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Conceptualisations of Place in the Vernacular Rural Settlements of Sri

LankaRanjith Dayaratnea

a University of Bahrain,

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To cite this Article Dayaratne, Ranjith(2010) 'Conceptualisations of Place in the Vernacular Rural Settlements of SriLanka', South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 33: 3, 381 — 398

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Conceptualisations of Place in the Vernacular

Rural Settlements of Sri Lanka

Ranjith Dayaratne

University of Bahrain

AbstractIt is well known that traditional communities relate to their settlements

differently from modern ones, and that in the developing world contemporary

settlements often constitute dualistic communities, holding contrasting percep-

tions of place. Sri Lanka’s traditional communities have been fashioned by

historically evolved conceptions of the world comprised of supernatural beings

and their interrelationships; reverence for nature and spirits underpin everyday

activities and life expectations. The monks and peasants who were the main

occupants of such villages articulated their conceptions of place around the

duality of the sacred and the profane, a mode of conceptualisation still

embedded in everyday language and behaviour. The paper elucidates thestructure and the conceptualisations of the significant places in traditional Sri

Lankan villages. It discusses how they have become, with globalisation,

diffused, yet remain at the core of local conceptualisations.

Keywords: meaning, culture, place, traditional settlements, Sri Lanka

Introduction

Meanings of places are culture specific and temporally situated. In the modernworld, which has seen a greater spatial integration in the processes of

production, organisation, control, habitation, framing and representation,

conceptualisations of places have also converged. Often such conceptualisa-

tions are created and disseminated largely by the mass media which dominates

the communication systems of modern societies. Nevertheless, differences

among heterogeneous communities now occupying cities have become

accentuated. Many urban disputes, conflicts and confrontations have opposing

perceptions of place embedded in them. Spatial intelligence has progressed in

leaps and bounds, and the emergence of mass migration, megacities,

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies,

n.s., Vol.XXXIII, no.3, December 2010

ISSN 0085-6401 print; 1479-0270 online/10/030381-18 2010 South Asian Studies Association of Australia

DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2010.520650



environmental degradation, border conflicts and geopolitics have influenced

significantly our lived experience as well as our conceptualisations of place.

Spatial transformations have aggravated the processes connecting the past tothe present, the rural habitat to the urban milieu, the landscape to the cityscape

and the periphery to the centre. In fact, even within the somewhat

homogeneous village itself, conceptions of place have evolved in numerous

diverse ways, separating, dislocating, dislodging and disinheriting people from

places and vice versa.

Conceptions of place as between modern societies and traditional ones differ as

much as between ethnic and cultural groups. In the past, people employed

different ways of representing space that were less associated with territory, but

rather with the processes of being and becoming. In fact, as Kostas Retsikasshows, in traditional communities geography was less important than spiritual

or religious references.1 A notable study of this phenomena is that of Amos

Rapoport,2 who shows that the specific meanings and conceptions of place

among Australian aborigines relating to the spiritual act of ‘dreaming’ that

fashioned the core of their culture, had a profound impact upon their daily

behaviour: both being and becoming. Often, meanings did not manifest in

material space, so they were not easily delineated by outsiders who interpreted

them through their own conceptions and knowledge. In fact, it is now agreed

that British settlement did serious harm to the Australian aborigines and their

traditional lands by viewing these lands as mere ‘bush’ to be cleared and

cultivated for profit. Botond Bogner, studying the notion of nothingness in

Japanese culture, notes that there is no fixed distinction in Japanese dwellings

between spaces associated with spiritual purity and those set aside for ordinary

use. He shows, rather, that at times the whole house becomes transformed into

‘a sacred domain’ by means of ‘the performance of certain ceremonies and the

temporary display of religious signs or symbols’.3 Likewise Gunawan Tjahjono

explores how the Javanese perceive their dwellings. He stresses conceptions of

‘centre’ and ‘duality’ and demonstrates how nature and community are the key

ideas that inform the Javanese understanding of their environment and thus of their settlements.4 Undeniably, conceptualisations of places among different

1 Kostas Retsikas, ‘Being and Place: Movement, Ancestors, and Personhood in East Java, Indonesia’, in

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol.XIII, no.4 (2007), pp.969–86.2 Amos Rapoport, ‘Australian Aborigines and Definitions of Place’, in P. Oliver (ed.), Shelter Sign and

Symbol (London: Berrie and Jenkin, 1975), pp.38–51.3 Botond Bogner, ‘The Place of Nothingness: The Japanese House and the Oriental World Views of the

Japanese’, in J. Boudier and N. Alsayyed (eds), Dwellings Settlements and Tradition (London: University

Press USA, 1989), p.13.4 Gunawan Tjahjono, ‘Center and Duality in the Javanese Dwelling’, in J. Boudier and N. Alsayyed (eds),

Dwellings Settlements and Tradition (London: University Press USA, 1989), pp.213–36.

