dhammadipa

[Guest guest]

The well-known Lankan anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere has in the Lankan

paper The Island [http://www.island.lk/ Features] from 26 August, 2001,

put an intricate question about where to find the key concept dhammadipa.

It is the backbone of present Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness. He could not

find it anywhere, not even in the Mahavamsa, probably because he read the

Mahavamsa in English translation, where Wilhelm Geiger has omitted to give

the Pali word and has also not given the common translation "island

of the dhamma". So, it is difficult to find in the translation. The word

is of course there,

in the Pali edition, in 1:81, but it does not have the meaning "island of

the dhamma" normally attributed to it.

 

The shift or gliding of three meanings of the concept of dhammadipa can be

shortly illustrated by giving three alternative translations of the word

dhammadipa. First, the canon's dhammadipa, as exemplified in the

Mahaparinibbanasuttanta ( D 1, p. 100), has to be translated with "having

the dhamma as (guiding) lamp". Whoever, wherever, whenever, only depending

on the maturity of his mind, can acquire the dhamma as lamp to guide him

beyond the cycle of rebirth. The subject is the individual and the dipa is

the guiding lamp. The compound dhammadipa is bahuvrihi. The translation

above indicates a universal religious-soteriological concept of dhammadipa.

Here the word dipa has generally nothing to do with an island. When

exceptionally the ambivalent word dipa means "island", it is only a

metaphor for sarana, "refuge".

 

Second, it can be analysed as "(the Lankan Buddhists) having the dhamma as

(guiding) lamp". It appears in a special non-canonical context. I refer to

the vamsa-literature, mainly consisting of chronicles, that describe the

establishment and institutionalisation of Buddhism in the island Lanka.

The main theme in this description is "the sealing theme". It is no doubt

an important paradigm in the vamsa-literature. The theme is more precisely

formulated as dipamhi sasanagamam, "the coming of the sasana to the

island". It is one of the main four explicit themes of the chronicles.

According to this vamsa-tradition, the Buddha himself can be said to have

literally "sealed" the island by putting his footprint on the Sumanakuta.

As a result of his three visits the island(ers) have got the dhamma as

dipa. Here, one group of the island, the Buddhists, is highlighted and

distinguished from other groups of islanders by having the lamp of the

dhamma. An ideal person, Sinhala or Tamil, is a Lankan Buddhist. This

sectarian and at the same time parochial, but not racial, concept of

dhammadipa, we find in the Mahavamsa 1: 84. It is retrieved today by

traditionalists. Here, the subject is the Lankan Buddhists. Living on a

dipa, "island", they have the dhamma as dipa, "lamp". The Buddhist

islanders, or shortly the island, has the dhamma as lamp. The Mahavamsa

tries to drive home the point that the island cannot be represented but by

Buddhist islanders.

 

Mahavamsa 1: 81 plays on the ambiguity of the word dipa. When the word

means "island", it is subject. When it is predicate in the compound, it

means "lamp", not island. The compound is again bahuvrihi.

 

Third, the word dhammadipa can be analysed as a) "(the sinhala jatiya

("race")) having the dhamma as lamp". Here the subject is still more

limited not only to Buddhists, but to Buddhists only who belong to the

sinhala jatiya. Buddhists who belong to the Tamil cati are excluded. This

is one of the modern versions of Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness that is not

only exclusively Buddhist, but also exclusively racist. It was generated in

the beginning of the 20th century. This ethnonationalist interpretation

turns the meaning of dhammadipa upside-down thereby violating common

language use.

 

The concept of dhammadipa can be interpreted by ethnonationalists also as

b) "(the sinhala jatiya) having the island as dhamma". Here the subject is

also the sinhala jatiya, but it has not the dhamma as dipa. It has the dipa

as dhamma, where dipa means "island", not lamp. This is the most radical

form of Sinhala consciousness. It turns the island into the dhamma. The

island has not the dhamma; the island is the dhamma of the Sinhalas only,

but for the rest of the world. This is the highest form of self-assertion,

because it changes "have" into "be". An attribute is changed into essence.

It makes the island(=dhamma) the ultimate expression of sinhala tatvaya,

"Sinhalaness". [sinhala tatvaya as well as Sinhalatva are part of the

present ethnonationalist discourse].

 

I am aware that there is the common and frequent translation of dhammadipa

as "island of the dhamma". It is used by both critical scholars and Sinhala

ethnonationalists. When using this translation, three unconscious or

conscious decisions have been made, namely, first, that the subject is the

island. The island, not the individual, is the island of the dhamma.

Second, dipa means always the same, "island". The lamp alternative is

excluded. Third, the compound is not bahuvrihi, but tatpurusa.

 

This translation has no support in the canonical passage referred to above.

It has some support in the Mahavamsa 1: 84, but fits best into a

Sinhala-Bauddha ethnonationalist interpretative charter. Many may use it

just for convention. We have to critically examine this convention, because

it cements ethonationalist values and prefigures minds in a tricky way.

 

Coming back to our object, Sinhala-Bauddha consciousness, we find that it

has transformed the canonical concept of dhammadipa. We have concrete

evidence for this forging when, where and how it was done. The

transformation of

soteriological concepts into political concepts is a common phenomenon not

only in South Asia-exemplary study case Vivekananda- but also in other

political and religious movements like for example the German Christians

(Deutsche Christen). They employed professional theologians, on the level

of professors, to achieve such semantic transformations. They succeeded

among their followers in defining the New Testament concept of agape,

"love", in such a way that it implied racial hate. So did groups of white

Christians in South Africa during the apartheid system. This forging of new

interpretations of old concepts is achieved by the craftsmanship of

professional ideologists with vested political interests. There are more

interesting subjects to be studied, but there is hardly any more necessary

subject to be studied than this process of forging of old concepts to fit

modern vested political interests.