By Vinod Moonesinghe
Historically, Sri Lankans have tended, whatever their faith, to tolerate other faiths. Indeed, to some extent every religion on the island has been influenced by the others.
This mystical assimilation is reinforced by the existence of a syncretic system of folk belief underlying the major religions, incorporating a gamut of myths and legends drawn from a variety of sources. The existence of such a broad system of folk belief goes beyond the shores of this island and may be found in different forms throughout South Asia.
That tendency extends to followers of the Abrahamic religions. For example, the traditional Islam of Maldives incorporates non-Islamic beliefs in Djinns and Divs corresponding to the deities and demons of the Sinhalese. Reverend Father Tissa Balasuriya, in his Mary and Human Liberation, gave voice to some of the pressures of religious syncretism on Roman Catholicism.
“Other schools of thinking are also in crisis as the world is far from experiencing continuing progress; Western civilization is in a moral crisis and searching for values on which to rebuild itself. Marxist socialism too has failed to solve the problems concerning the ultimate meaning of life even when it has contributed towards a more just social order. It is within this situation that the Churches are coming together in searching their identity as disciples of Jesus and in a more open dialogue with the world religions, which till recently they considered as pagan.”
The presence of churches on the sacred sites of folk deities has imbued some of the Christian saints with the characteristics of their co-located deities, leading to their almost universal appeal. For example, the Sri Lankan belief in St Anthony of Padua, whose church reputedly lies on the site of a Shrine to the deity Suniyam, has led to pilgrimages to his cult center in Padua by non-Christian Sri Lankans domiciled in Europe.
Similarly, one finds mosques dedicated to various Muslim saints in the holy places of the Sri Lankan folk belief system: at Adam’s Peak or Sri Pada(the mountain holy to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims) and at Kataragama.
The Mosque at Kataragama contains the Shrine of Hazarat Al-Khizr (Al-Khidr), the “Green One.” This in itself is significant. Al-Khidr has been syncretized with various Zoroastrian, Judaic, and Christian figures, including Elijah and St George. Al-Khidr, the “Servant of God”, is an angel, prophet, or protector (wali) who accompanies Musa (Moses) and teaches him through a series of apparently unjust actions.
In his fervent quest for God, according to Sri Lankan Sufi belief, Al-Khiḍr embarked on an extensive journey, yearning for divine guidance, and met the Archangel Jibril (Gabriel), disguised as a wise human sage. Jibril imparted profound teachings to Al-Khiḍr through seemingly unjust actions, as the Quran says Al-Khidr did to Musa.
The role of Al-Khidr as a protector is significant. The Kataragama God in the folk belief system is also a protector. In modern times, no sooner do they buy or lease a motor vehicle, the owners drive down to Kataragama to obtain the god’s protection for it. For weeks afterwards, one may see the red plastic garland symbolic of the god festooned over the dashboard (generally hanging from the rearview mirror).
However, the god of Kataragama may have begun as a river god (note that Al-Khidr is identified as finding “the water of life”). The Vannialaëtto refer to him as Oya Veddha, the “River Hunter”, the river in question being the Menik Ganga, which flows past the Shrine. Even today, pilgrims wash off their physical and spiritual dirt in the river. The “water-cutting” ceremony played an important role in the ritual and may have had far greater religious significance in the past.
The late mediaeval chronicle the Rajavaliya says that King Gajaba I (Gajabahuka Gamini) invaded the Chola country to rescue 12,000 Sri Lankans taken as captive by the Chola king, his path thither being opened by the giant Nila, who parted the waters of the Palk Strait with his massive mace: echoes of near-eastern legend, including that of Musa, who parted the Red Sea.
The river god may have been assimilated to Kande Yaka (“mountain spirit”)the god of nearby Wedihitikanda or “mount of the elders” – the “elders” in this case referring to the Vannialëtto. The Vannialaëtto claim to have begun the tradition of the pada yatra, or foot-pilgrimage through the eastern jungles to Kataragama, which persists to this day.
The earliest mention of Kataragama in written records comes from the 5th Century Buddhist ecclesiastical chronicle, the Mahavamsa, which says that “the nobles of Kajaragama” came to Anuradhapura to witness the planting of the sacred Bodhi Tree by King Devanampiya Tissa in the 3rd century BCE.