382 SOUTH ASIA



people differ. Appreciating this is a vital precursor to any understanding of

vernacular settlements.

Thus it is disappointing and depressing to observe the international efforts

launched to assist the victims of the 2004 tsunami victims in Sri Lanka,

Indonesia and India. Money has been poured in; whole villages reconstructed.

But there is little evidence in those reconstructions that the core perceptions of

the vernacular settlements have been understood. True, the situation was

complicated by the urgency with which the external agencies were required to

act, and also by the rapid transformations which were taking place in these

vernacular settlements, where both traditional and modernising communities

co-exist uneasily in the same geographical space. There is a tendency to view the

more traditional as being ‘backward’. Also colonisation, and more latterlyglobalisation, have brought new world views and attitudes into the villages,

simultaneously eroding the old deep-seated value systems and stimulating a

reactionary but stronger sense of belonging to these values.

Sri Lanka is a place where a 2,500-year-old civilisation has passed down unique

values and understandings of the world. Centuries of physical colonisation by

the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British,5 and cultural colonisation by the

Indians, the Japanese and the Americans, have added layers of complexity. Yet

the latter impacts have been felt largely in the urban settlements. Most of the

rural vernacular remains attached to the old values even as it tries to negotiate

with the invasive modern world.

Understanding Vernacular Sri Lankan SettlementsIn Sri Lanka, three ethnically-different types of vernacular settlements exist—

Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim. Sinhalese settlements exist all over the island

except in the Jaffna and Batticaloa regions of the north and east, where Tamil

and Muslim settlements dominate. Within this taxonomy, many variations of

building types can be discerned, ranging from single-roomed peasant dwellings,to middle-class cottages with verandas and front yards, to aristocratic villas or

walawwas situated in large estates. They have all been extensively studied and

their spatial patterns accurately recorded.6 As J.B. Dissanayake points out,

5 Nihal Perera, Society and Space: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Postcolonial Identity in Sri Lanka (Boulder:

Westview Press, 1998).6 Ronald Lewcock, Barbara Sansoni and Laki Senanayake, The Architecture of an Island (Colombo: Vishva

Lekha, 2002); Ashley De Vos, ‘Some Aspects of Traditional Rural Housing and Domestic Technology’, in

The Sri Lanka Architect, Vol.C No. 4 (Colombo: SLIA, Sept.–Dec. 1988), pp.8–16; Nimal De Silva ‘The Sri

Lankan Tradition for Shelter’, in The Sri Lanka Architect, Vol.C No. 6 (Colombo: SLIA, June–Aug. 1990),

CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF PLACE 383



today there is no single village left in the island that can be said to contain all

the elements of a ‘traditional’ vernacular settlement.7 Nevertheless, there is a

general consensus about what these elements comprised, and some of them canbe seen in almost every village despite centuries of modernisation and

Westernisation.

Life in Sinhalese villages has drawn the attention of many ethnographers. V.J.

Baker, for instance, looks at how Sinhala villagers cope with the uncertainties

of life, both enduring and ephemeral. He shows that the complex social

stratification and land tenure systems typical of such villages have led to social

disputes, intrigues and even murders.8 Edmond Leach, too, demonstrates how

land tenure and kinship, together with agrarian practices, are intricately

intertwined.9

Looking more specifically at agrarian changes, James Brow andJoe Weeramunda map out the transformations of agrarian practices and the

complexities of land tenure systems dearly protected by peasant communities

through the control of intermarriage and other socio-political mechanisms.10

On the transformation of the village, the study by Barrie M. Morrison, M.P.

Moore and M.U. Ishak Lebbe is of particular importance.11 While challenging

the popular myth that villages were sites of autonomy, harmony and equality,

they demonstrate that the survival of the traditional village nevertheless rested

upon ideas of co-operation and interdependence in the central activity of paddy

cultivation. They point out that the villagers derived social status from rice

cultivation, and that the activity also generated a raft of ritual practices and

helped the peasants conceptualise their world with reference to the spaces and

places of cultivation. They then go on to show, focusing on the period 1970–

1977, how the processes of modernisation, population expansion, a shift to

cash-crop agriculture and politicisation have impacted on these core under-

standings. At one level power has shifted from the landlord class, village elders,

teachers, village physicians and priests to traders and politicians. At another

level, values and social and spatial referents have fragmented.

