Resisting the Global in Buddhist Nationalism: Venerable Soma's Discourse of Decline and Reform

Abstract

This article examines Buddhist nationalism as an effort to resist the intrusion of globalizing forces into local religious and cultural heritage. By analyzing the discourse, persona, and life of Venerable Gangodawila Soma (1948–2003), a renowned and controversial Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, the author demonstrates that Buddhist nationalism is largely a discursive formation that affirms an essential relationship between Buddhism and nation over against external forces that threaten their existence. A charismatic and skillful preacher, Venerable Soma employed a variety of media to reverse the perceived decline of Buddhism and the nation in the face of what he saw as immoral and hostile interests—including corrupt politicians, Tamil separatists, Evangelical Christians, and nongovernmental organizations. Venerable Soma's discourse, which privileges local forms of knowledge and morality, shows how globalization stimulates both new possibilities and new contradictions in contemporary forms of Buddhist nationalism.

The idea of “Buddhist nationalism” is for many observers and Buddhist practitioners an oxymoron. The basic presumption is that Buddhism, with its otherworldly orientation and ascetic ethos, could never legitimately be concerned with protecting and promoting nation-states. It is this very perception of Buddhist nationalism as an illegitimate enterprise that constrains scholarly analysis of its various forms across Asia. There is ample research that contrasts Buddhist nationalism with the imagination of a more pristine “early” or “original” Buddhism abstracted out of ancient scriptures. But the currency and influence of Buddhist nationalism throughout modern Asia calls for new lines of investigation into how contemporary practitioners forge conceptual and institutional links between Buddhism and the nation in the context of globalization.

A close examination of the reform program of Venerable Gangodawila Soma (1948–2003), a renowned and controversial Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka, presents an opportunity to reflect on how the discourse of Buddhist nationalism is implicated in complex ways with the contradictions of modernity and globalization. Venerable Soma (hereafter simply called “Soma,” but popularly called by the honorific title “Soma Hamuduruwo” in Sinhala) will not be used as an example of some sort of universalizable form of Buddhist nationalism.¹ Instead, his story sheds light on the motives and means by which one particularly influential kind of Buddhist nationalism has become articulated as a discursive program for religious, political, and cultural reform, over against external forces that are commonly seen as threatening the integrity and survival of Sinhala culture and Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Thus, this article will analyze the use of notions such as decline, false views, and wicked conduct in Soma's nationalist discourse in order to better understand one possible response to the increasing pressures and challenges that globalization presents to local forms of Buddhist knowledge and practice.

A brief review of the scholarship on Buddhist nationalism illustrates an array of scholarly views on the phenomenon, with much of the data taken from Sri Lanka. More than two decades ago, Trevor Ling (1983, 60, 68–69) described Buddhist nationalism as a development that “cannot properly be described as Theravada Buddhist,” primarily because of its stance against the religion's “original” ideals of universalism and tolerance. Such a view likely reflects the dismay of a scholar who lamented the apparent gap between the Buddhism he had read about in ancient texts and the Buddhism he saw being “reinterpreted” for political purposes. Seeking to explain this apparent incongruity, some scholars have cited a historical continuity between ancient and modern nationalistic sentiments in Sri Lankan Buddhism. Bardwell L. Smith (1972, 88–89) has pointed out that modern Sinhalese nationalism has expressed itself periodically since the third century BCE during periods in which the community experienced a crisis of identity and sought to reassert its purity and self-consciousness, at times in violent ways. Subsequently, Gananath Obeyesekere (1995, 243–46) weighed in on this issue, concluding that Buddhist historical narratives from texts such as the Mahavamsa helped to form an “axiomatic identity” whereby the Sinhala ethnic identity became inextricably linked with the Buddhist religion, a linkage that was revitalized in encounters with European “others” during colonialism.

Moving beyond the question of why there is such a thing as Buddhist nationalism, other scholars have sought to analyze its features and trace it to more contemporary historical causes. Stanley Tambiah's Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka (1992) remains an important work in this regard. There, Tambiah casts the arrival of “political monks” on the Sri Lankan scene in the mid-twentieth century as one of the more salient consequences of the earlier Sinhala Buddhist revival in response to British colonial and missionary influences. Feeling betrayed by their British overlords, who had earlier promised to protect local Buddhist traditions, Sinhala Buddhist nationalists began campaigning to promote the religion. Upon receiving independence in 1948, Sinhala nationalists were able to mobilize popular support for the advancement of Buddhist causes. Tambiah recognizes that despite a lack of unity in the Sangha, political monks have typically voiced a similar hegemonic stance in calling for the creation of a Buddhist democracy to protect the island's “Buddhist way of life,” even at the expense of minority communities (121–24). Thus, for Tambiah, Sinhala Buddhist nationalism remains an illegitimate and oppressive political movement.

More recently, two works have substantially advanced the attempt to theorize about Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka. H. L. Seneviratne's The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka (1999) describes in great historical detail how the lay Buddhist activist Anagarika Dharmapala laid out a program for an urbanized reform of Buddhism led by monks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Consequently, two major types of monastic politics developed: one based on performing social service activities for the economic uplift of the people, and another advocating political policies to enhance the culture and the standing of the Sinhala Buddhist community (Seneviratne 1999, 57). One of the main contributions of this work is to reveal how the idea of the Buddhist monk was fundamentally revised in the twentieth century, although there was and continues to be a diversity of views about what Buddhism has to offer the nation. Then, in Colors of the Robe: Religion, Identity, and Difference (2002), Ananda Abeysekara shifts attention away from the relationship between Buddhism and nationalism as an enduring phenomenon toward the specific and contingent ways in which such notions as “Buddhism” and “nation” are defined. By examining particular native debates over what can and cannot count as “Buddhist,” Abeysekara recasts Buddhist nationalism as a shifting configuration of discourse wherein competing interests struggle for rhetorical and political advantage (30–31).

