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Notes
1 Sheldon Pollock, ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, Public Culture, 12.3 (2000), pp.591–625.
2 Pollock, ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, p.612. Rather than speaking of language in maternal terms, it was more common to associate the vernacular with particular geographical places.
3 For information on the jātaka genre of Buddhist literature, see Naomi Appleton, Jātaka Stories in Theravāda Buddhism: Narrating the Bodhisatta Path (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010).
4 This outline of the Kusa story is based on a summary from my book, Stephen C. Berkwitz, Buddhist Poetry and Colonialism: Alagiyavanna and the Portuguese in Sri Lanka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
5 Charles Hallisey, ‘Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Culture’, in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp.694–695.
6 Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), p.2.
7 Hallisey, ‘Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Culture’, pp.733–740.
8 The fourth stanza in Kavsi
umi
a explicitly recognizes that poetry ought to be concerned with the deeds of the Bodhisattva.
9 Edwin Gerow, ‘The Sanskrit Lyric: A Genre Analysis’, in The Literatures of India, ed. Edward C. Dimock, Jr. et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p.153.
10 See M.B. Ariyapala, ed. and trans., Kavsi
umi
a: The Crown Jewel of Sinhala Poetry in English Prose (Colombo: Godage International Publishers, 2004), pp.2–5.
11 Ariyapala, Kavsi
umi
a, p. 149, v. 67: mu
u lō neta baňdana manakal kalun net sit.
12 Ariyapala, Kavsi
umi
a, pp. 65–66, vv. 385, 390.
13 See, for example, Ariyapala, Kavsi
umi
a, p. 116, vv. 694, 700, wherein Prabhāvat
is blamed for the threat of the seven hostile kings opposing her parent's kingdom.
14 Hallisey, ‘Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Culture’, pp.738–739.
15 Daniel H.H. Ingalls, Sanskrit Poetry: From Vidyākara's Treasury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), p.37.
16 D.M. Samarasinghe, ed., Alagiyavanna Mukave
ituman visin racanā karana lada
Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya (Colombo: Sri Lanka Publishing Company, 1964), vv. 11–12.
17 C.E. Godakumbura, Sinhalese Literature (Colombo: The Colombo Apothecaries' Co., 1955), p.158.
18 Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, vv.28–29.
19 Martin Wickremasinghe, Sinhalese Literature, trans. E.R. Sarathchandra (Colombo: M.D. Gunasena, 1950), pp.189–90.
20 It has been said that Kusa Jātaka Kāvya's straightforward style is founded upon its clear usage of language and the reduction in its ornamentation and panegyricism. See Puñcibandara Sannasgala, Sinhala Sāhitya Va
śaya (Colombo: Lake House, 1964), p.303.
21 Stephen C. Berkwitz, ‘Some Observations on the Study of Buddhist Literature in Sinhala’, in Arcana: Prof. M.H.F. Jayasuriya Felicitation Volume, ed. Ven. Navagamuwe Revata et al. (Colombo: S. Godage and Brothers, 2002), pp.69–72.
22 M. Wickremasinghe, Sinhalese Literature, pp.190–191.
23 M. Wickremasinghe, Sinhalese Literature, p.195.
24 Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, vv.413–415.
25 It should be pointed out, however, that Wickremasinghe's writings in Sinhala could sometimes hold a more positive evaluation of the generative capacity of literature and Sanskrit poetics.
26 Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, vv.309–310.
27 Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, vv.16–17.
28 Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, v.18.
29 Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, v.459.
30 See Samarasinghe, Kusa Jātaka Kāvyaya, v.377. Note that the Pāli Jātaka represents the Queen Mother as warning her son: ‘If that is so, son, may you remain diligent. Women have impure inclinations’ [tena hi tāta appamatto bhaveyyāsi, mātugāmo nāma asuddhāsayo]. See V. Fausboll, ed., The Jātaka: Together With Its Commentary, 7 vols (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1990-91), vol. 5, p.289.
31 Ashley Thompson made the helpful observation here that feminine representations of piety and temptation (cf. Mary and Eve in the Christian tradition) are not simply contradictory but jointly condition the possibility of male transcendence.
32 Pollock, ‘Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History’, p.593.
33 My forthcoming book, Buddhist Poetry and Colonialism explores the decline of a Sinhala Buddhist court culture and the repercussions on Sinhala poetry.
34 M. Wickremasinghe, Sinhalese Literature, p.196.
35 Sannasgala, Sinhala Sāhitya Va
śaya, p.303.
36 A.V. Suraweera, ‘Alagiyavanna Mukaveitumā’, in Gampaha District: Socio-Cultural Studies, ed. A.V. Suraweera, (Battaramula: Department of Cultural Affairs, 1999), p.192.
37 Nira Wickramsinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History of Contested Identities (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i, 2006), p.156.
38 Sannasgala, Sinhala Sāhitya Va
śaya, pp.296–297.
39 K.M. de Silva, Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Politics in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Penguin, 1998), p.46.
40 On the subject of language and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, see Silva, Reaping the Whirlwind; K.N.O. Dharmadasa, Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); and Neil DeVotta, Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), among many others.
41 Sandagomi Coperahewa, ‘Purifying the Sinhala Language: The Hela Movement of Munidasa Cumaratunga (1930s-1940s) ’, Modern Asian Studies 1 (2011), pp.10–14.
42 The Sinhala film entitled ‘Kusa Pabā’ was released on 26 January 2012 in Sri Lankan theatres. Based on the Pāli Jātaka story, the film was made by Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne and stars well-known actors Jackson Anthony and Pooja Umarshanker in the leading roles.