pp.2–11; and Ranjith Dayaratne, ‘The Sinhalese’, in Encyclopaedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.963–81.7 J.B. Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant (Colombo: State Printing Corporation, 1993).8 V.J. Baker, A Sinhalese Village in Sri Lanka: Coping with Uncertainty (New York: Harcourt Brace College

Publishers, 1997).9 Edmond Leach, Pul Eliya: A Village in Ceylon, A Study of Land Tenure and Kinship (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1961).10 James Brow and Joe Weeramunda, Agrarian Change in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Sage, 1992).11 Barrie M. Morrison, M.P. Moore and M.U. Ishak Lebbe, The Disintegrating Village, Social Change in

Rural Sri Lanka (Colombo: Lake House Investments, 1979).

384 SOUTH ASIA



However, while literature about social organisation and the social practices of

everyday life in Sri Lanka is relatively rich, studies of the conceptualisation of

place are few. Notably, Dissanayake offers some valuable insights by way of alinguistic analysis.12 Yet like many others, he romanticises the village by

eliminating or avoiding references to the webs of social tension and conflict that

manifest there. Dissanayake agrees that his study ‘is an attempt to recapture the

beauty and romance of the Sinhalese village in all its glory’,13 but also

maintains that this image is not a myth.

In fact this tendency to romanticise the village is an inherent conceptualisa-

tion among the Sinhalese themselves, although its idealisation is often

challenged.14 In a recent study of Sri Lankan migrants in Australia, it was

discovered that the Sri Lankan-Australians harboured extravagantly sanitisedand romanticised feelings about the villages that they had left behind.15 And

this is also true of the urban dwellers in Sri Lanka itself. Sri Lankans cherish

the remembered places of their childhood villages; they long for village food,

think back to how nice it was to take a dip in the village river, or bathe at the

well—having left all these things behind in search of more sophisticated

material comforts.

Like any human settlement, the Sinhalese village is a complex organism,

perceived differently by insiders and outsiders, traditionalists and modernists,

landlords and peasants. Underlying this variation however is a wilful

romanticisation, inbuilt, inherent and indisputable, which has its roots in the

fact that the village is indeed a beautiful place, visually and spatially—despite

being relatively poor. Material poverty, drudgery of life, and social conflicts are

real and omnipresent features of Sri Lankan village life. For all that, observers

persistently see the romance there. We need to examine the perceptual

structures that underpin this persistent trope.

The Research and Its MethodologyIn this paper, I follow Dissanayake in studying the Sinhalese village and its

community from a linguistic standpoint.16 I complement this approach with

12 Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant; and J.B. Dissanayake, Understanding the Sinhalese (Colombo:

Chatura Printers, 1998).13 Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant, p.1.14 Gananath Obeyesekere, Land Tenure in Village Ceylon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).15 Ranjith Dayaratne, ‘Reconstructing Culture and Place: The Sri Lankan Society and Space in Australia’,

unpublished research report (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2007).16 Dissanayake, Understanding the Sinhalese.




data obtained from residence in and observation of two villages: Pindeniya, a

typical small village in Kegalle district; and Nagala, a remote village in the

Monaragala district some four kilometres from the town of Bibile. Pindeniyahas been highly exposed to the forces of globalisation, being located on a main

highway and fairly close to the capital Colombo. Nagala on the other hand,

situated on a small road near Igniyagala, another remote town in Uva province,

has been little exposed to the globalising trend. In fact, it appears to retain

many of the traditional values of the Sinhalese village.

The author lived in the village of Nagala between 1992 and 1995. Subsequent to

this, I conducted a two-month-long participant observation study in July 2003

in order to elaborate upon and re-test the impressions that had been generated

earlier. Back in the 1970s, I also lived for a time in Pindeniya. Since then until2007 I have visited the village every year for a month in order to observe the

changes taking place there.

Conception of the Village: Gama The popular and idealised view of the traditional Sinhalese rural village, or

gama, is that it is constituted of a balanced cosmology of sacred and profane

terrains, well defined for the mutual co-existence of its main inhabitants: the

monks and the peasants.17 Nagala—a village in the remote wilderness of

Bibile—fits this description quite well. Here the sacred exists as the guardian of

the profane, and people are encouraged to aspire to be reborn in the next life

into a more blissful world. This balanced co-existence of sacred and

profane terrains is sustained by the Buddhist philosophy of life that has

underpinned Sinhalese society for almost 2,500 years. At the heart of it lies an

understanding of the world as being an impermanent home of impermanent

beings—humans and others with whom the former are expected to share the

earth’s resources.