The present article attempts to refute some of the presumptions found in the wide array of scholarship and conventional wisdom on Buddhist nationalism, particularly those that posit it as a relatively coherent phenomenon with age-old historical roots acting as a causal force to shape events in modern Sri Lankan culture. It also seeks to expand on some of Seneviratne's insights into the development of the “New Buddhism” in modern Sri Lanka and Abeysekara's view of “nationalism” as a process for authorizing distinctions made about religion and the nation. Thus, instead of viewing Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism as an inherently anachronistic or hegemonic movement in order to delegitimize it and explain why Sri Lanka has experienced several decades of ethnic conflict, I choose to examine the discourse and rhetoric of one particularly influential monk to reflect on the ways in which Buddhist nationalism is formed and revised in light of dramatic changes in the communicative processes of contemporary globalization. I argue that Buddhist nationalism is a protean form of discourse that often draws selectively on older nationalist polemics in responding creatively to ever-changing contemporary circumstances, a discourse that posits an essential relationship between religion and nation and explicitly acknowledges a need for political action in the preservation and revival of both.

For these purposes, I find the work of Roger Friedland on religious nationalism to be instructive. Friedland's theoretical studies associate the modern proliferation of religious nationalisms with the cultural and economic transformations forced on nation-states by global capitalism (1999, 314). As such, his work crucially recognizes that religious nationalisms today are developed as refuges of autonomous spaces, in opposition to a vast global system that is stripping nations of the ability to control their own religious, economic, political, and cultural spheres. Consequently, studies of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka must take into account events and actors outside Sri Lanka as well as inside the country. As such, Abeysekara and Friedland together point the way to a new approach whereby Buddhist nationalisms are not solely the products of unique cultural spaces and therefore only knowable in light of their cultural particularities. Instead, as this article seeks to demonstrate, it is possible to understand (and compare) Buddhist nationalisms as discursive formations whose rhetoric of identity and difference, or belonging and otherness, depend as much on the global as the local for their forms and contents.

Scholarly debates over the relative antiquity and coherence of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka have perhaps overshadowed efforts to locate the more specific sources and effects of nationalist discourse at particular points in time. A measure of the importance granted to the former is the well-known debate between scholars R. A. L. H. Gunawardana (1990, 1995) and K. N. O. Dharmadasa (1992, 1996) over when to date the formation of Sinhala identity. In an argument for seeing the rise of Sinhala ethnic identity and nationalism as modern constructions, Gunawardana (1995, 53–56) theorizes that the early use of the term “Sinhala” denoted a highly circumscribed group of people who could claim nobility as the descendents of the island's earliest rulers. His work, in turn, has enabled a number of other scholars to argue that ethnic identities and nationalist sentiments among Sinhalas are the nineteenth-century products of the British colonial presence in Sri Lanka. Dharmadasa's response (1996, 161–66) has been to locate the formation of a Sinhala national consciousness much earlier, from around the fifth century CE, with the early development of the Sinhala language. Dharmadasa's position has lent support to more nationalistic readings of history, which argue for the great antiquity of a Sinhala national identity. And yet it has also been noted that both views presuppose that Sinhala nationalism is a durable historical phenomenon, although its precise age may be in dispute (Rogers 1994, 12; Scott 1999, 103).

Rather than searching for the origins of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism or mapping out its genealogy, it makes sense, in David Scott's words, to change the problematic and to refuse “the past's hold over the present” (1999, 105) in order to see how specific articulations of the relationship between Buddhism and the nation arise and are wielded in response to present contingencies. In this way, it becomes possible to acknowledge instances in which Soma obviously borrows from earlier spokespersons of different versions of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism without presuming that his own turn-of-the-twenty-first-century discourse is wholly derivative from a larger, age-old phenomenon. Indeed, as Abeysekara (2002, 172) has suggested, the process by which “nationalism” operates, authorizing distinctions between what is identified as “nation” and “religion,” is located within particular conjectures of time and space. Therefore, the protean nature of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka and elsewhere requires that we acknowledge that its continual shifts in expressions and forms are the result of historical and cultural changes felt at the time of its articulation. And thus, even where one finds similarities with earlier kinds of nationalist discourse, these similarities only reflect selective attempts to mine past discourses for persuasive tropes to be employed again in new debates and new circumstances. As such, although Soma borrows some of his rhetoric from Dharmapala and other earlier Buddhist nationalists, he uses their tropes and ideas in new ways to buttress his own arguments against a mostly new array of supposed threats to Buddhism and the Sinhala nation.

As an early twenty-first-century Buddhist reformer who advocated the values and practices of the “pure teaching of the Buddha” (nirmala budu daham) and the “excellent Buddhist teaching” (bauddha saradharma) to reverse cultural and religious decline, Soma is of exceptional interest and importance. His sudden rise to prominence in Sri Lankan society is attributable not only to what he said, but also to how and where he said it. In other words, Soma's skillful use of print and broadcast media, as well as his efforts to publicize his views in temples at home and abroad, contributed to his renown. Again, the present analysis of Buddhist nationalism recognizes the importance of context in shaping discourse. The circumstances in which Soma found himself and the methods he chose to promulgate his message differed from those of many of his Buddhist nationalist predecessors. As such, the increased constraints and opportunities afforded by contemporary globalization make his articulations of Buddhist nationalism particularly distinctive and relevant for the present. His critiques of the wicked conduct of Sinhala politicians and ordinary Buddhists were matched by his condemnation of the allegedly deleterious effects that the growth of ethnic minorities and global forces have had on Sinhala culture. He was widely seen as someone who spoke the truth fearlessly, criticizing the powers that be for failing to protect and promote Buddhist traditions and morality. And his ability to cite Buddhist texts authoritatively, together with his use of sarcastic humor, made him a compelling speaker for the island's Sinhala Buddhist population.

