Kamma, social collapse or geophysics? Interpretations of suffering among Sri Lankan Buddhists in the immediate aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami

Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, those affected struggled to come to terms with the scale of the disaster. This article documents the initial response in religious terms to the calamity by Buddhists in Sri Lanka. It looks at the interpretations they proposed for the causes of such suffering.1 The account given here is based mainly on conversations and fieldwork conducted in Sri Lanka within the first fortnight after the tsunami.2 The places, temples and organisations I visited included some directly affected by the tsunami, some indirectly affected and some not affected or affected only through their voluntary involvement.3 By way of background to the flourishing of religious interpretations of the tsunami on the ground, I give brief summaries of the involvement of temples in relief and fundraising work, when monks and temple attendees extended and adapted traditional roles and practices to assist those affected by the disaster. I relate the interpretations given to relevant Buddhist literature, often the traditional authorities for the underlying doctrines and legends. Some follow up was possible during temple preparations for the three-month death anniversary of victims, which served as a focus for more medium-term relief work and fundraising.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Indira Nawagamuwa for arranging my interviews at Kelaniya temple, and Ven. K. Mahinda Sangharakkhita for the generous gift of his time and learning.

Notes

 1. My initial findings from this fieldwork were presented in the ‘Understanding Buddhism’ public lecture series sponsored by Asia House (London) in February 2005 at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London. I am very grateful to Asia House for their kind invitation. The lecture covered a broader range of issues, some more relevant to the immediate relief work and some now redundant, given the developments in post-tsunami studies since then. I restrict this article to understanding the immediate interpretations expressed before more considered and closely formulated articulations of a religious take on the event had had time to develop. I had intended to publish these findings at the time, but personal circumstances intervened.

 2. I also made some use of the media and Internet coverage that emerged at the time, which sometimes was at odds with feelings on the ground, where people had read and sometimes responded to them when talking to me.

 3. My purpose in visiting these different regions at that time was connected to solving problems that had arisen in relation to unreadable National Archives microfilms during an unrelated research project the previous year. The timing coincided with the second Sri Lankan International Association of Buddhist Studies conference in Colombo sponsored by the Buddhist Times that took place in the second week after the disaster (January 2005), on which see the further note below. I am grateful to the British Academy for funding the initial project on Sri Lankan Buddhist meditation manuals.

 4. Because of the organic development of this research it was not initially undertaken systematically with the goal of assessing peoples' religious interpretations. I am very grateful for all those who spoke to me, sometimes at great length, and apologise that I was often unable to check or record their data or details because of the practical immediacy of context of the discussions. Some of my longest interviews (lasting many hours) were with head monks who were playing pivotal roles in inspiring and overseeing sizeable relief and religious activities, yet who found time to talk to me during the quieter moments when the business of others meant that their presence but not their undivided attention was required. This means that my more in-depth information is perhaps skewed in favour of the monastic viewpoint and this certainly meant that very specific local history appeared in their narratives. On the other hand, I found that many times in speaking to me, non-monastics gave me their take on what they had heard in the sermons at the temple, sermons delivered by those same head monks. Because of the informal manner in which much of the information was gathered, before the wealth of material made me consider publishing it, much of my account is anonymised.

 5. I had myself given a rather monolithic portrayal of Buddhism in a radio discussion of religious interpretations of the tsunami (Sunday, BBC Radio 4, 2 January 2005) using the utu-niyana explanation discussed below, in part in anticipation of the disdain expressed for a view of causality based on kamma (‘action’) expressed by an atheist member of the panel, since my explanation avoided the risk of appearing to blame what people suffer on previous action. However, no one directly affected by the tsunami in Sri Lanka concurred with my interpretation, as I explain below.

 6. A religious theme that came up in relation to aid from abroad was the suspicion of Christian and Muslim attempts to use aid as a means of conversion, an issue that had already become contentious before the tsunami. See Deegalle (2004, 93–94) on the state of the debate regarding ‘unethical conversions’ earlier in 2004. The anticonversion bill was presented by JHU monks for its second reading and thereafter gazetted in 2005, but was ultimately dismissed as unconstitutional.