The villagers, however, do not see it as being such an idealised terrain. To themit is more fluid and complex. Nevertheless the village is the universe from which

their conceptualisations are primarily derived. Its spaces and places give them

the structure to understand how the world exists, and its people and events

generate the stories that allow the world to be constructed as a place of

‘suffering’. Possessing meagre material resources, living in harsh environmental

conditions and forced to do laborious agricultural work to make a living, the

17 Martin Wickramasinghe, Aspects of Culture (Dehiwala: Thisara Prakasakayo, 1992).

386 SOUTH ASIA



peasants of Nagala very well understand life as suffering—or as being

constituted of ‘dukka’ in Buddhist terminology.

Thus the peasants of traditional villages such as Nagala, while making a living,

also constantly have their eyes set on achieving two significant objectives:

understanding the impermanence of life; and amassing a record of ‘good deeds’

and thereby accumulating what are known as pin or meritorious deposits.18 It is

natural for the peasants, therefore, to be humble and down-to-earth—for any

other state would indicate a lack of understanding of the ‘meaningless’ and

impermanent nature of life. Thus their relationships to other beings—people,

animals and insects alike—are rooted in kindness, care and compassion. Even

their relationships with inanimate objects, especially trees and plants, display a

similar gentility. For instance, in respect of paddy cultivation, the peasants willapportion an entire liyedda, or sector of the field, for the sustenance of the birds

known as kurulu paluwa.

Let me now compare this behaviour with that of the monks who reside at

Nagala Raja Maha Viharaya, the village temple. The monks follow the vinaya,

the Buddhist code of conduct regulating sita (mind), kaya (body) and

vachanaya (word).19 They lead a life of celibacy, and their relations with the

opposite sex are minimal and involve no physical contact. They are expected to

eat not for enjoyment’s sake but solely for sustenance, to take no pleasure in

fashion but to use clothes to cover themselves up for the sake of modesty. Their

dealings with the peasants, animals and insects of the village are characterised

by metta (compassion) and karuna (kindness).

From this it can be seen that monks and peasants in traditional villages have

very similar world views, indeed an undeniable inter-dependency. The

vernacular settlement can thus be seen as a system of spaces and places that

is attuned to provide the settings and opportunities to sustain peaceful and

fulfilled everyday lives as much as for seeking and attaining a higher state of

being in future lives.

The Structure of PlacesThe village is comprised of a series of small dwellings, and a few cottages

belonging to the village headman, the school teachers and the physicians, all

18 Dharmadasa Thero, ‘A Review of the Concepts Appichchta, Santhuttitha and Sallahukawuttithi ’,

unpublished postgraduate dissertation, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka, 1985.19 Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant, p.42.




surrounded by lush green gardens. Around it lies a chain of paddy fields,

bordered intermittently by threshing floors and wells. A tank, a school and a

temple occupy the higher ground. Thus the monks occupy the central space of the village, and the temple marks its sacred centre. Alongside the dwelling

cluster ( gamgoda) is a bunch of small shops (kadamandiya). A track passes

through the village, connecting it to neighbouring villages that share the temple

and the tank. Other tracks take off across the paddy fields and into the

wilderness. Villagers venture down this route into the unspoilt splendour of

nature to fetch food or herbs for medicine.20

The Temple: The Monks’ Place

The temple precinct is made up of a ritualised collection of objects and spaces:the image house (Budu ge); the Bo tree (Bodhiya); the dagoba (chaitya); the

preaching hall (bana maduwa); and the monks’ residence (avasa ge). It has

however multiple functions. As Dissanayake shows, temples are refuges for

peasants, schools of moral values, and havens for artists, as well as centres

for rituals and ceremonies designed to help their communities’ quest for

nirvana.21

Temples consist of sand courts known as veli malu, within which the sacred

elements are located in order of reverence. In Nagala there are two levels of

courts, the upper court (uda maluwa) containing the image house, the Bo tree

and the dagoba, and the lower court ( patha maluwa) containing the avasa ge

and the bana maduwa. Surrounded by a whitewashed wall topped with a

walakulu bemma (a wavy-edged wall) the temple, set against the paddy fields

below and the jungle behind, projects a sense of serenity, tranquillity and

calmness.22

The Peasant’s Place

The rest of the vernacular village combines simplicity and austerity. Thesettlement spaces below the tank have been mostly appropriated for

agricultural purposes, while the less fertile ground has been reserved for

dwellings. The high ground surrounding the tank has been left as jungle so as to

20 Ranjith Dayaratne, ‘Vernacular Settlements and Sustainable Traditions in Sri Lanka’, in Proceedings of the

International Seminar on Vernacular Settlements (Depok: University of Indonesia, 1998).21 Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant.22 The temple was not however in pristine condition although its sand courts were impeccably swept in a daily

ritual. Its single-storey, hip-roofed buildings had worn clay tiles above faded whitewashed plaster which had

peeled from the surface in places, and its grey cement-plastered high plinth had withered away at the ground.

