By
Tisaranee Gunasekara
“Whoever here (in this dispensation) lives a holy life, transcending both merit and demerit, and walks with understanding in the world – he is truly called a monk… Just as a blade of (kusa) grass wrongly grasped cuts one’s hand, so does monkhood wrongly practiced drags one to hell.”
The Buddha (Dhammapada – Niraya Vagga)
“Wander forth, O bhikkus,” the Buddha advises the Sangha in Dutiyamārapāssa Sutta, “for the welfare of the multitude, for the happiness of the multitude, out of compassion for the world.” On 26 October 2025, 19 Buddhist monks of Vietnamese, Taiwanese, and Laotian origin (and their dog Aloka) began a 2300-mile walk for peace from Texas to Washington. Their path lay through former Jim Crow and KKK territory, places scarred by lynching and segregation. Along the way, the monks led by Bhikku Pannakara (who made the entire trek barefoot) taught about mindfulness, forgiveness, and healing.
Their message touched men and women many of whom were probably seeing a monk for the first time. It is “beautiful how people have welcomed and hosted us in spite of not knowing who we are and what we believe,” Bhikku Pannakara commented. The reason was the conduct of the messengers as much as the nature of the message. The monks walked in scorching heat or freezing cold during the day and treated their blistered, swollen, and injured feet in the night, always soft-voiced, always kind, always mindful.
A Christian priest in Alabama, Patrick Hitchman-Craig, who hosted the monks in his church on Christmas night, compared them to the Magi. “I looked into their eyes and saw peace,” Audrey Pearce from South Carolina said (https://apnews.com/article/buddhist-monks-peace-walk-dog-american-south-26cadee973657ef026ab2370d04b39c5).
When they arrived in Washington, the DC secretary Kimberly Bassett stated, “Your pilgrimage has brought people together across cities, states, and communities…all of us together, united in the shared belief that we can chose healing over harm, understanding over division, and peace over conflict” (https://washingtonian.com/2026/02/10/thousands-welcome-buddhist-monks-in-dc-after-their-2300-mile-walk-for-peace/).
In Sri Lanka too, monks are planning a march. 8,000 monks are supposed to congregate in Colombo on 20 February. The purpose of this march is not peace, healing, or forgiveness. According to chief organiser Muruthethettuwe Ananda thero, the purpose is to protest against anti-monk statements by some ministers and the ‘growing disrespect toward Buddhist clergy’.
If the monk wants to know the reason for this ‘growing disrespect’, he should look in the mirror.
Or compare his conduct with that of the monks who walked for peace in America.
The birth of the political monk – of which Muruthethettuwe Ananda thero is an epitome – is a key reason for the degeneration of Lankan Sasana. In independent Ceylon/Sri Lanka, each wave of political Buddhism ended with a massive public backlash of anger, disenchantment, and disrespect.
The action-reaction began in 1956. Monks played a vanguard role in the victorious election campaign of SWRD Bandaranaike (Incidentally, the MEP’s national average was only 39.5%; the party’s victory was probably due more to the no-contest pacts with the left rather than to the monks.). The murder of PM Bandaranaike by a monk in 1959 resulted in a pubic backlash against all Sangha. In his political novel Peraliya (Transformation), TB Illangaratne writes that monks had to stop going in buses or on pindapatha for a while due to public anger.
A similar action-reaction happened in 2004, when the promise of a Dharma Rajya in 6 months by the JHU (led by Champaka Ranawaka and Udaya Gammanpila) ended in a kidnapping farce and an ugly parliamentary brawl. The final straw was the bomb attack on a musical show featuring Indian artistes in which several JHU stalwarts were implicated. During this time, the JHU symbol hakgediya (conch shell) became a popular slang word for a monk.