Soma cultivated an iconic status by constructing a persona of an erudite and disciplined monk who was not tied or beholden to any particular political party but instead challenged the powers that be with appeals for moral and cultural revival (see figure 1). As a resident of the Siri Vajiragnana Dharmayatanaya temple (also known as Bhikshu [Abhyasa] Madhyasthanaya, or “Bhikkhu Training Center”) in Maharagama about 10 miles south of Colombo, Soma was associated with a lineage of disciplined monks and talented speakers in the reform-minded Amarapura Nikaya, including his teacher, the late Venerable Madihe Pannasiha. His frequent television appearances and guest sermons around the island made him a renowned, if not also a controversial, figure based on his biting commentaries on the conduct of Buddhist politicians and foreign entities. They also suggest that his message of religious and cultural reform resonated with large numbers of Sinhala Buddhists in and beyond Colombo, contrary to conventional view that his audience was limited only to the urbanized middle class (see figure 2).

In addition, Soma's discourse and persona illustrate a fundamental dilemma for today's Buddhist nationalists. Soma's discourse of Buddhist nationalism, which privileged local history and traditions, existed in tension with the global spread of ideas and technologies. In this sense, the local is a catchword to refer to that which is associated with the island's supposedly “native” Sinhala Buddhist heritage. The global, on the other hand, refers to all that is “foreign,” either by origin or association. Although the meeting of the local and global—or the native and foreign—need not always spark conflict or cause people to feel threatened by the intrusion of globalization (Wickramasinghe 2006, 331), it did lead to a certain ambiguity in Soma's views toward contemporary Sri Lankan society. Specifically, it illustrated his simultaneous debt to and rejection of a variety of modern, global, and Western phenomena. Soma's message of reform crafted an ideal vision of Sinhala Buddhism and culture over against the external forces he identified as threats to their continued existence in Sri Lanka. These forces will be discussed in greater detail later, but for now it is worth noting that Soma, somewhat paradoxically, utilized modern (and imported) technologies to champion the integrity and value of local Buddhist traditions to Sinhalas living on the island and around the world in the Sinhala diaspora. The true “Buddhadharma,” for Soma, existed locally and was sustainable by the immediate cultural context of Sinhala life. In other words, he believed that Buddhism as a source of universal truth had found its firmest abode in the Sinhala nation. In contrast, globalization and its forced intrusion of distant ideas and technologies into local customs and institutions were generally seen by Soma as major threats to be actively confronted and resisted.

However, in most cases, what Soma advocated for reform and how he advocated it reflect the contradictory nature of a discourse of religious nationalism constructed over against a vision of the global yet expressed through translocal, commercial, and mass media technologies to local and global audiences. It was precisely the global character of the Sinhala diaspora that helped fuel Soma's meteoric rise in Sri Lankan society. His stature was elevated by the fact that he served as the chief incumbent of a temple he had founded in Victoria, Australia. And his main publisher, Dayawansa Jayakody, is a Sinhala expatriate who operates an office in New Jersey as well as Colombo. The simultaneous use and critique of the global by Soma reflects an inescapable ambivalence toward globalization rather than an outright rejection or an eager embrace of all things global.

An examination of Soma's discourse brings into focus how at least some forms of Buddhist nationalism are defined by the struggle with the competing religious ideas, diversity of cultural forms, political ideologies, and economic systems that global institutions and technologies translate into local contexts. It also advances the approaches outlined earlier by Seneviratne and Abeysekara, wherein Buddhist nationalism is viewed less as a singular or coherent movement and more accurately as a particular kind of discursive formation utilized by various individuals and groups for specific religious and political ends. Thus, when Seneviratne points out the existence of differing conceptions of the purpose of monastic life, he prepares the way for us to view Soma as representing something other than Walpola Rahula's secularization of Buddhism or Henpitagedera Gnanavasa's spiritualization of society (Seneviratne 1999, 168, 188). Instead, we may view Soma as having maintained a rarefied notion of Buddhism that is distinct from secularism and popular cultural practices. At the same time, he insisted that Buddhism should be concerned with mundane political issues insofar as they affect the practice and survival of the religion. Thus, even ideal types of Buddhist nationalism are something to be avoided.

Likewise, when Abeysekara emphasizes the shifting appeals to authorizing nationalist discourse in contemporary debates over “identity” and “difference” within Sri Lankan society, he encourages us to look even further abroad at transnational events and actors that get involved in local disputes. Seneviratne's and Abeysekara's rejections of a singular, durable form of Buddhist nationalism dissuade us from attempting to fit Soma's message into a single mold of “Sinhala Buddhist nationalism.” Instead, we ought to examine how this particular monk discursively linked Buddhism and the nation in response to contemporary concerns and realities. In lieu of discrete, enduring movements of Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka, one instead finds a repertoire of tropes and rhetorical flourishes that characterize recurring efforts by Soma and others to align religious values and identities with political goals and cultural norms.