This suggests Kataragama may have been an important spot from the earliest times. Its etymology is unclear: gama comes from the prakrit gāma or “village”, but the origin of Katara is not certain. Several derivations have been put forward, including katara or “desert”, Kartikeiya for the Hindu god of war, and Tamil Kathir, “ray of light.” None of these sounds plausible, any more than the Muslim derivation from “Khidr-gama”, the village of Al-Khidr. Kajara in Ayurveda means the Strychnine plant (Strychnos nux-vomica) or Goda Kaduru, so Katara might stem from this plant name.
The locality of Kataragama by no means comprised a desert or jungle in ancient times. Until the British created the Yala game park, taking over thousands of hectares of paddy lands, farms covered this area. The Shrine must have been located in the midst of bustling economic activity. The reference in the Mahavamsa, which adds that one of the Bodhi saplings were planted here, indicates that it was a place of some importance.
The Buddhist ecclesiastical chronicle the Culavamsa notes that it several times acted as the capital of the province of Rohana. It occupied a strategic position on the road to Guttasala (modern Buttala) from Tissamaharama and the coast, being just 25 kilometers from Kirinda, where the Kirindi Oya river fell into the sea. Equally importantly, it lay at the same distance from the salterns.
Naturally, the god of this economic center absorbed the attributes of the deities of the elites in the surrounding areas and of foreign merchants and pilgrims. Kande (“of the mountain”) segues into Skanda, the Vedic god of war.
This association may have been reinforced by the similarity with “Sikander” (the Macedonian invader Alexander), whose legendary prowess in warfare influenced folklore from the Caucasus to Bengal. As Iskander-zul-Qarnain (“two-horned Alexander”), Muslims considered him the cousin of Al-Khidr.
The identification of Kataragama with the god of war is helped by his later assimilation of the deified King Mahasena, whose very name means “great army.” Tradition has King Dutthagamini Abhaya (Dutugemunu) making a pledge to the god before setting out on his military campaign against the Chola king Elara.
According to Hindu mythology, before becoming god of war, Skanda married Devasena, the daughter of Indra. However, the Kataragama god was married to a Vedda chieftain’s daughter, Devani. This contradiction worked itself out uniquely, by the deity taking two wives. The god is said to move between their two dwellings.
According to a celebrated myth, the god’s courtship of Devani had an unintended consequence. She had at withstood his blandishments, so his brother Ganapati turned himself into an elephant to frighten her, allowing Skanda to pose as her savior and win her heart. However, his incompetence led to the more cerebral Ganapati being stuck with an elephant’s head.
Skanda, as the god of war, came to occupy a place among the gods of the four warrants, alongside Natha, Vishnu and Pattini. According to Gananath Obeysekere, the defeat of the Kandyan Kingdom in the “war” of 1815 (more like a transaction than a war) and in the bloodily suppressed Uva rebellion of 1817-18, led to a decline in the Skanda cult.
The number of devotees making the pada yatra diminished to a trickle. Then a strange phenomenon occurred. The ranks of pilgrims expanded, with thousands of South Indian immigrant workers coming to worship Murugan, identified with Skanda or Kartikeya.
Whereas the cult of Natha, formerly the god of state, continued to decline – the god falling to the status of deity of the abandoned (anatha) – that of Kataragama developed to the pre-eminent position in Sri Lanka. When one enters the boundaries of his domain, one arrives in “god’s country.”
Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus had worshipped at Kataragama for centuries. However, the recent Indian immigrants brought with them new practices and rituals, in particular rituals of self-torture, such as face-piercing and hanging by hooks, which seem to provide the staple for foreign documentaries on Kataragama.
Said to be the offspring of Siva and Parvati, his nativity is bound with the myth of the demise of “Bathmasura” (“rice miser”), the Asura Bhasma whom Vishnu, in the form of a woman, vanquished. Before he could shape-change back, Isvara (cognomen of Siva) had sex with him, producing seven offspring, who became the god Aiyanayaka (Aiyanar) and the six-headed Skanda, his name deriving from his “mound of heads” (his kanda). A mythic mishmash indeed.
The history of Kataragama and of its resident cult underlies its modern position and mythology. The complex and often contradictory body of myths surrounding worship of the Kataragama god is a creature of the syncretism which has formed the contemporary cult. Perhaps this syncretism could provide the basis for resolving the ethnic differences and attitudes which bedevil Sri Lanka today.
Vinod Moonesinghe read mechanical engineering at the University of Westminster, and worked in Sri Lanka in the tea machinery and motor spares industries, as well as the railways. He later turned to journalism and writing history. He served as chair of the Board of Governors of the Ceylon German Technical Training Institute.
Factum is an Asia Pacific-focused think tank on International Relations, Tech Cooperation and Strategic Communications accessible via www.factum.lk.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the organization’s.
