By Udaya Gammanpila
I cannot recall the event or the year. It was a tele-award ceremony. A television journalist posed a question to senior artiste Tissa Abeysekera. The question was “What will be the future of Sinhala cinema and teledrama industry?” He looked around without answering the question. He dragged Jayantha Chandrasiri who was in the vicinity towards him and replied “This is the future of cinema in Sri Lanka.” By then Jayantha had produced two revolutionary teledramas, namely, Veda Hamine and Dandubasnamanaya.
In this backdrop, I was badly in need of watching his cinematic poem, Maharaja Gemunu. There is no doubt that it would be a challenging task. King Gemunu is the greatest hero in Sri Lankan history. According to some historians, Mahavamsa has allocated space for King Gemunu out of proportion. Venerable Mahanama, the author of Mahavamsa had a good reason to allocate more space for King Gemunu. He is the first king to unify Sri Lanka. Further, he established the doctrine which justifies fighting for self defence and thereby fighting for the protection of Buddhism.
In the light of the above, the story of King Gemunu is the most known story among the Sinhalese. There are hundreds of traditional wall paintings, stone carvings, folktales, idioms and poems about him. There are so many novels, pictorial stories, serialized newspaper stories and teledramas about King Gemunu produced in the recent past. It is of course a great challenge to produce a movie about the most known story. The first challenge of the director is to maintain the curiosity of the audience, when they are fully aware of the flow of the story. Collin Silva, who wrote a novel based on the story of King Gemunu titled The Winds of Sinhala, was successfully able to meet this challenge.
The second challenge faced by Jayantha was not faced by Collin as a novelist. It is inclusion of all important events of the story in a movie which runs only for 150 minutes. It is only faced by cinematic artistes. Nevertheless, directors of historical movies such as Ten Commandments, Jesus of Nazareth and Cleopatra have successfully met this challenge. I was curious to find out how Jayantha as a reputed director has managed this challenge.
The beginning
The movie begins with an incident where Queen Vihara Maha Devi travels to temple to see a terminally ill Buddhist monk. The purpose of her trip was to invite the monk for a rebirth in her womb. That is the real beginning of the story of King Gemunu. Queen Devi was not only the mother, but also the guiding light of King Gemunu. She guided King Gemunu from his birth to ultimate victory as Kautilya guided Emperor Samudragupta.
When Prince Gemunu sent female jewellery for his father King Kavantissa in protest of refusing to wage war against the invader, he shouted angrily ‘Dutu Gemunu’ meaning ‘wicked Gemunu’. There were no mud-slinging websites those days. There were no Youtube or Facebook which are presently used for character assassination. However, shrewd invader King Elara was able to spread this incident through door-to-door seller network to tarnish the image of Prince Gemunu. As a result, King Gemunu is known as ‘Dutu Gemunu’ even among Sinhalese who revere him as the greatest Sinhala king. Although Elara was able to portrait him as a righteous king, this movie has successfully deconstructed that image through highlighting incidents such as conspiracy to destroy Sri Maha Bodhi.
The movie’s attempt to rebuild historical cities such as Anuradhapura and Magampura was really commendable. Several recent historical movies failed to design costumes to reflect the era depicted in the movie. One movie has used Roman Costumes to tell a story of early Anurdahpaura era. Nevertheless, costumes used for the movie reflected the simplicity and dignity of traditional royal attires which were greatly influenced by Buddhism. Jackson Anthony, Shriyantha Mendis and Kusum Renu have lived in their roles as usual. Uddaka Premaratne’s performance has forced me to drop at least a few lines about him. He became a hero of the mini-screen within months of his arrival. His role as ‘Club Wasantha’ in Kalu Araliya tele-drama would not last for decades. He has conquered the silver screen as well by performing the role of King Gemunu.
Importance
The story of King Gemunu is very important for Sri Lankans for several reasons. Firstly, it says fighting in self-defence would not violate the Buddhist principle of non-violence or Ahimsa. World’s great war heroes such as Julius Caesar, Alexander the Greatest, Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte became heroes by invading other countries and looting their treasures. Although they are heroes in European perspectives, they are mere rogues to us. The kings who fought to save our motherland against foreign invasions following the footsteps of King Gemunu are our true heroes.
Secondly, he established the belief that Kings should wage wars not for gaining comforts for them, but for betterment of Buddha Sasana. Hence, waging war was not a sin for Buddhist kings, but a meritorious act. That is why kings always sought blessing and guidance from Buddhist monks before waging wars.
Thirdly, he established a tradition how the enemy should be treated in the post conflict society. King Gemunu challenged King Elara to a dual to avoid a massive massacre of enemies. Matured King Elara accepted the challenge understanding its hidden motive. After the death of King Elara, King Gemunu built a stupa using ashes from the funeral pyre in his honour. Following the example set by the king, fellow citizens treated members of King Elara’s army with great compassion. Hence, killings, burnings, looting and raping were not reported after the defeat of King Elara, although those are definite incidents in a post-war society.
This tradition continues for the next two millennia building a model post-conflict society for the rest of the world to follow. After the defeat of the LTTE, 12,000 terrorists surrendered to the army. Following the tradition established by King Gemunu, then government pardoned them and directed them for rehabilitation. After this process, they were handed over to their families with vocational trainings and gifts. If people are further educated about this Gemunu tradition, there will be no post-election violence in Sri Lanka.
Nobody should miss watching Maharaja Gemunu as it is a cinematic poem with great lessons. Unfortunately, school children have been denied the opportunity of watching the movie by the Ministry of Education. It has issued a circular banning participation of students in school show of the movie despite the approvals granted by provincial ministries of education. It must be of the view that the story of King Gemunu may disturb its so-called reconciliation programme. I am genuinely in fear that the present government may ban Mahavamsa great chronicles in the near future, in the name of reconciliation.
Courtesy:Ceylon Today