In Soma's discourse of Buddhist nationalism, we see evidence of older themes being transformed by new, contemporary concerns and media used to make his message more relevant and widespread. Although he gleaned certain ideas about what constitutes Buddhism and the nation from his predecessors, Soma modified this tradition of Buddhist nationalist discourse to suit his own purposes.² For example, instead of seeing his critique of drinking alcohol as owing something to what a figure like Dharmapala said earlier (e.g., 1991, 483–84), as if Soma were only a passive recipient and conveyer of Dharmapala's views, it is more accurate to see him as referencing Dharmapala when it suited him to give additional force to his own arguments about the unwholesomeness of liquor and its negative effects on the modern Sri Lankan state. In this way, it is possible to see Soma and other recent nationalists as actively constructing their own interpretations of Sri Lanka as a Buddhist state populated largely by Sinhala Buddhists.

Soma critiqued global (read: foreign) intrusions into local culture and religion, yet he utilized global technologies and information to do so on both the national and the international stage. He championed an idealistic form of Sinhala Buddhist culture that had formerly been articulated in opposition to British colonialism, yet he dismissed the premises behind the postcolonial form of multicultural politics that Sri Lanka's main coalition parties employ to represent the island's diverse ethnic and religious communities. He consistently wrote and spoke in the local Sinhala language, but he frequently traveled abroad to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States to convey his message to Sinhala speakers worldwide. He condemned the “deceitful followers of Buddhism” who maintain that “all religions are one, or at least they all teach the same thing” because he thought that this view would lead Buddhists to embrace all kinds of unrighteous practices, such as drinking alcohol and taking life, that are “at the core of some religions” (Soma 2002, 67). For Soma, then, the universal truth of Buddhism should not be confused with the alleged universality of all religions, because to emphasize their commonalities threatens to undermine the particular expressions of moral discipline specifically taught by the Buddha and, in theory, preserved in Sri Lanka. In sum, Soma's message has not only been influential in shaping popular views of religion and the nation in contemporary Sinhala society, it also enables us to better understand the logic of Buddhist nationalism as an effort to resist globalization.

The Life and Career of Venerable Soma

Soma's meteoric rise in popularity at the end of the twentieth century in Sri Lanka coincided with the Sinhala public's rising anxiety about their living conditions and the future of their country. An ongoing civil war with separatist Tamil rebels, government-subsidized education and health care systems, high levels of government debt, and the depreciation of the Sri Lankan rupee have led to serious economic strains and inflation in recent years.³ The decisions to open the economy in 1977 and, subsequently, to create free market zones in the country have benefited some Sri Lankans, particularly investors in the garment industry or those with significant capital to invest in new businesses, but many other wage earners and pensioners have found it increasingly difficult to buy or rent homes, acquire and maintain vehicles, pay for their children's private tuition, and meet the rising costs of electricity, fuel, and staple foods. Some of Soma's followers around Colombo have benefited from the economic growth of increased privatization, but many still face the anxieties peculiar to an emergent middle class that seeks to augment their incomes and possessions, as well as to secure good futures for their children. What is striking about the economic context of Soma's popularity, as complex and varied as it is, is that diverse elements in Sinhala society have gravitated to his message, including, by my own observation, English-speaking economic elites, urbanized Sinhala-speaking workers and pensioners, and daily-wage laborers living in other parts of the island.

While Sri Lankans negotiate the uncertainties of the global economy—exacerbated on the island by the ongoing military conflict with Tamil separatists—they are experiencing other forms of cultural dislocation as a result of globalization. In Sri Lanka and elsewhere, the increasing flow of people, capital, technology, media images, and ideas across national boundaries has made the work of cultural reproduction at the levels of the nation-state, community, and household more contested and difficult (Appadurai 1996, 44–46). Large numbers of Sri Lankans have migrated to other countries to live or work, with substantial percentages of women finding employment in the Middle East as domestic servants (Gamburd 2000). Many traditional customs and relationships have been weakened and sometimes abandoned as newer economic and cultural realities have created intense pressures on the lifeways of Sri Lankans, often disrupting social bonds, local cultural forms, and family ties. From the perspective of many Sri Lankans, the island's political and cultural sovereignty are being undermined by a growing reliance on export markets, overseas employment, foreign debt, and international development agencies, on one hand, and the expanding intrusion of foreign television programming, motion pictures, imported goods, and fashion, on the other (figure 3).

The world in which Soma was born was, therefore, substantially different from the one in which he spent the later years of his life. Born on April 24, 1948, shortly after Ceylon achieved independence, Somaratna Weeratunga was raised in the suburban villages of Gangodawila and Mirihana south of Colombo and attended Dharma school at the Vajirarama Temple in Colombo (Perera 2001, 17–18). Recent biographies of Soma describe him as a clever student with a great appetite for and understanding of Buddhist teachings. They tend to exalt the young boy's piety and assert, among other things, that the Subhadrarama Temple in Nugegoda was like his second home (Sumanasekara 2003, 10). He became a novice monk at the age of twenty-six, in 1974, and received the upasampada (higher ordination) two years later, in 1976. He was initiated into the monastic lineage of Venerable Palane Vajiragnana (1878–1955), with Venerable Madihe Pannasiha as his teacher and Venerable Ampitiye Rahula as his preceptor at Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya, a branch temple of Vajirarama, in the Colombo suburb of Maharagama (Sumanasekara 2003, 12–13).