 7. At the Sri Lankan Association of Buddhist Studies conference at Colombo University there was no public discussion of the event, even though several people attending the conference were directly involved in relief work. Although I raised the topic and also interviewed several people, no scholarly view was yet being developed. Further, it made some people uncomfortable because of the immediacy and also because of potential issues of blame, taking a literalist view of kamma. Thus, unlike those affected who were very willing to talk about possible interpretations, and in fact often initiated discussions on the topic, the only unaffected scholars comfortable discussing the topic were those familiar with the niyama, which allows for non-kammic causes, as I shall discuss below. While the conference did not at the time pay any formal attention to the tsunami, the organisers went on to organise a dedicated international forum just three months later. At this there was discussion of the more practical aspects, and especially the experience of monks and international Buddhist organisations trying to help at the time, leading to the intention to establish a Buddhist relief organisation, the ‘Red Lotus’ on a par with the Red Crescent and Red Cross. There was also some discussion of beliefs about the occurrence, and, I understand from those attending, the niyama theory had become more widely known. (I was unable to attend as I was involved in relief work that coincided with this event.)

 8. There was a widespread understanding at the time, particularly amongst people outside the tsunami zone, that animals did not die in the tsunami. This was inaccurate. It seems to have arisen from the report that elephants in Yala National Park on the east coast may have been aware of the impending disaster, since they had moved to higher ground and none was lost.

 9. The requirement of a 300-metre minimum distance from non-monastic dwellings was cited by monks at low-lying temples destroyed in the tsunami as the main problem with proposals that temples should be rebuilt further inland. This consideration was given more weight than the sanctity of the temple site. The financial difficulties for rebuilding these temples, given that the funding for temple buildings traditionally comes from local people, who were themselves devastated/dead (and, in any case, these tended to be poorer temples supported by relatively poor communities), were exacerbated by the stipulation that money that came through the government was to fund housing, which excluded temples, even though temples also act as houses. Early government figures indicated that there were 43 severely affected temples in the southwestern coastal districts of Matara and Hambantota alone, with unsafe buildings and contaminated water (Ministry of Buddha Ssana, interview, second week of January). Poorer communications delayed information regarding the exact state of affairs in Battacoloa and other northern and eastern coastal regions.

10. Monks at Tiruvanuketiya temple, in the highland central area of Ratnapura (far from the tsunami-affected areas), told me they had housed people from the neighbouring area only the previous year, when the local river had burst its banks (interview, second week of January 2005). In that case, people were able to return to their houses after just one week. The logistical problem presented by the tsunami was not only the vast scale of the problem, with more than a million people displaced, but also the duration of its impact, with families unable to return to their previous homes. Occasional panics in fear of further tsunamis in early 2005 led to additional influxes of people from low-lying areas that had escaped the first tsunami or who had returned to partially affected areas to the nearest temples on high grounds, which swelled the number of longer-term refugees still staying in them.

11. See, for example, works related to Protestant Buddhism and Anagarika Dharmapala noted in Choompolpaisal's discussion of sociological studies of Theravada, in this issue.

12. See Crosby (2006, note 20) for an example of Dharmapala's lack of familiarity with traditional Buddhist literature.

13. See Deegalle (2004, 92–94) for the reasons presented by the JHU monks for their involvement in the 2004 elections.

14. Most people are not familiar with the minutiae of vinaya rules, while decorum is very visible and familiar. Nevertheless, people are familiar with the four p r jika rules, yet I have known cases where some extremely serious vinaya infringements that should lead to expulsion are tolerated as an open secret because of the perceived benefits to the community of the monk in question.

15. Interview, second week of January 2005.

16. Galgoda Mahvihraya in Pnadura was one such temple, and, I believe, the closest such to Colombo. While, in preparation for NGO and government funding, students from Colombo University gathered statistics and took photographs of the thousand people displaced by the tsunami housed there at the head monk's invitation, the head monk and temple committee had made more immediate arrangements to adapt the temple. Monks worked with local lay people in constructing a new row of latrines, to augment the two latrines that the 300 refugee families had shared for the first week, and to fit a powerful pump to draw water from the ancient well of the site. Huge emphasis was placed on maintaining a level of hygiene that was extraordinarily high, especially given the limited facilities, with particular care taken to keep the newborn babies (four at this temple), whose mothers had given birth after running to escape the approaching waves, safe from infection; for example, by keeping them under fly-proof netting.

17. The use of such temples for religious purposes was initially to some extent in conflict with the need of refugees for shelter. Shelter was a bigger problem than space. On poya days, most visitors are accommodated outside, and staying the night in the open air is part of the experience. Moreover, it is often older people, including grandparents with children, who stay the whole night while those with work commitments return home to rest for part of the night. Immediately after the tsunami, some families shared the large preaching halls and other larger formal rooms. Some constructed large makeshift shared tents out of plastic and corrugated iron sheeting. Others constructed smaller, more private lean-tos against the stupa at the centre of the temple. Eventually, aid agencies provided tents.