388 SOUTH ASIA



provide a catchment for the tank. The clustering of dwellings into homesteads

offers minimal privacy, but the villagers do not see this as a liability. Most

activities in the village are communal, and make use of shared resources. Theaverage house is single- or two-roomed, and has an open veranda raised on an

elevated plinth under a tile or thatch roof. Some—those belonging to the

teachers, the physician and some of the families related to the village

headman—are more elaborate, boasting decorative wooden pillars and timber

balustrades and sometimes decorative plasterwork. Each house also has a large

front yard or midula, often surrounded by a flower garden. This settlement

pattern, by its very sensitive and careful approach to living, makes for a habitat

well adapted to the generation and sustenance of systems of livelihood, a bio-

physical environment, and consumption and production.

Definitive but invisible boundaries map out the above spatial entities. Not only

are they collective spaces rather than private and individual ones, but the

boundaries between the properties are somewhat diffused. The agricultural

fields, for example, although owned by separate individual families, exist

physically as a single expanse. Neither the wilderness that provides vegetables

and fruits, nor the homestead comprising individual dwellings, is physically

divided, although ownership differences exist. This spirit of collective spatial

ownership mirrors the villagers’ understanding that the resources of the earth

are for everyone’s benefit—and are held in common.23

One place in the village signifies this spirit particularly. Kamata is a circular

patch of land cleared twice a year to process the biannual rice crop. Located at

the edge of the paddy fields on slightly higher ground, it is reconstructed as a

sacred space at the end of each season of cultivation ( yala and maha).24

Between these two periods it reverts to ordinary space. A sacred place within

profane lands, its sanctity however is not derived from the blessing of the

temple but from the peasants’ perceptions about cultivation, processing and

consumption, which in their view are activities intricately linked to a

supernatural cosmology.

The symbolic structure of Nagala can be represented thus:

23 Leonard Wolfe, A Village in the Jungle (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1981); and Robert Knox, An

Historical Relation of Ceylon (Colombo: Gunasena Publishers, 1961).24 The two seasons are related to changes in weather conditions.




Meanings of PlacesDissanayake makes an interesting observation about the ways in which places

in Sri Lankan villages are conceptualised, and how this affects the behaviour of

both the monks and the peasants.25 He suggests that, being a sacred place, the

temple imparts to the activities of the monks a ‘direction-less’ quality; going

and coming become the same. He sees this as indicative of the settled,

composed and collected nature of the monks’ world. Also, he points out,

mundane objects within the temple premises often acquire a special

significance. For example, water—called watura in the peasant’s world—

becomes paen in the temple, and is to be used only for washing flowers before

making an offering of them; it is a sin to drink this water. Similar

transformations take place in other sacred places such as the kamata.

Dissanayake writes: ‘Thus both at the temple and the threshing floor, peasantswear neither foot-wear nor head-gear. No one carries an umbrella across either

of these sacred precincts’.26

In the traditional Sinhalese village, meanings of places were constructed

dependant on space, person and activity. Thus the same activity performed in a

different space could take on a different meaning, while a place could assume a

Figure 1The Structure of Places in a Sinhalese Village

25 Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant.26 Ibid ., p.15.

390 SOUTH ASIA



different nature depending on the way human actors saw fit to interact with it.

Sweeping the court at a temple is referred to as ‘maluwa amadinawa’; the same

act is called ‘midula atu ganawa’ at the peasant’s house. If a peasant washes theflowers at a temple, it is referred to as ‘ paen dowanwa’ (washing with water),

although the same act would be referred to as ‘waturen hodanawa’ if done at the

peasant’s house. In essence, the sacred space transforms the act. Indeed if a

monk goes to a peasant’s house on the village track, then the track becomes a

sacred place. Sacred spaces can give the verbal and physical behaviour of

people occupying them a different meaning. But at the same time, they constrict

the range of appropriate behaviours. Profane space, by contrast, is considered

to be neutral space where no behaviour is considered inappropriate. Tables 1

and 2 and 3 below provide a list of commonplace examples of the change of

meanings between profane and sacred domains.

