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“Monastic Landlordism” in Ceylon: A Traditional System in a Modern Setting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Hans-Dieter Evers
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Extract

Studies on social and political change tend to emphasize factors promoting change rather than factors maintaining or reenforcing an existing or a “traditional” social and political system. Among the topics studied from this point of view in Ceylon are the “disintegrating village” (Sarkar and Tambiah 1957), the caste system, a “system in transition” (Ryan 1953), the impact of population growth and colonial legislation on “land tenure in Village Ceylon” (Obeyesekere 1966 and Leach 1961), the development of a western political system and the newly “emerging elite” (Singer 1964), and the impact of industrialization and economic development on the Ceylonese community and caste structure and the “emergence of a class of industrial entrepreneurs” (Evers 1964). In all these booklength studies traditional Sinhalese institutions and values are depicted as distintegrating under the pressure of various factors of change and only limited attention is paid to institutions which effectively counteract westernization, modernization, and possibly change. It is perhaps interesting to note that in line with this way of arguing, the renaissance of Buddhism and the emergence of a strong Buddhist Sinhalese nationalism is viewed as a reaction to western influences rather than an autonomous development of Sinhalese society and culture.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , August 1969 , pp. 685 - 692
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1969

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References

1 The Disintegrating Village, (Colombo: The Ceylon University Press Board, 1957)Google Scholar; Caste in Modern Ceylon, The Sinhalese System in Transition, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953)Google Scholar; Land Tenure in Village Ceylon, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Pul Eliya, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; The Emerging Elite, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Kulturwandel in Ceylon, eine Untersuchung ueber die Entstehung einer Industrie-Unternehmerschicht (Social Change in Ceylon, a Study on the Emergence of a Class of Industrial Entrepreneurs), (Baden-Baden, Germany: Lutzeyer, 1964).Google Scholar

2 So in Buddhism or Communism: Which Holds the Future of Asia? (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965), pp. 37–45Google Scholar. A different view is taken by Heinz Bechert who gives a detailed and balanced report in his Buddhismus Staat und gesellschajt in den Laendern des Theravada Buddhismus, Volume I, (Frankfurt and Berlin: Alfred Metzner Verlag, 1966).Google Scholar

3 The Religions of India, (New York: Free Press, 1958), p. 257.Google Scholar

4 Mahavasmsa 33: 38ff.

5 Evers, Hans-Dieter, “Buddhistische Gesellschaftsordnung und buddhistischer Wohlfahrtsstaat” (Buddhist Society and Buddhist Welfarestate), Moderns Welt, Volume IV, No. 3 (1963), 265–77.Google Scholar

6 Max Weber is perhaps not to be blamed in this case. His term “Klostergrundherrschaft” does not convey the same meaning as “monastic landlordism,” namely that there is an individual, a landlord, who owns land and commands tenants.

7 See e.g. the Tablets of Mahinda IV, 956–972 A.D., Epigraphia Zeylanica, Volume I (1904–12), 75–113 and other inscriptions. The system is described by the ven. History of Buddhism in Ceylon, (Colombo: M. D. Gunasena, 1956).Google Scholar

8 Buddhannehaäla Pillar Inscription, Epigraphia Zeylanica, Volume I (1904–12), 191–200.

9 These ordination lineages are described in Evers, Hans-Dieter, “Kinship and Property Rights in a Buddhist Monastery in Central Ceylon,” American Anthropologist, LXIX (1967), 703–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bechert, op. cit., pp. 225–26 and Evers, Hans-Dieter, “The Buddhist Sangha in Ceylon and Thailand: A Comparative Study of Formal Organizations in Two Non-Industrial Societies,” Sociologus, N. S. Volume XVIII, No. 1 (1968), 20–35.Google Scholar

10 Fernando, P. E. E., “India Office Land Grant of King Kirti Sri Rājasimha,” Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies, Volume III, No. I (1960), 79Google Scholar and Evers, Hans-Dieter, “The Rebellion of 1760 against Kirti Sri Rājasirpha,” unpublished manuscript, 1967Google Scholar. One is tempted to draw comparisons with the assassination of Prime-Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1959. In both cases an alliance between a chief monk of an important monastery and high ranking government officials was formed with the intention to murder the head of the government who happened in both cases to be a strong supporter of Buddhism and Buddhist revival.

11 Evers, Hans-Dieter, “Buddhism and British Colonial Policy in Ceylon, 1815–1875,” Asian Studies, Volume II, No. 3 (1964), 323–33 and Sessional Paper I of 1956.Google Scholar

12 In contrast to the position taken here, the actions of the British Government are usually seen as highly destructive for Buddhism and the Buddhist Sangha. See Buddhism in Ceylon under the Christian Powers, (Colombo: M. D. Gunasena, 1963).Google Scholar

13 These figures are based on a preliminary evaluation of materials collected in the Ceylon Government Archives and the Record Room of the Kandy Katcheri. One major difficulty was the recalculation of Sinhalese landmeasures whose acre-equivalent changes from district to district.

14 See South Asian Politics and Religion, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 498Google Scholar; Bcchert, Heinz, op. at., p. 344Google Scholar; Evers, Hans-Dieter, Kulturwandel in Ceylon, p. 102.Google Scholar

15 The Kandyan feudal system before 1815 is analyzed in Sinhalese Social Organization, (Colombo: University of Ceylon Press, 1956)Google Scholar. The administration of a Buddhist temple (vihara and devale) is described in The Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, (London: Lusac, 1931).Google Scholar

16 The Council of the Malvatta Monastery in Kandy officially condemned political activities of monks in 1946. See Heinz Bechert, op. cit., p. 313. The present Mahānāyaka of Malvatta also declared that monks should abstain from politics (World Buddhism, Volume XII, No. 10 [1964], 23–24). This does not mean that he himself did not try to influence the government. His “political style” is indicated by his demand to have an official residence in Colombo, the capital.

17 A full account will be found in a forthcoming book on the social organization of Buddhist temples. For some preliminary results see Hans-Dieter Evers, “Buddha and the Seven Gods: The Dual Organization of a Temple in Central Ceylon,” loc. cit. See also Gananath Obeyesekere, “The Buddhist Pantheon in Ceylon and its Extensions,” in Anthropological Studies in Theravada Buddhism, (New Haven: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, 1966), Cultural Report Series No. 13, p. 10.Google Scholar

18 The Betrayal of Buddhism, (Balangoda 1956), Wriggins, op. cit., p. 195Google Scholar, Bechert, op. cit., p. 269.

19 “Buddha sāsana komisan vārtāva,” Sessional Paper XVIII, 1959, and Bechert, op. cit., pp. 280, 350.