18. My questions on this matter (with the implied suggestion that such people might not want to listen to Buddhist teachings) elicited a perplexed response—respondants saw Buddhism as applicable to all regardless of faith. In my experience, the issues of ethnic and religious divides raised in the media were not raised by monks, although the country's civil war in general was a consideration in some religious interpretations (see below).

19. A couple of people suggested to me that media coverage tended to be unnuanced regarding religious matters on the ground because of a dominant Christian influence at the editorial level. I do not know whether there is any truth in this, or the relationship between this suspicion of media bias and the ongoing debate at the time regarding ‘unethical’ conversions.

20. While these localised networks had the advantage of speedy responses, unencumbered by the bureacracy and the necessity of demonstrable accountability for governmental and non-governmental organisations, they can be attended by the potential disadvantages of non-transparency. An issue I found interesting in certain cases was the relative assessment and prioritisation by temple committees and head monks of temple versus survivor needs, since donations were often made through the head monk or through Buddhist families known to international Buddhist NGOs. (On which, see my comments regarding the prioritisation of temple building below.) However, I did not pursue detailed data in relation to this matter. On the other hand, I also heard assistants to international NGOs complain of other forms of both intended and unintended partiality.

21. Here I refer to the common era New Year (2004/05) rather than the Sinhala-Tamil New Year, which usually falls in April, both celebrated in Sri Lanka.

22. I heard fire-crackers on one occasion only during this period, on the morning of Saturday 8 January, when a misinformed rumour that Prabhakaran, leader of the LTTE, had died in the tsunami was reported on Sri Lankan radio channels, apparently following the sighting of a particularly expensive coffin. (See more below on this rumour.)

23. Photographed in The Sunday Island, 2 January, p. 6. Several of my non-politician informants interpreted this invention of tradition in the adhi h na p j in a cynical light, seeing it as the desire of politicians to be seen, specifically photographed, in a sympathetic light—a cynicism about politicians relevant to the position of the JHU monks noted above. The emphasis on cross-religion cooperation in this rite is one example of a focus in initial political, media and informal responses on the potential for a more positive development in the stalling peace process. While now obscured by more recent events, we may recall that hostilities had been expected to recommence in the later part of January, but it was already widely and correctly expected that they would be postponed. The rhetoric varied in tone between genuinely aspirational—that Tamils, Sinhalese, and other ethnic groups could be treated as equals and participate in the running of the countries as equals—to expressions of hope regarding military and strategic advantage, as well as reports of unfair relief responses and the recruitment of orphaned victims by the LTTE.

24. Sources were several head monks who had arranged burials and the Ministry of Buddha Sasana.

25. I contrast this with, for example, the extensive doctrines associated with cremation in Hinduism. I do not mean to deny the traditional symbolism associated with all the different components of the cremation and funeral in Theravada, although in Sri Lanka this does seem to be less detailed and comprehensive than in Thailand or Cambodia, but rather to indicate that none of the performers of funerary rites that I spoke to saw any bar to burial for Buddhists.

26. This was the view with which Buddhism was charged by my fellow discussant on the BBC radio programme mentioned above.

27. See Schwe Zan Aung and Caroline Rhys Davids (1915, 383) regarding the apparent interchangability between spellings niyama and niy ma. Translations of niyama in this technical sense vary: ‘assurance/fixity’ (ibid.), ‘that which fixes’ (Ledi Sayadaw 1965), ‘order [of the cosmos]’ (Pe Maung Tin and Rhys Davids 1921, Vol. II, 360), and ‘kinds of natural causal patterns’ (Morrison 1997, 99).

28. Ledi Sayadaw (1965) gives a more detailed discussion of the niyama where the translations for the categories are: utu (‘caloric’), b ja (‘germinal’), kamma (‘moral’), citta (‘psychical’) and dhamma (‘natural phenomenal sequence’).

29. Scholarship tends to date the Pali canon to between the fifth and first centuries BCE and commentaries from around the time of Buddhaghosa in the fifth century CE onwards. The Theravada tradition regards most of the canon and the essence of the commentaries as belonging to the time of the first council shortly after Gotama Buddha's parinibb na, the canon being the Buddha's teachings and the commentaries being the product of the 500 arhat disciples that held the council.

30. This is made particularly clear in Ledi Sayadaw's explanation, where he relates it to the element heat, ‘germinator of all material phenomena’ (1965).