In Dhammapada, the Buddha says, “O bhikku! Censure yourself (for your misdeeds). Control yourself. The self-controlled wise bhikku experiences happiness” (Bhikku Vagga). If gaining public respect is what Muruthethettuwe Ananda thero and his fellow monks are truly after, they should cease meddling in politics and business and practice some basic dhamma.
They won’t, because the actual purpose of the planned protest is political. The monks want to regain not public respect but political clout. For that purpose, they want to replace the NPP/JVP government with an administration more likely to heap patronage on them and accord them a greater degree of (indirect) political power. They are not dupes, but willing simians of a tried-and-tested organ grinder.
Their master’s voice
In 2012, when the Rajapaksas needed a replacement for Tamil Enemy, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) appeared, as if by magic, with the Halal issue and the Muslim Enemy.
In late 2015/early 2016, the ‘Sinha Le’ (Blood of the Lion) movement sprouted with equal suddenness when the Rajapaksas were ratcheting up its opposition to the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government. Sinha Le was a reference to the Mahawamsa myth about the origin of the Sinhala people via cohabitation between a real lion and a human princess. The ‘Sinha Le’ movement’s purpose was to incite minority phobia among Sinhala-Buddhists and use that as a pathway to power for the Rajapaksas. The journey thus begun would end with the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president, via the Easter Sunday Massacre.
The blood-and-faith nationalism invoked by Sinha Le is a part of global and historical phenomenon which advocates government of, by and for the ‘chosen people’, chosen on the basis of ethnicity or religion. The adherents of this ideology believe in a land which is pure, which is the exclusive preserve of their own ethnic/religious community. Historically, this ideology has been used to commit/justify atrocities, the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany and the genocidal war against Gaza by Zionist Israel being prime cases in point.
Now political monks are planning a fresh round of weaponisation of Buddhism. This latest round began, predictably, in the multi-ethnic, multi-religious East, with the Trincomalee Buddha statue drama. According to media reports, there was a dhamma school in the contested land until it was destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. For the next 21 years it laid bare, possibly because it fell within a coastal buffer zone set up under the Tsunami (Special Provisions) Act, No 16 of 2005. Instead, the temple which owned the land leased it to a private individual to start a café. Then, suddenly, in November 2025, the reconstruction of the dhamma school was mooted. As a prelude, a Buddha statue was installed under cover of darkness by a group of monks and lay people, including Balangoda Kassapa thero. Acting on a complaint by the Coast Conservation Department, the police took the statue away (and returned it the next day). Within 24 hours, the likes of Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara and Ampitiye Sumanaratana descended on Trinco while the Trinco monks arrived in Colombo to meet Namal Rajapaksa and seek his help.
The eventual arrest of Balangoda Kassapa thero and several other monks for violating the Coast Conservation Act gave rise to cries of persecution and demands for impunity. During a court appearance, Balangoda Kassapa thero proclaimed that the Buddha’s law was higher than the law of the land, implying that as a monk he should be above the law. He was lying, knowingly or unknowingly. When he obtained higher ordination, the ritual would have included a question, Na ci rajabato (Are you a soldier of a king?); higher ordination would have been granted only after he answered, Natthi Bhante, meaning no.
Prof. Sucharitha Gamlath, in his erudite biography of the Buddha, gives the back history of this question-and-answer ritual. According to Mahavagga (Vinaya Pitakaya), warriors serving in King Bimbisara’s army became concerned about the sins they were committing as part of their military duties. They deserted and entered Sasana. The generals complained to the king about this ‘act of insubordination’. The king sought judicial opinion about the appropriate punishment for those who ordain a person engaged in royal service. The judges pronounced that such persons deserve a tortuous death.
Armed with this ‘verdict’ the King approached the Buddha and asked him to stop ordaining serving soldiers. The Buddha granted the request. By doing so, he drew a clear line of demarcation between religion and secular power, (not unlike Jesus’s dictum, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’). What the political monk is demanding is effacing of this necessary line of demarcation and the placing of monks above secular power.