The fact that Soma was trained in this particular monastic lineage is significant. As Seneviratne (1999) has shown, Vajiragnana was one of the early monastic leaders of a reformed, urbanized version of modern Buddhism that embraced the reform program of Dharmapala and sought to merge Buddhist and Sinhala identities as part of a program to empower and discipline Sinhala society. Vajiragnana was particularly concerned with preaching Buddhist doctrine and morality to the urban laity. He later became the chief monk at the Vajirarama temple in Colombo, and there he imbued his pupils and lay audiences with practical instructions on how to apply Buddhist morality to everyday life (Seneviratne 1999, 54–55). Soma, like other monks in Vajiragnana's lineage, emphasized the need to suffuse one's life with Buddhist values and activities in order to achieve personal success and social regeneration. As such, he saw his duty as a “messenger of the Dharma” (dharmaduta) who works to make Buddhism present in the world and to increase knowledge of the Buddha's teaching at home and abroad (Kemper 2005, 27).

Soma's association with the Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya temple is also significant. Founded by Pannasiha in 1958 to train priests and disseminate knowledge of the Dharma, this temple regularly attracts large numbers of lay devotees and donors who seek out virtuous monks close to their urban homes. The monks at Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya have a reputation for being exceptionally disciplined and pious compared with the monks who reside at other temples in the greater Colombo area. Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya monks are assumed to know the Dharma thoroughly and to avoid eating any meat or fish, which indicates a greater commitment to morality and the first Buddhist precept of refraining from taking any life. As a result, Soma's identification with this temple contributed both to his training and his reputation as a knowledgeable and virtuous monk, giving additional moral suasion to his sermons and writings.

Aside from his association with Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya, Soma's own monastic career contributed to his reputation and charisma. Soma took on the austere lifestyle of a wandering forest monk for a period of time. He resided for a time at the Veheragala forest hermitage in a remote and relatively impoverished region in the eastern part of the island. A biography describes how he would beg for alms of coarse food from the villagers and would drink from a stream, spending most of his days in solitude and meditation (Sumanasekara 2003, 15–16). Upon leaving the hermitage, Soma undertook a “Dharma journey” (dharma carikava), wandering mostly by foot through villages from Maha Oya, at the eastern end of the island, through Badulla, Nuwara Eliya, and Awisawella, before ending in Kelaniya just outside Colombo. During this time he is said to have instructed simple Buddhist villagers on the Dharma and showed them the correct religious path (Jayakody 2004, 41–42; cf. Sumanasekara 2003, 16–17). Although he did not remain a forest monk, Soma's temporary adoption of this role helped ascribe him with the identity of a virtuous monk detached from the comforts of the mundane world. Thus, when, late in life, he began to intervene in public debates on political affairs, his ascetic reputation served to insulate him from some criticism and gave him additional credibility on moral issues.

In 1986 Soma's monastic career took a different turn, as he was invited to travel to Melbourne, Australia, to preach to the Sinhala overseas community there. He returned to Australia in 1989 and stayed for seven years, founding temples in Victoria and Brisbane before returning to Sri Lanka. The years he spent abroad as a dharmaduta exposed him to different diasporic conceptions about the relation between Buddhism and society. Such a step was important for his career, because even though he lacked a position in the senior monastic hierarchy, his service as a chief monk abroad contributed to his profile and renown in the Sangha (assembly of Buddhist monks) and the Sri Lankan Buddhist community at large. He retained his position as chief incumbent at the Shakyamuni Sambuddha Vihara in Victoria even after he returned to live at Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya in Sri Lanka. However, he continued to travel abroad regularly to speak to Sinhala Buddhist communities in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States. On one occasion on which I was present, Soma spoke to a large crowd of Sinhalas at a Buddhist temple in East London in April 2003. He delivered an informal sermon on what could be described as Buddhist basics, explicating the difference between kusala (wholesomeness) and punna (merit), as alluded to in Buddhist canonical sources. He spoke exclusively in Sinhala and mentioned little about politics, save perhaps for a not-so-subtle jibe at Sinhalas who rush to adopt the ways of Western cultures and abandon their Sinhala heritage. Soma's diasporic travels developed his persona as a dharmaduta who promoted and clarified the true basis of the Buddha's teachings to a global audience. Yet at the same time, he steadfastly privileged the local language and culture, urging the Sinhala diaspora to help preserve what was being lost in Sri Lanka itself.

In the late 1990s, Soma's fame and popularity grew rapidly. He devoted his considerable talents as a preacher to speaking to the public on matters of reforming Buddhism, along with Sinhala culture and Sri Lankan politics. His message was carried to the Sinhala Buddhist public through radio, television, and newspapers. He authored a number of pamphlets on Buddhist teachings and wrote numerous articles about a wide range of religious and cultural topics for the newspapers. He started a television program called Anduren Eliyata (From Darkness to the Light), which was later followed by another program called Nena Pahana (The Lamp of Knowledge), where he answered questions about Buddhism and people's daily problems. This willingness to address issues of everyday life, along with his outspoken views and sarcastic humor, made him one of the most sought-after Buddhist preachers in Sri Lanka. Among a handful of renowned Dharma preachers regularly invited to give sermons at temples and events throughout the island, his sermons would regularly attract crowds in the thousands.

Meanwhile, he established the Janavijaya Foundation to promote his message of abiding by the five precepts of Buddhist morality and protecting Sinhala Buddhist culture from external threats and internal decay. Based at the Bhikshu Madhyasthanaya temple, this foundation emerged as the chief tool for Soma to promote his vision of combining the regeneration of Buddhist practice with social development (Jayakody 2004, 102). Employing the motto “Righteousness Enhances the Prosperity of a Nation,” the Janavijaya Foundation engages in its work with the understanding that people's adherence to the five precepts of Buddhist morality will strengthen their commitment to wholesome conduct and contribute to the social and economic development of the nation as a whole. Near the end of his life, Soma took steps to form a political party called “Janavijaya” and even suggested that he might run for president of Sri Lanka—an extraordinary and unprecedented effort by a monk to involve himself in politics. As the foregoing examples show, Soma believed that social development projects and political activism go hand in hand, and he refused to confine himself to either an economic or a cultural agenda, as Seneviratne has argued with reference to most twentieth-century monks (Seneviratne 1999, 56–57).

