By Renton de Alwis
 |
| Pix by Luxshmanan Nadaraja |
An invited contribution
made to the coffee table book “Sri Pada – A Peak Heritage of Sri Lanka” in
2011, with photographs by Luxshmanan Nadaraja, editied by Ambassador Sarala
Fernando.
“Vandinna
yana me nadeta Sumana Saman Devi Pihitai
Vandala
Bahina me nadeta Buddhan Sarane saranai”
This verse
in Sinhala, echo in my mind whenever I think of Sri Pada and the first ever
pilgrimage I made there. Seeing those beautiful images of the peak triggers the
same memory. Its meaning “Those of you who ascent… may you have the protection
of Lord Saman, and those on the decent… may you be blessed with the enlightened
teachings of the Buddha”. Lord Saman is the guardian deity under whose charge
this peak and the surrounding wilderness area is said to have been placed by
the Gods.
I have
climbed the peak eleven different times since and twice on different routes. My
first ascent was as a school boy of seven, accompanied by my father and mother
and a few family friends. My late father was a railwayman. We, a family of
modest middle-class means thankfully had warrants (passes), to travel in the
comfort of the observation salon car, as it was called then, on the ‘Uderata
Menike’. It is even today, the regular daily train that plies Colombo to Badulla on the hill-country route.
We got off at Hatton, walked a bit around and took a bus to Dalhousie via Maskeliya.
Our climb began passing the Delhousie estate, a lush tea garden and it was dusk.
I recall seeing the shadowy peak far up-ahead as we traversed through the
estate workers’ line-houses.
My late mother,
a simple housewife was somewhat overweight and slow. I still remain amazed at
her intensity of purpose and level of devotion, whenever she was on a
pilgrimage to Sri Pada. I guess it was her determination and the faith of
worship that made her ignore the travails of the climb, when she kept pace with
us most of the time. The way up then, was not well-defined, as it is now.
Ascent and decent both, was tough and rough.
There were
times when in my childhood excitement, I ran ahead of them and stood by holding
on to the rails of the path until they caught up with me. She was still singing
along and prompted me to join her. That was I guess her way of getting me to
realise, that this was no ordinary journey. It was only years later that I realised
that it indeed was, for her and many others like her, a deep meditative
exercise of devotion and purpose.
I recall her
loud chorus; mine and my father’s after her, joining others who sang along the
many other verses. I also recall today, after a little over five and half decades,
what I felt of that first attempt at climbing. It was what I would in my wisdom
today; call a total immersion social event. It was more than a pilgrimage or a
purposeful journey to get from here to there. We, the pilgrims all bonded
together in a momentary bondage as we passed each other. We were one family,
sons and daughters of one nation. The young, old, weak and strong; we were one.
I saw a son
carry someone else’s mother. An old man help carry a child. The feeble were
carried on chairs and disabled were on crutches, often with another by the side
to assist. It was one chant, one melody and a single intent. We were one with
each other; purposeful, determined, sharing and caring.
Some of the
younger pilgrims had their own verse. I am though yet to make any sense of what
and why they sang it.
“Aggala kan dông putha … Hele
nagin dông putha”
It simply meant;”
Let us eat Aggala (a Sri Lankan sweetmeat delicacy) my son … let us climb the precipice”.
I am yet to find the meaning of the adjective ‘dông’ before ‘son’. Perhaps it was
to reflect the explosive nature of youth.
My mother had taught me that this peak was special. It was where
the Buddha visited on his third and the final legendary visits to Sri Lanka. I
was amazed and inquired innocently as to how he could have done such a feat.
She explained to me the nature of the mind power of an arahath (one who has
attained enlightenment) which made it possible for that person to transpose
oneself, as if the person was a light aircraft. I wondered then, if ever I
could do that feat and told her that. In her mild manner she said “one needs to
follow the middle path in life, give up all greed and meditate to get there”.
One
of my teachers in school in a lesson later told us that the Venetian Marco Polo
(1254-1324) and the Arab Ibn Batuta (1304-1368) had visited what they called Adam’s Peak. In ancient times too he said, Sri Pada was a
mystic pilgrimage destination. He also said that it was not only the Buddhists,
but the Hindus, Muslims and Christians, all considered the peak a holy site.
That made me proud and I boastfully said in class that I had been to the peak
not once but twice by then. I was elated to learn that there was only one other
among my classmates, who had equaled my feat.
On my later
climbs, and they were no longer pure pilgrimages, I was amazed at the change I
saw each time. On about the ninth, I observed how some had turned what was to
my mother, an exploration of meditation and purpose into a mere joyful picnic.
There were loud bursts of music from the CD and other sound devices some were
carrying. That drowned the voices of the pilgrims’ chants that I heard so loud
and clear on my maiden ascent several decades before. The echo on the mountain
terrain was not of a uniform chorus, as it had been, but a muddle of noises and
sounds. There was no way now, I could listen to those sounds and its uniform
echo, as I had done before.
There were
well laid steps and well laid signs calling for people to do good and not
pollute this holy land, though with an advertiser’s tag attached. My childhood
memory no longer matched the reality of the modern experience. It was indeed
different. Perhaps the innocent devotion of the likes of my mother no longer
exists.
The first
glow of the morning sun or the ‘Ira Sevaya’ began. It was the same sun we saw,
with the same glow. It laid a shadow of
Sri Pada on the other side of the range as I had seen then. The bells of the
temple rang and the chorus of the worshippers of ‘Sadu, Sadu, Sadu’ echoed all
around the peak. Thankfully, much had not changed of that moment, from what I
experienced on that first ascent of mine.
It was a
relief to realise that we as a nation, have retained some of what, I was afraid,
we had lost in full. There is indeed hope and I want to join the chorus of
pilgrims, to once again sing …
“Vandinna
yana me nadeta Sumana Saman Devi Pihitai
Vandala
Bahina me nadeta Buddhan Sarane saranai”
