Sumangala
The Venerable Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thero or Sumangala Unnanse was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk or bhikkhu, who was a distinguished scholar and Buddhist High Priest of Ceylon. He pioneered in the Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist movement in the 19th century, and worked closely with Col. Olcott to establish Buddhist schools. He served as Vice President of the Theosophical Society from 1881 to 1888. "Venerable," "Sri," "thero," and "Unnanse" are honorific terms.
Early years
Sumanagala was born January 20, 1827 in the village of Hikkaduwa in the Galle district of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). His name at birth was Don Niculus Gunawardhana. Don Johannes de Silva Abeyeware Gunawardana was his father. The boy was educated in Sinhala and Pāli at the village school, and later learned Sanskrit, French, English, and Elu, the classical language of the Sri Lankans. At the age of 13 he entered an order of Buddhist monks at the Thotagamuwa Raja Maha Vihara at Hikkaduwa, and at 21 he was accorded a higher ordination.
Buddhist-Christian debate
In 1873, Sumangala and another of the Buddhist bhikkhus, Mohotiwatta Gunananda, participated in a series of debates with Christian missionaries about the merits of their belief systems. Known as the Panadurawadaya, the three days of debates took place at Panadura. Anagarika Dharmapala described the event:
I was fortunate in knowing well the Venerable H. Sri Sumangala... Another Buddhist monk whom, as a friend of my family, I saw nearly every day, was Mohotiwatta Gunanda. He was a golden-tongued orator, winning in personality, and when he spoke, he drew crowds. He defeated the Christians in many debates. When I was ten years old, I attended a great debate in a temple pavilion sixteen miles from Ceylon, where the Christians on one side and Gunananda on the other argued out the truths of their respective religions. In clumsy two-wheeled bullock-carts covered with woven coconut leaves, in the lighter hackeries, in occidental spring carriages and afoot, thousands came from the most distant parts of the island to hear this famous debate. Mohotiwatta Gunanda supplied the oratory; and the Venerable Sumangala furnished him with the scholarly material and references. The debate lasted three entire days.
Dr. J. M. Peebles, an American Spiritualist, who was visiting Colombo at the time, obtained an English report of the controversy between the Buddhists and Christians and, upon his return to the United States showed it to Colonel Henry S. Olcott and Madame H. P. Blavatsky, who had organized the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875. Deeply impressed, they wrote to Gunananda and Sumangala that, in the interest of universal brotherhood, they had just founded a society inspired by oriental philosophies and that they would come to Ceylon to help the Buddhists. The letters from Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky were translated into Sinhalese and widely distributed.[1]
Association with Theosophical Society
Colonel Olcott and Sumangala were closely associated. "On his first arrival in Ceylon, Col. Olcott received a warm welcome from the leading representatives of Southern Buddhism and much active support during his lecturing tour. Among these the veteran Sumangala figures prominently, the Colonel referring to him as 'the representative and embodiment of Pali scholarship'."[2] The High Priest assisted in the compilation of the Buddhist Catechism; certified the orthodoxy of Olcott's interpretation of Buddhism; and ordered 100 copies of the Sinhalese language version for use in his college.
Work in education
In 1873, Sumangala founded the Vidyodaya Pirivena, a monastic college, that was granted the university status late in 1959 by the Government of Sri Lanka as Vidyodaya University (now known as the University of Sri Jayewardenepura). The college name was also spelled Widydaya. After he met Colonel Olcott, they worked together to establish dozens of Buddhist schools all over Sri Lanka.
He was a close associate of Sir Edwin Arnold the author of The Light of Asia.[3]
Later years
Sumangala passed away on April 29, 1911.
Notes
- ↑ Anagarika Dharmapala, "On the Eightfold Path: Memories of an Interpreter of Buddhism to the Present-Day World," Asia (September, 1927), 723.
- ↑ "Colonel Olcott and Sumangala" The Theosophist 38.7 (April, 1917), 100-101.
- ↑ Oxford University, Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record, Oxford University, 1879.