On December 12, 2003, at the height of his popularity and influence, Soma died of what was officially described as heart failure while visiting Russia to accept an honorary degree from a little-known theological institution. The circumstances of his death remain controversial, as some Sinhala Buddhists have suggested that he was assassinated by those who resented the strong criticisms he had made about Sri Lankan politicians, Christian missionary organizations, and Tamil and Muslim minorities (see, e.g., Dhammasiri 2004). After autopsies were performed and his body was flown back to Sri Lanka, there was a tense atmosphere marked by fear of religious riots in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday.⁴ On December 24, Soma's body was brought in a funeral procession along a 12-mile route from his Maharagama temple to Independence Square in Colombo. Newspapers reported that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of devotees lined the route of the motorcade, chanting “Sadhu, Sadhu” and offering flowers. An even larger crowd watched the event during a live broadcast on television. Yellow flags were raised throughout the country to mark the death of this monk, and numerous businesses closed out of respect. Monks who spoke during the funeral service called on the government to investigate the circumstances of Soma's death.⁵

In the years since Soma's passing, his public profile and influence have remained powerful forces in Sri Lankan society. His books and writings are still being printed and sold to readers. Thus, in 2005, his publisher, Dayawansa Jayakody, released a set of new books containing transcripts of his sermons. Pictures of Soma appear on roadside signboards, in people's homes, and in the windows of numerous shops, vans, and trucks around Colombo (figure 4). One can even find signs and graffiti in the Sinhala language in certain places of the city with words of praise for Soma, such as “Reverend, may we go on the path taken by you,” “Our dear Reverend Soma, may you come again amongst us to awaken our country and nation,” and “May there be the happiness of nirvana for you who have awoken our country!”

A Model for Reform

Soma's considerable impact on contemporary Sri Lankan society and the Sinhala diaspora is linked to his rhetoric and representations of Buddhism and Sinhala culture. He selectively invoked an older discourse of Buddhist nationalism and modified it to respond to current events. Like Dharmapala and Rahula before him, Soma regularly criticized the condition of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and tended to assign much of the blame to the imposition of Western cultural norms and habits on the Sinhala nation. Although Soma frequently drew on earlier forms of Buddhist nationalist discourse, the breadth of his views, together with his persona as a virtuous meditator, combined to make him a distinctive and popular figure. His postcolonial rhetoric broadened the culprits behind the alleged downfall of Buddhism and Sinhala culture, singling out a broad array of foreign actors and their local Sri Lankan collaborators.

Along with the public image he crafted and maintained, Soma's skillful use of the mass media and his efforts to preach to the Sinhala Buddhist diaspora around the world made his views more widely and quickly known than many nationalist leaders who preceded him. His ambitious program combined religious, political, and cultural reform in an effort to fix what he saw as the pitiful condition of Buddhist morality and the difficult living standards of many Sinhala families. To this end, he borrowed some enduring tropes of Buddhist nationalist discourse to voice harsh criticisms of the effects of globalization on local Sinhala Buddhist life. Yet, again paradoxically, Soma relied on technologies and, to a lesser extent, ideas that were part and parcel of the intrusion of the global into the local.

Beginning in the late 1990s, Soma's published writings that were focused on explicating Buddhist thought and generally lacked the more polemical, biting tone of his late works. A work titled Rahula Mata describes and extols the figure of Yasodhara, the wife of Prince Siddhartha whom he left behind to renounce the world and attain Buddhahood. In this text, Soma explains that he is writing this story as an example to develop the morality and tranquility of young men and women, and therefore the tremendous devotion and commitment Yasodhara showed to the Buddha—including during their previous lives—is presumably offered as a model for young persons (particularly women) to emulate (Soma 1999b, 7–10). The twin messages of developing morality and reverence for the Buddha also appear in his other early works, called Lovuturu Suvanda and Buddhastupaya. Such topics read as standard fare for Dharma talks (dharmadesana) given by monastic preachers. He also published a Sinhala translation and commentary on the Dhammapada, an important work from the Pali Buddhist canon. When read in the context of his later writings, these earlier works display a clear interest in setting the parameters for grasping the Buddha's teaching in order to disavow false views and critique immoral conduct. In this way, Soma began to engage in what Abeysekara has described as “specific debates that render possible and centrally visible the differing demarcations between what can and cannot count as Buddhism” (2002, 31). And as he articulated his model for reform, Soma generated a specific vision of Buddhism that could both draw on and contest various features of the disruptive forces of globalization.

Buddhism in its pure form is, according to Soma, a rational path taught by the Buddha for the sake of reducing suffering in the world. Although he admits that Buddhism has changed over time, and its more “religious” aspects have developed and sometimes deviated from what the Buddha actually taught, he asserts that the basic teaching of the Buddha (mulika budu daham) has not been destroyed as of yet (Soma 2001, 41). It is this core teaching that Soma tried to foreground and promote, yet this often took the shape of contrasting the Buddha's Dharma with corrupted forms of the tradition and hostile external forces. For Soma, Buddhism is not a “religion” that revolves around blind faith in divine powers, but rather it takes the form of a path for being liberated from the suffering of repeated births and deaths in samsara (Soma 2002, 62–65). Soma emphasized the importance of adhering to Buddhist moral precepts while eliminating the mental intoxicants of greed, ill will, and delusion. The correct understanding and practice of the Dharma, or teaching of the Buddha, hold the key to overcoming the harmful effects of wicked deeds and negative karmic fruits that arise from such deeds.