Such complexities of meanings occur in all Sinhalese traditional vernacular

settlements, at the temple, at the kamata or threshing floor and indeed at other

spaces such as the paddy fields. They are however not mere changes of words,

Table 1Changing Names of Profane and Sacred Places

Place Profane Name Sacred Name Change in Meaning

Court Midula Maluwa Defined and levelledsand surfacesymbolising equality

Bedroom Kamara Kutiya A space forcontainment

Seat Putuwa Asanaya Revered seatKitchen Kussiya Dan ge Place to prepare food

with care andreverence

Diningroom

Kemakamare

Dana Shalawa Place to offer foodwith reverence

House Gedara Avasa ge Place where the monksreside

An occupiedbuilding

Namesdiffer

Bana Maduwa(where sermonsare recited)

Names differ: ge,salawa or maduwa areadded at the end toindicate the qualityand nature of the place

Dan ge (wheremeals are offeredand taken)




but give a whole new dimension to the meanings that transforms both the being

and becoming of those present and the places that they occupy themselves.

Places in traditional villages—temples, kamatas, dwellings—are spiritually

charged. The different words used to describe them in different settings reflect

the social power wielded in Sri Lankan peasant society by supernatural beings

and the beliefs associated with them.

Table 2Changing Values of Activities in Sacred and Profane Places

Activity Profane Name Sacred Name Change in MeaningLive or

stayInnawa Weda innawa Live or stay with

dignitySpeak Kiyanawa Wadaranawa Speak with dignityEat Kanawa Walandnawa Eat or drink with

dignityDrink Bonawa WalandnawaWash with

waterWaturen

hodanawaPaen downa karanawa

(Monk or peasant)Wash with respect

Sleep Budiyenawa ornida gannawa

Setapenawa(Monk)

Lie down withdignity

Sweep Atu ganawa Amadinawa(Monk or peasant)

Sweep with respect

Bathe Nanwa Paen saenahenawa Please oneself inindulging in water

Go Yanwa Wadinawa(Monk)

Dignified movementwithout indicationof directionCome Enawa Wadinawa

(Monk)Die Merenawa Apawath

wenawaReach non-existence

Table 3Changing Names of Things in Profane and Sacred Places

Thing Profane Sacred

Water Watura PaenFood Kema DaneBeverages Beema Gilan pasaMoney Salli Panduru

Betel Bulath DehethDress Endun, saran Sivuru Andane

392 SOUTH ASIA



The Contemporary Sinhalese VillageColonisation, modernisation, Westernisation and globalisation have trans-

formed many of the Sinhalese traditional settlements in varying ways, more soin villages close to urban locations.27 Unsurprisingly, both monks and peasants

have been changed by these factors. The religious orientation of the peasants,

and hence the relationship between them and the monks, has diminished, and

the sacred and profane places have become somewhat alienated from one other.

No longer is the temple the most significant central space of the village, nor

does the village derive its system of values and perceptions from association

with the temple alone. Unlike the traditional village, which was only loosely

connected to the outside world and more connected within itself, the modern

village has multiple links to the outside world. Values and systems from across

the world more related to market than temple have come to dominate popularperceptions.

Pindeniya village in Kegalle district provides a good case for understanding

these changes. Pindeniya was once a traditional vernacular settlement very

much like Nagala except for the fact that it was built on undulated land, did not

own a village tank or have access to a shared one, and its gamgoda or dwellings

were stretched out along gravel tracks instead of being clustered together. But

like Nagala it did comprise a temple on high ground, a collection of small

dwellings and cottages surrounded by lush green gardens, three large paddy

fields intermittently bordered by threshing floors, village wells and a school.

The monks occupied the central space of the village, with the temple defining

the centre of the sacred world. A track extended across the village, connecting it

to neighbouring villages that shared the temple and the school.

Over time, the agricultural lands in Pindeniya had been replaced by rubber

plantations—an artefact of British colonisation. Still, paddy cultivation

remained a major occupation. For that reason, although rubber tapping

brought growth and a new level of wealth, for a while the central agencies and

connections and places in the village had remained intact—interrelated,interdependent and co-evolving. But this could not last. Pindeniya is quite

close to the capital, Colombo, and the central track that ran through it was

connected directly to the main highway from Kandy to Avissawella, major

towns in the up-country (udarata) and low-country ( pahatarata) regions.