Monks invoke historical precedent as the justification for this demand. But actual history tells us that Lankan Sasana existed under secular power and that kings didn’t hesitate to punish those monks who engaged in hostile political activities. From King Coranaga (3BCE to 9CE) who destroyed 18 viharas because monks refused to give refuge to him and King Kanirajanu-Tissa (89-92CE) who ordered about 60 monks to be thrown down Cetiya-pabba (Mihintale) for rejecting his decision in a monastic dispute case and plotting to commit regicide to King Vira Parakrama Narendra Sinha (1707-1739) who executed Suriyagoda Rajaguru thero (the mentor-teacher of the famous Velivita Sri Saranankara thera), Lankan kings didn’t spare monks who crossed the line. The inclusion of caste in Sasana, a clear violation of the Buddha’s teaching, resulted from a royal decree.
Thanks to the democratic nature of the Lankan state, monks have the same right to engage in politics as any other citizen. In fact, monks today have far more indirect political power and a say over secular affairs than their predecessors did when Lanka was a monarchy. Their current demand for impunity is against not just the law of the land but also the law of the Buddha. If granted, it will help establish the lunatic fringe in the political centre, again.
Perversions
Ellawala Medhananda thero was the founder-leader of the JHU. In an interview with ‘The Nation’ on 22 July 2007, he was asked, “As compensation for defamation you have requested Rs. 2.5 billion. Why such an exorbitant amount? Wouldn’t a public apology suffice?” The monk replied, “If they come with sword, we answer with sword. If they come with kindness, we answer with kindness. Otherwise you cannot live in this world. Even Lord Buddha approved of this and said that you should not remain silent in the face of provocation…”
In Good Hope Georgia, a small group of extremist Christians protested against the monks on the peace march. The only one to respond in kind to their insults was Aloka, the dog, who barked once and was gently shushed by a monk. As the words of hate swirled around him, Bhikku Pannakara said, “We are not here to fight anybody. We are here to fight ourselves. The biggest enemies in the world are not the people outside. The biggest enemy in the world is our inner self, our minds, out thoughts” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryp_9J1-P30).
In Maha Parinibbana Sutta, the Buddha teaches monks about the Four Great References, how to identify whether a statement is in accord with his teaching. The statement should be studied to see if the words “fit in the discourse and are exhibited in the training. If they do not fit in the discourse and are not exhibited in the training, you should draw the conclusion: ‘Clearly this is not the word of the Buddha…” Going by the Buddha’s own given method, it is clear that what is in accordance of his teaching is not Medhananda thero’s blood-thirsty words but the words and the conduct of Bhikku Pannakara.
All organised religions have ‘split personalities’. The effect a religion has on a society depends on the relative power/influence of its antipodal characteristics. When the violent intolerant aspects of an organised religion gain the upper hand, that religion becomes a source of societal bloodletting. Unfortunately, it is the un-Buddhist words and conduct of the likes of Medhananda thero which passes for Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Most Buddhists might deplore the shenanigans of Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara, but he is still considered (and worshipped as) a monk. The resultant perversion of Buddhism played a fundamental role in many of the disasters which befell us, including 1956 and 1958, Black July, Aluthgama and Digana riots, long Eelam War and Easter Sunday Massacre.
“Whoever dons the saffron robe with mind purged of all defilements, restrained and truthful, he indeed is worthy of the saffron robe,” the Buddha says (Dhammapada -Yamaka Vagga). But when Buddhism is weaponised for political purposes, those who are defiled, unrestrained, and untruthful, those who are unworthy of the saffron robe become the public face of Buddhism, tainting it with their own reek.
That is what is being attempted with the Trinco Buddha statue drama. Get ordinary Sinhala-Buddhists worked up, create a Tamil threat, to shift the political centre to the right, towards extremism and intolerance. It is a recipe for a new disaster, for losing a possible better future to an all too well-known bloody past.
Courtesy:The Island.