Moreover, for Soma, Buddhism is related to modern science. Dharmapala reached the same conclusion earlier, and he tried to show how Buddhist thought is consistent with modern science in order to make the religion more amenable to westerners and Sinhalas living in the modern world (McMahan 2004, 905). In a somewhat different vein, Soma used certain scientific discoveries not to show how modern Buddhism is but rather to demonstrate the universal truth of Buddhism itself. Soma went out of his way to relate scientific ideas about the brain and psychology in general to the Dharma. He was typically joined on his television program Nana Pahana by a professional psychologist who could expand on the effects of certain kinds of activities on the brain. Elsewhere, Soma explained how the body's production of adrenalin from anger has a polluting effect on the brain cells, but meditation works to halt adrenalin and instead sends good hormones to the brain (personal interview, July 6, 2002). Indeed, Soma employed psychological and neurobiological theories, albeit in a fairly rudimentary way, to reaffirm the general Buddhist view that a deficiency of morality causes the mind to become impure and the intellect to be diminished (Soma 2002, 32). His selective use of modern psychology represents one instance of how global forms of knowledge conditioned local ones, supplementing Soma's religious admonitions with the persuasive force of modern science.

Soma also tried to convince Sinhala Buddhists to abandon what he viewed as ritual superstitions that had become confused with Buddhism through cultural accretion. Indeed, Soma's critiques of popular notions surrounding the protective power of pirit water blessed by Buddhist chanting and the emanation of Buddha rays from relics are particularly noteworthy given the broad acceptance of these ideas in Sinhala society. Popular exuberant displays of Buddhist piety are depicted as ineffective, if not harmful, if they encourage false views among Sinhala Buddhists. Regarding the popular practice of pirit, wherein monks chant Buddhist verses and tie strings around the wrists of devotees in a traditional ceremony of blessings and protection, Soma argued that there is no tangible benefit from reciting a Pali sutta (a discourse believed to have been originally recited by the Buddha) without knowing its meaning or from drinking pirit water and tying a string around one's wrist unless one has been established in the three refuges (of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha) and observes the five precepts (Soma 2001, 42; cf. Soma 2004a, 11–12).

For Soma, the degree to which Sinhala Buddhists and Sri Lanka suffer from economic woes, civil unrest, and the disintegration of the traditional family unit are directly attributable to the Sinhala people's failure to adhere to the genuine Buddhist tradition. Soma claimed that the family is the most important group in Sri Lankan society, but that it presently is in danger of breaking apart through divorce and illegitimate children, as in Western culture (Soma and Sumanasekara 2001, 38). Soma, like other religious nationalists, gave primacy to the family as the ideal social space around which society should be conceived and composed (Friedland 2001, 134). The future of the Sinhala family, he believed, reflects the future of Sinhala culture and Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Because Buddhism is held to promote moral values and virtues associated with self-restraint, generosity, truth, and loving-kindness—qualities reinforced in the family and necessary for its harmony—Soma and his followers could maintain that a “return” to the path of moral conduct outlined in Buddhist texts would inevitably lead to a more peaceful, orderly, and prosperous society. In theory, the family is insulated from external forces that weaken its bonds, and thus it can serve to develop the virtue that its children learn from the Dharma (Soma and Sumanasekara 2000, 38). Soma claimed that the Sinhala Buddhists' practice of good conduct—that is, adherence to the five precepts and other moral teachings of the Buddha—would give rise to family harmony and national prosperity, whereas wicked conduct would lead directly to individual and national misery (abhagyaya) (Munasinghe 2004, 29).

Moral and National Decline

The rhetorical context in which Soma's model for religious, political, and cultural reform was advanced was a dire picture of moral and national decline (parabhavaya) that he continually drew in his sermons and writings. By using the term parabhavaya to signify “decline” or “downfall,” Soma utilized a word from the title of an important Pali sutta in which the Buddha is said to have explained that the causes for moral decline include laziness, neglecting one's parents, miserliness, liquor, gambling, and illicit sexuality (Andersen and Smith 1997, 18–20). The Buddha's sermon contained in the Sutta Nipata addressed what causes the downfall of an individual. Soma went even further by connecting the moral failings of individuals with the decline of the Sinhala nation as a whole.

Similar warnings were made by earlier generations of Buddhist nationalists in Sri Lanka, but the causes of decline that Soma cited went beyond the misrule of British colonizers and Westernized elites hostile to Buddhist interests. Parts of his critique sometimes resembled the Buddhist nationalist discourse espoused by the radical Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) that in the late 1980s called for patriotic monks and laypersons to protect the “motherland” and resist Indian and Western imperialism, on one hand, and Tamil separatism, on the other (Chandraprema 1991). And there are similarities between his idealization of local Sinhala family life and the literature produced by the Jathika Chintanaya (National Thinking) movement that in the 1980s promoted a romantic, essentialist vision of Sinhala society as an age-old, collectivist peasant village permeated by Buddhist customs (Nanayakkara n.d., 9–10). Soma's discourse of Buddhist nationalism resonated with parts of these other discourses, but he specifically prescribed the Buddhist practices of morality and meditation as the means for countering the harmful effects of foreign forces seeking to undermine both urban and rural Sinhala Buddhist society. As a learned and virtuous monk, Soma could refer to Buddhism as something more than just a symbol within the broader fetishization of Sinhala culture. For him, Buddhism must be practiced to be preserved, and it is this practice that holds the keys to individual and societal well-being.

