of Sri Vijaya Rajasingha's chief queen, also a Madurai princess. He was only 16 when he was selected and for 4 years the affairs of the kingdom were handled by his regent father. Holt's stated aim in writing this book is to offer an 'interdisciplinary examination of what is meant for various people, lay and monastic, to be Buddhists during the advent of European colonialism and before what has become known as a modern Buddhist religious perspective, qualified by some as 'protestant Buddhism'. To say things simply Holt asks the following question: what was it to be a Buddhist before Olcott and Dharmapala? This slim book of 147 pages is neatly organised into 5 tightly written chapters. Chapter 1 provides the necessary background for a reader unfamiliar with Sri Lankan history and goes on to explain why KS was so concerned about articulating his religious identity as a Buddhist Chapters 2 to 4 which form the heart of the book explain how KS articulated his understanding of Buddhist religious thought and identity through the expression of his religious works especially the temple wall paintings that have become such a remarkable icon and legacy of his reign. In Chapter 3.entitled A Visual Liturgy. Holt argues that KS's efforts directed at the performance of rituals gave form or rather reformed the public articulation of Buddhism. Through an identification and analysis of the religious meanings symbolised in the pictorial art that KS had painted by his highly skilled crafstmen on the walls of many temples he restored, Holt aims at ferreting out the principles and substances of this classic sinhala weltanschauung or world view. For this he looks in detail at temple wall paintings and this is in my view the most interesting section of the book Chapter 4 deals with one other element of the liturgy which is the jataka paintings. The Jatakas relate the anterior life of the Buddha as a Boddhisatta before his final birth as Gotama Siddharta. This chapter that relates what Holt considers were the 4 most important jataka stories is helpful to a reader who wishes to interpret the murals by himself. Chapter 5 is concerned with the necessity for students of religion to focus on materials other than literary texts. On Chapter 6 that attempts to relate KS predicament in the 18thc to the current ethnic conflict I shall not comment except to say that it adds little to the book.

This book is informative, elegantly written and precise and fulfills its aim of capturing in a nutshell the changes that too place in Buddhism, art and politics in the late medieval period and defining what consitutues a Kandyan style of painting. It is far less successful in its attempt at recreating a worldview. KS's world view is reconstructed from an analysis of what he did and proclaimed towards the revival of classical Buddhism. But I feel Holt misses an entire dimension of KS's character..... what I would call the hybrid nature of his cultural being. Indeed how did he live this condition of being born a Nayakkar and having to adopt the customs of the Kandyans for his own survival. The complex personality of the king who was versed enough in the Sinhala language to compose love songs in Sinhala but who until a rebellion was hatched against him continued the practice of annointing himself with ash does not come out in this book. We know for instance that after the rebellion - KNO Dharmadas mentions this point- not only did he give up the practice of annointing ash but he went so far as to ban the use of ash in the preparation of ola leaf manuscripts. Such clues exist and if one were to follow them a more complete and complex personnality would emerge. Even less convincing is Holt's analysis of the worldview of the common people whom he promises in his introduction to draw into the picture. The kings worldview and the people's appear to be interchangeable. Surely the Kings perception was not the same as that of the common man who visited the temples refurbished by the King. This book does not really investigate ways of thinking in 18th c. Sri Lanka. What I feel as a student of history is that Holt has overlooked the fact that the religious worldview of the common people cannot be looked at without relating it to the surrounding world of significance. But these failings apart, for a lay reader, this book has the merit of presenting very briefly many arguments and weaving all the important strands of scholarship on the late Medieval period into a comprehensive and coherent whole. For a more specialised readership, the unanswered questions and the loose ends in this book may open up new avenues of research and interest.