The kadamandiya (shops) required access to the raw rubber from the village to

sell to travelling merchants. Public transport along the main highway allowed

27 Ranjith Dayaratne, ‘Transformations of Traditional Environments: The Spatial Geography of Culture and

Built-Form in Sri Lanka’, in Open House International , Vol.XXXI, no.4 (2006), pp.20–28.




the villagers to travel more easily. The twentieth century saw the arrival of

electricity, and later electronic forms of communication. These processes of

transformation were accelerated by the 1971 youth insurrection known as theJVP uprising28 which politicised the countryside. The liberalisation of the

economy after 1977 made further inroads. By the 1990s, Pindeniya had shred

much its traditional vernacular village character.

Changing Places and Perceptions of the VillageOne of the most profound of the changes that have occurred in rural Sri

Lanka is the dissociation that has developed between the temple and the

peasants. Respect for the sanctity of the temple has diminished for two

reasons. On the one hand, monks are being seduced by the media’s obsessionwith the luxuries of modern life. The temple at Pindeniya remains a centre of

spiritual engagement but it has also become a place oriented to the market-

place. The banamaduwa or preaching hall, which was once the sincere seat of

moral learning, now is busy with what are known as ‘tuition’ classes, a centre

of commercial education to supplement the general education offered in the

schools. Also, the monks used to rely for subsistence largely on the generosity

of the peasants. Now most temples need to generate their own livelihoods,

which compels the monks to engage more and more in lay activities.

Moreover the emergence of paid tuition classes at temples has undeniably

caused a shift in the way the temples and the monks are perceived. Monks

who were once greeted with the honorific ‘hamuduruwo’ (‘venerable ones’) are

now saluted as ‘sadhus’ (‘holy men’), while monks who formerly were wont to

address laymen as ‘upasakas’ (‘disciplined ones’) now often call them

‘mahattayas’ (‘gentlemen’).

Secondly, the nature of peasant society has changed. In former times it was a

communal society based on the extended family. It has become more

individualistic and now the nuclear family is the norm. Partly this reflects the

penetration of the rural world by capitalist modes of production andconsumption, these days ardently promoted through globalisation. But modern

education too has contributed. It has released individuals from family bonds,

and located them in dispersed work places. Effectively, the traditional

agriculture-dependant settlement and its coherent, self-sustaining, land-to-

people system is in terminal decline.

28 The Janata Vimukti Peramuna or People’s Liberation Front sought a violent exercise of people power to

change the government and the system of governance.

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Pindeniya exemplifies these trends. Few villagers these days toil on the land,

while many have left to work as labourers, carpenters and masons on

construction sites in the city of Colombo and as far afield as the Middle East.When they return, they bring back ideas and perceptions that are often out of

tune with the culture of the temple. Exhibitionism, duplicity, and self-

promotion have become rampant.

Some paddy cultivation still continues. However, the ideas that pervaded the

sanctity of this activity have diminished. The ritual process of kamata as a

threshing floor, and the associated respect and reverence for the land, and for

the wider eco-system, have all but disappeared. In fact, there are few kamatas

being rejuvenated seasonally now, because the process of paddy-processing

today requires neither a cleared ground, nor buffaloes, nor communalparticipation. The conceptualisation of the village as comprised of sacred

domains that produced its food, from the paddy fields to the kamata, has

largely disappeared. And as for the idea that the kamata is the abode of gods,

that has vanished from the ken of the modern generation. Peasants today are

far more interested in concepts of marketing and production. Their personal

gods are diesel-powered threshing machines.

Interestingly though, except for the intrusion of commercial teaching, the

sacred domain remains relatively stable. The Pindeniya temple never received

royal patronage and hence does not possess land dedicated to its sustenance.

Also, it has never boasted the two-tiered sand courts (uda maluwa and patha

maluwa). Probably the most obvious physical change the temple has undergone

is that the monks’ residence (avasa ge) has been rebuilt. The new building has

neat tiled floors, decorative grille-works and balustrades, whereas the old image

house and the dagoba remain washed-out and aged. This suggests that more of

the temple’s wealth now goes to elevating the physical quality of the monks’

existence.

There is also a new preaching hall. Unlike the old one, which had four gatesfacing the cardinal directions, the present hall has just two doors, and they

open towards the avasa ge for convenience of access. In traditional

architectural parlance, the four entrances signified the ‘possibility to access

the dhamma from all four directions’. This meaning has been lost in the new

architecture.

The gamgoda has perhaps been the most profoundly transformed entity of the

village. Some of the villagers who have returned from working in the Middle

East in lucrative jobs have constructed buildings that resemble Italian villas, or




have Arabian arches. These exhibits of newly-acquired wealth and position

have driven a wedge between insiders and outsiders, shattering the commun-

ality that once was the fabric of the community.