31. This is described in the Mah parinibb na-sutta of the D ghanik ya sutta 16.

32. This was the case presented by Prof. Y. Karunadasa, whose knowledge of niyama within the analysis of causality in Theravada abhidhamma was the most detailed of any with whom I discussed the subject. The attitude, without naming the niyama, appeared common among those with what might be termed a more modernist approach to Buddhism who were comfortably Anglophone. The nuns mentioned below seemed to fit into this category.

33. Matakabhatta J taka No. 18 and Samudda-V ija J taka No. 466 (Cowell et al. 1895, Vol I, 51–53 and Vol. IV, 98–104, respectively).

34. Thus Ledi Sayadaw (1965) goes out of his way to insist that kamma is related only to the acts of an individual and dismisses the possibility of the outcome affecting anyone but the initial agent. The only writing that takes this aspect of Theravada religiosity seriously is Walters (2003), from which I have taken the phrase ‘overflow kamma’. Walters provides a detailed look at and categorises the types of group and overflow kamma from canonical and commentarial literature and modern discourse. It is possible to explain the group kamma in terms of shared individual kamma and even to do so with ‘overflow’ kamma at a push, drawing on the types of mental transformation used to explain the benefits of engagement in ritual kamma. However, aside of whether such explanations are valid, to ignore the predominantly social context in which and for which kamma is discussed is to distort representations of Theravada religiosity, as Walters points out.

35. Dhamma-niyama is relevant to Walters' (2003) discussions of the group kamma of kings and of Metteyya Buddha.

36. People seemed to look for kammic explanations from a previous life only where no obvious kammic cause in this life fitted the situation.

37. This story from the Apad na hakath is described by Walters (2003, 20).

38. Similar tales of Christian images were reported in the papers. Although I have been reporting on Buddhist responses, other religions came up with equivalent interpretations. Thus, Muslim friends told me of Internet images showing that the profile of the tsunami was in the shape of the name of Allah.

39. That time is cyclical is a fundamental presupposition of Buddhism. Nevertheless, two of my informants discussing this matter drew not just on local Sri Lankan histories but also referred to an article in Time magazine about cycles of history.

40. Both are referred to in the R j valiya: ‘In the Dvapara age of the world, on account of the wickedness of Rvaa, his fortress, 25 palaces, and 400,000 streets … were submerged by the sea. At this time, on account of the wickedness of Kelaitissa, 100,000 seaport towns, 970 fishers' villages, and 470 villages of pearl-fishers, make altogether eleven-twelfths of Laka, were submerged by the great sea’ (Gunasekara 1900, 27).

41. For the Mah v sa version of the story see Geiger (1912, 146–149); for the R j valiya version, see Gunasekara (1900, 25–29).

42. Meddegama and Holt (1993, 5). The fourteenth-century version was based on an earlier Pali poem. Quotations here are taken from Meddegama and Holt's translation of the eighteenth-century Pali version. See Somadasa (1989, 78–80) on different versions of this text. Theravada belief in the future Buddha Maitreya dates back at least to the composition of the canonical Cakkavattis han dasuttanta of the D gha Nik ya sutta 26.

43. This relates to the quality of the experience of the donor in giving explored in depth by Samuels in his article in this issue.

44. On the same issue arising in the ongoing redevelopment of Cambodia, see Kent's article in this issue. I had previously explained this phenomenon to frustrated foreign NGO workers and anthropologists in Cambodia in terms of collective access to prestige and ownership of a wealth (and insurance, on which see Kent) unimaginable at the individual level, not conscious of—and not assessing—this further possible factor.

45. In this specific case, I am thinking not only of the atheist radio discussant on the radio programme mentioned earlier or of the reluctant discussants I interviewed at the conference mentioned above, but of the discomfort of a significant number of students in the experience of myself and others teaching Buddhist studies in the United Kingdom, a sentiment that came to the fore in the United Kingdom following the sacking of Glen Hoddle as manager of the England football team in 1999 for a statement about disability being due to kamma in previous lifetimes.

46. I am not aware of any psychological study on the longer term effects of holding such beliefs on the recovery of survivors.

47. D gha Nik ya sutta 27.

48. We might ask in this context whether scientific explanations of calamity, our utu-niyama, are convenient for and so combined with monotheistic traditions, as they do away with uncomfortable attributes of God, just as utu-niyama is convenient for modernist Buddhists agnostic about kamma.

49. Only enlightened beings (such as the monk punished by King Kelaitissa) know the kamma of their former lives, while only a Buddha can see the former kamma of everybody and understand its fruition. Some Theravada traditions also attribute the keeping of a record of kamma to Yama, the god of death.

50. D gha Nik ya sutta 31.