The English translation of the book is by Kamala Rajapakse, printed and published by Dayawanse Jayakody and Company – Printers. As Kamala Rajapakse notes in the book, dated 26.02. 2001, the Kudumbigala forest hermitage (Aranya Senasana) located in the remote thick jungles around eight miles west to the eastern coast of Sri Lanka where Panama is the closest town, records the pious journey of the Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero. The book provides rare insights into life in the wilderness with man eating animals and shows the power of loving kindness as practiced by forest dwelling Buddhist monks.
The bear brawl
The book begins with Chapter 1 titled The Bear Brawl describing the beginning of forest life after Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero reaches the forest rock cave Sudarshana. When the Most Ven. Thero first arrived here the rock cave floor had been full of fleas, including the cruellest fleas of all; known as the bloodsucker described as being as big as a seed of bitter gourd. This book chapter tells of the isolation of the forest with no human habitation for miles except for the contact with Upasaka Maithri, a forest dwelling spiritual lay seeker. Conversations with him would come up in the ensuing chapters and his own life.
Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero narrates how on the 15th day of being in the forest, the rock cave Sumana-Kuta was found which was cleaned up so the Ven. Thero could use it for his dwelling and meditation. The bear brawl mentioned in the title of this chapter is explained as watched from this cave. The bear was sighted sitting on his haunches like a tame dog, looking at the monk who was reciting Pali stanzas in the praise of the Lord Buddha. The giant bear however soon started busying himself with picking fallen weera nuts and then receding into the jungle.
Soon after ferocious sounds had emanated and the Ven. Thero had seen something humans almost never witness; two bears at each others’ throats, with one, the fellow previously eating the weera nuts, now treating a smaller bear to terrible blows. The Ven. Thero witnessing this battle scene had shouted out as we would to humans engaged in a brawl. He had asked that the fighting be stopped immediately. No sooner had he spoken that the larger bear who was the aggressor had stopped his attack and meekly walked away.
This is the beginning of the reader understanding how forest monks would act surrounded by the unimaginable trials and tribulations that no human is trained to survive in. Despite many humans venturing into this terrain ending up at the mercy of these animals, in 25 years of living here no harm had come to the monks meditating in the Kutumbigala forest which ran into thousands of acres. It was the territory of wild elephants, leopards, bears, reptiles and more. The writing brings to life what it would be like to be alone with only trees and animals surrounding a person and the strange phenomena witnessed in this isolation, including ‘apparitions’ from the sky and other hallucinations. The reader is also treated to the ancient knowledge of plants, as told to the monk by elders who knew plant life like the back of their hands.
The divine incantation
Chapter 2 is titled The Divine Incantation and begins with an interaction with Upasaka Maithri who lived in the fringes of the forest and provided the meditating Buddhist clergy with needed alms. When the Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero had recounted the bear brawl he had witnessed to Upasaka Maithri he had in turn started to recollect his own first days in the forest.
Brought up as a non-Buddhist in a different religious culture, Upasaka Maithri had chosen Buddhism as his spiritual path and retired to the periphery of the forest to pursue his journey of solitude.
He had shared with the Ven. Thero how Pali stanzas in the praise of the Buddha was his sole talisman that brought him safety in the forest territory. In chapter 3 titled Mystic Sounds and Lights, unexplainable occurrences within the forest are highlighted, such as voices that echo the words of the Buddha. In this chapter it is mentioned that once when several monks were gathered for forest meditation the entire jungle was suddenly illumined by a light so bright that even a needle could be found through its sheen.
Let us quote from this chapter. ‘Such things as these that we see, noises that we hear and sensations that we feel make us dwell on various notions. This is an obstacle in the search for truth.’ ‘If we say that such lights emanate from Gods or from meteorites, we are only expressing an onion from a conditioned mind. It is not a realisation of facts.’
‘It is a waste of time to think of these at length. What we see we must stop at seeing. What we hear at hearing. Running after events which cannot be understood only increases the number of the mentally sick.’
The obedient leopard
Chapter 4 titled the Obedient Leopard begins with how a stranded foreigner was brought to the monks by Upasaka Maithri with one of his hands totally lifeless. This man referred to as Sami Ayiya had soon chosen to live in the forest serving the monks and had developed great faith in a piece of wood, a club that he venerated, and considered ‘charmed.’ He entirely depended only on this piece of wood for his protection in the forest until he heard Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero speak in measured tones to a notorious leopard, known for its appetite for human flesh.
The Thero had calmly addressed the Leopard as follows. ‘Leopard, where are you going? And when the animal turned and stopped, the monk had continued to speak to it gently.
‘Why do you come among us to make this fearful din? You must not hunt here. Go far off.’ The chastised Leopard had quietly left for the interior of the jungle shocking Sami Aiya who normally relied on his ‘charmed’ piece of wood for this type of encounter. Chapter 5 is titled The Leopard of Lenama. It begins at a time when the Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero had been living awhile in the forest and had come into contact with several of the village elders. One such elder grandpa Yahapath Hami had been told about the incident with the leopard that the Thero had ordered to leave. This forest elder had then revealed the true identity of that leopard. Known as the leopard of Lenama this animal had been amongst the leopards that vanquished the entire Veddha village called Lenama, off Bandaragastalawa which was in an area where there was a short cut to Kataragama. The leopards had besieged this village and only one Veddha who had fled the area survived. He too was found dead of other causes later. The leopards that made extinct the entire Veddha village were called the leopards of Lenama.
Grandpa Yahapath Hami had ended his gory story with; ‘The leopards that devoured the villagers of Lenama are called the leopards of Lenama. In this wilderness there are various kinds of leopards. There are the black leopards, the red leopards, the black tiger cats and the green tiger cats. However the biggest leopards are those of Lenama. You have seen one of them, Sir.’
Herbs from the jungle
Chapter 6 is titled Herbs from the Jungle and has many quotations from Grandpa Yahapath who regales Ven. Thambugala Anandasiri Thero with the precious medicinal herbs of the forest. We quote from the book as the Ven. Thero addresses the reader as follows. ‘Grandpa found great delight in teaching me medicinal secrets or showing me jungle herbs. Often when he came for a chat he comes with medicinal herbs hidden somewhere. He would crack a joke, pull out a herb and introduce it to me happily.’
Grandpa then proceed to tell the Ven. Thero how he had lived by hunting in the dense wilderness for forty years and recently moved into a village in Panama where he had adopted cultivation. Among the herbs that the grandpa had much respect for was the Handun Madala, stated to be similar to a water Hyacinth.
‘If you could uproot one with the back of your palm silently and leave it on a tree, no bear would tread the region within a radius of seven fathoms. This I have well experienced.’
Throughout the book the forests of Sri Lanka is brought to life and we see it as a collected form of life that holds impregnable mysteries that we humans can only scratch the surface.
Note: The rest of this book will be serialised in the weeks to come, as part of the education series commemorating national reading months (September to December) in Sri Lanka. The books are provided by the Library of Healing, courtesy Frances Bulathsinghala.