In sum, modernisation and globalisation have had a profound impact upon

the peasant’s field, his home, and the temple and on social interrelation-

ships, eroding the understanding and practices that sustained the old

balance of sacred and profane and the interdependencies it fostered. In fact,

there are now fewer peasants in the village, and fewer paddy fields to

cultivate there. Moreover, the arrival of machine-based market-oriented

production systems have made the kamata a purely functional space for

processing paddy, taking away all traces of the values once associated with

it: reverence for food and nature, bio-systems and rituals that surroundedthe paddy field and the threshing floor. These changes of culture have

impacted on the geography of the village in clearly recognisable ways, some

of them itemised below:

Table 4Changing Perceptions of Places

Perceptions of Places in theTraditional Village

New Perceptions in theContemporary Village

Temple. Sincere celebration of the sacred,

for guidance in this life andgaining ‘ pin’ for future lives

. Elaborate articulation of the sacredfor pomp and pageant and personalgain in this life.

. Place of learning and the learned . Place for extra learning at a price

. Place of the artist in thecelebration of values

. Search for religions cults thatsupport new culture

. The communal place where thepeasants sincerely subordinate tothe monk for advice andguidance

. Another communal place where thepeople subordinate to the monkonly half-heartedly.

Settlement. Place for modest indulgence in

worldly pleasures. Place for excessive indulgence in

worldly pleasures. Place for communal living with

minimal private space. Dominance of private individual

spaces. Reverence and care for the land . Over-exploitation of the land

(continued )

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For all that, some of the fundamentals of these conceptualisations have not

completely disappeared. On the one hand, some elders continue as best they can toimpart them to the young. Moreover, most Sri Lankan villages still practise farming

and temples are still seen as part of the culture. So traces of the sacred/profane

duality still remain, and there are signs that a new attachment to the old values is

being re-kindled by the efforts of some popular young monks, inspired by the

sermons andwritings of Soma Hamuduruwo, a much revered Buddhist scholar who

died in 2003.29 Pindeniya is perhaps a village in the process of being re-invigorated.

Table 4(Continued )

Perceptions of Places in theTraditional Village

New Perceptions in theContemporary Village

. Humble expression of being andpresence through construction of modest built form

. Strong attachment to place

. Ostentatious and flamboyantpersonal expression in built form

. Careless waste of space andmaterial in built environment

. Reverence for nature

. Value placed on human relations,involvement and skill

. Aesthetics created throughsuperficial decoration

. Land as a commodity to be exploited. Land as a resource shared

between people and animals

. Presence of strong personal

symbolism in the landscape. Coherent and self-limiting social

organisation. Ad hoc self-fulfilling spatial

organisation. Commonality and repetition of

form and space. Abundance of surreptitious built

space. Slow change and familiar built

forms. Fast abrupt changes and alien built

forms. Deep-seated spiritual meaning in

form and place. Emergence of popular and pseudo

characteristics. Emphasis on shared labour and

collective gain. Emergence of individual

exhibitionism. Limited shared consumption

among the community. Search for wealth in lieu of human

values. Slow and considerate lifestyle . Arrival of fast-track lifestyle. Reluctance to over-produce. Reluctance to waste and desire to

save for the future.

. Dominating built form harmful tonature

. Excessive appropriation of builtform and space

29 Soma Hamuduruwo was a Buddhist monk of great repute and reverence who called for a re-awakening of

the Buddhist way of life in the 1990s.




Tradition, Modernity and Hybridity of PlaceAlthough Sinhalese village culture is fast acquiring the Dionysian elements of

contemporary modern civilisations, its places are changing only slowly,particularly in respect of their physical forms, despite the introduction of an

open economy since 1977 and a rash of violent ethnic conflicts. The traditional

conceptualisations of places associated with the temple and with sacred

activities in the village have not completely eroded—nor have they been

allowed to. Modern Sri Lanka is starting to re-discover its rural heritage, and it

is no coincidence that this is happening at a time of rapid economic change.

One way of coping with the new is to cling more tightly to the old. New

discourses are being generated in Sri Lanka today that seek to paint the modern

urban world as a corrupt and alien intrusion, one that has no roots in the

island’s 2,500 year history and civilisation.30

Given that tradition has not in fact completely disappeared in rural Sri Lanka,

what are we to make of its post-global Sinhalese settlements? Perhaps they can

best be described as hybrid places. Hybridity is a form of creative fusion which

harnesses the power of opposites. In this case, by re-invigorating traditional

meanings associated with place, it has given Sinhalese villages a repertoire of

conceptual tools with which to engage effectively with the outer world as it

transits from the past to the future.

30 Dissanayake, The Monk and the Peasant.

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