Editor's
Reply to Hemantha Situge's Review on RASSL Journal Vol. 61, Parts 1 & 2
A review on the latest issues
of the RASSL Journal Vol. 61, Parts 1 & 2 (2016) has been released by Mr. Hemantha
Situge, a former Treasurer of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka. The learned reviewer has taken to task almost
all the articles and the two obituaries published in these issues. While I deeply appreciate the few
constructive criticisms he has made, I regret to say that the majority of his
comments have no firm ground to stand.
As the Editor of the Journal, I take full responsibility
of the contents of the articles and would like to place on record what I have
to say about some silly remarks made by the reviewer, leaving it to the
respective authors to reply to them more authoritatively.
First, the article by Prof. Mahinda Somathilake on Ajanta
murals and their chronology. As to the
date of discovery of the paintings, there is a difference of just two years
between that of Somathilake and that of Benjamin Rowland. The latter however does not substantiate his
statement, but Somathilake provides some evidence for his date. Which view are we to accept? Are we to accept
Benjamin Rowland just because he is a Britisher? We must also note that Somathilake's article is not on Ajanta murals
but an endeavor to establish their chronology.
In this attempt the scholar does not depend on the paintings per se and
their stylistic differences and has given valid reasons for excluding them as
unreliable criteria. He considers
inscriptional, paleographical and architectural factors more reliable. We cannot, therefore, blame Somathilake for
not referring to scenes from the Sinhala Avadana, which are quite outside his
purview.
Article Two. The
reviewer finds fault with Chandana Jayawardana for not mentioning whether he is
dealing with unpublished or published literature. Is it really necessary? Any one who reads through the article will
find that Chandana's review is based on the published Buddhist literature in
Pali. I, therefore, do not see any
reason why he should give a long list of catalogues of unpublished material in Sanskrit,
Pali and Sinhala, which are quite irrelevant to his study. A. B. Keith's book deals with the history of
classical Sanskrit literature from Asvaghosa downwards. What is the relevance of that book to this
study? In my opinion, Chandana has done an excellent job, and a
word of appreciation would have been an encouragement to that young researcher.
Article Three.
Using 'Veragala' for 'Veheragala' is not a mistake. 'Veheragala' becomes 'Veragala' by a rule of
euphonic combination. Chandrajeewa
personally told me that he was sticking to the commonly used term 'Veragala'.
Review article on Anand Singh's book. I personally do not think that mentioning the
reviewer's email address at the end of the article is a serious violation of
tradition. It is given there actually
for the purposes of communication, for he is a foreign scholar. On the other hand, tradition should change
with times. Tradition is not to be
deified as a perpetual legacy. When an
age-long practice becomes no longer
relevant, there is no point in preserving it.
Euripides is acclaimed as a great dramatist mainly because he fought
against the established order based on meaningless tradition. We have violated tradition this time by
changing 'PUBLISHED BY THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF SRI LANKA, COLOMBO' to
'BIANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF SRI LANKA, COLOMBO' on the Cover and Title Pages of the Journal!.
Now articles in Part 2.
The title of the first article appearing as 'Uri Lanka's . ..' is
actually a printer's devil. As soon as
it was detected it was brought to the notice of the Printer He was very apologetic and took immediate
steps to rectify the error. But
unfortunately a few copies of the Journal were issued at the AGM before the
correction was done. We apologize to
those members who received their copies before it was corrected.
I admit that it would have been better if the author had
mentioned the museum inventory numbers of the several statues. But this lapse has no bearing on the contents of the article.
Ulrich von Schroeder' s book, The Golden Age of Sculpture in Sri Lanka,
is hard to find. Since it is a catalogue
published for the Exhibition of Sri Lankan bronze images held at the
Smithsonian Institution from November 1992 to September 1993, British Museum
Tara Devis are not included in it. But I
brought it to the notice of the author that a number of references to Tara and
other Buddha saktis and architectural
details of the pabbata-viharas to
which Vijayarama belonged are found in the Vastuvidyasastra
and Citrakarmasastra of Manjusri,
which had escaped her notice. Shanti
expressed her gratitude for pointing them out and gave me full permission to
include those details suitably.
Unfortunately, by the time the article had gone to the printer and I was
unable to comply with her request.
We have taken note of the absence of photo accreditations
in all the articles as pointed out by the reviewer, and we shall discuss this
matter at the next meeting of the new Publications Committee to arrive at a
decision. I personally agree with the
reviewer to look into the possibility of publishing colour photographs, but
there is also a view that an academic journal need not publish colour photos,
which would also add to the cost of the Journal.
The reviewer has no comments on the next article by Prof.
Mathilal de Silva, except that his title Attorney-at-Law appears along with his
name. He is not only an Attorney-at-Law
but a retired Professor in Law at the Management Faculty of University of Sri
Jayewardenepura. His title was used in
consideration of the highly specialized nature of the article. The author of the next article, Ramla
Wahab-Salman, is a talented young member
of the RASSL, and I am sure that she will take the reviewer's comments in good
spirit. However, Ramla's main concern
has been the contribution made by the Journal Muslim Nesan during the eight years from 1882 to 1889, to which topic
she has done ample justice, I believe.
It is easy to criticize.
Today a thousand of references can be found on any topic in a few
moments. So it is very easy for a
reviewer to find a loop-hole in any article.
But what is more important and expected of a reviewer is, while pointing
out shortcomings, to appreciate any good points by way of encouragement for the
researcher. Nowadays it is very
difficult to obtain good articles for the RASSL Journal, and I am afraid sheer criticism might tend to discourage
even those few researchers who take great pains to write articles for the
Journal, from doing so.
Walter Marasinghe,
Hony. Editor/RASSL Journal.
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