Soma's critique denounced the effects of, among other things, cultural and economic globalization, multicultural discourse in support of minority rights, and greedy politicians on the weakened and threatened Sinhala Buddhist nation. In criticizing the World Bank, foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), foreign businessmen, Christian missionaries, and power-hungry politicians for the harm they have inflicted on Sinhala Buddhists, Soma effectively updated the critiques of Dharmapala and others who similarly looked to cast blame on an array of ethnic and cultural others for the social and economic problems evident in their own Sinhala community. This strategy of ostracizing the “other,” which is common in religious nationalism, efficiently functions to define one's own ethnic and religious group by contrasting it with religious and cultural communities deemed to be irreducibly different (Bartholomeusz and de Silva 1998, 14). However, according to Soma, Sinhala Buddhists must share some of the blame for their moral and national decline inasmuch as they have allowed themselves to be led astray by immoral agents and foreign interests.

The rhetoric of decline used by Soma was also expressed in terms of destruction (vinashaya), disaster (vipata), darkness (andura), and other ominous-sounding terms to signify the serious problems facing Sinhala Buddhists at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The many looming threats that Soma identified in his sermons and writings are said chiefly to threaten the continued existence of the Buddha's dispensation (sasana), the Sinhala nation (deya), and the country (rata) of Sri Lanka. Though some of these threats are direct and menacing, such as the LTTE, Soma held that many others work indirectly by promoting immoral behavior to lead Sinhala Buddhists to destroy themselves. And as long as these threats to the religion, nation, and country are left unchecked, he claimed that the survival of Buddhism, the Sinhala community, and a unified Sri Lanka would remain in doubt. In almost apocalyptic language, Soma argued that the “epidemic” of wicked conduct now found among Sinhala Buddhists would lead to the complete disappearance of Buddhism and the Sinhala community from Sri Lankan soil within the next half-century (Soma 2002, 11). He compared the future of the Sinhala nation to the threatened conditions of “eskimoes” and “red Indians” in other lands (Soma 1999a, 10), at once signaling the perceived threats to the survival of their cultural traditions and making a claim for the indigenous nature of the Sinhala community.

Soma's rhetoric of moral and national decline basically follows a simple—and therefore persuasive—equation. When Sinhala Buddhists turn from the truths of their religion and embrace “false views” (misaditu), they become prone to practicing “wicked conduct” (duracara), which, in turn, leads to individual and societal decline. The problem is essentially that the nation has lost its moral grounding in the Buddhist religion. The deviation from true Buddhist perspectives and correct Buddhist practice is portrayed as the primary reason behind all present problems facing the country. And by pointing out the weaknesses of Buddhism as currently practiced, Soma effectively strengthens the relation posited between religion and the nation. The decline of the Sinhala nation and the Sri Lankan nation-state is attributed to the people's failure to adhere to what the Buddha taught them. This diagnosis of the country's societal problems found a receptive audience of people who recognized and lamented their country's problems and who also sought a straightforward way to resolve them. Furthermore, when the sum of society's problems is cast in terms of a deficiency of religious truth and practice, it then seems entirely natural for a Buddhist monk such as Soma to address them. In other words, Soma's rhetoric legitimated his own intervention in politics as a monk, the very symbol of world renunciation and detachment among Buddhists (see figure 5).

As the alleged root of moral and national decline, “false views” are broadly characterized as all views that contradict Buddhist teachings. For instance, Soma argued that popularly held ideas about the availability of supernatural assistance and protection from gods and common Buddhist symbols are wholly misguided and wrong. His strong critique of the worship of Hindu deities by Buddhists is a hallmark of his discursive representations of true Buddhism and false views. Soma denounced the presence of shrines to Hindu gods in Buddhist temples and repeatedly ridiculed Buddhists who pray to them for divine assistance. According to Soma, many ignorant Buddhists under the influence of Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Christianity have come to place blind faith in gods in the hope that they will deliver them from suffering (Soma 2002, 65–66). Such a view reflects wishful thinking and fruitless exercises to gain the favor of gods, such as buying and offering them expensive trays of food. It is in this light that Soma regularly criticized the popularity of the Kataragama shrine among Sinhala Buddhists as an example of how greedy businessmen profit from the vain hopes of poor Buddhists seeking divine help for their problems (Soma 2001, 73).

One view of Soma's critique of the worship of Hindu deities equates it with an ethos of exclusivity generated from the modern rise of a Sinhala middle-class consciousness and the current ethnic strife in the island (Holt 2003, 111–13, 124). Though such an interpretation is plausible given the ongoing tensions between the Sinhala and Tamil communities in Sri Lanka, it overlooks the role of such a polemic within Soma's broader rhetoric of reform. The expectation that Hindu gods can deliver aid and relief from suffering strikes Soma as a view that is antithetical to Buddhist teachings. In Buddhism, he maintains, the one who practices the Dharma is protected by the Dharma, and thus one does not need to look for help from divine beings (Soma 2000, 25). The argument he makes, which is only one component of his wider attempt to “destroy false views” (misaditu bindina), is implicated in his representations of what constitutes Buddhism, as well as of greedy businessmen and monks who seek to profit from shrines to the gods. Thus, the worship of non-Buddhist gods results in neither divine help nor psychological comfort but only needless expenditures and irreparable harm to the dispensation. In some of his more colorful language, Soma likens the god Siva to a yaksha (a malevolent mythological “demon”) or preta (a hungry ghost) and claims that the worship of such figures causes the downfall of Buddhism (Soma 2000, 27).

Soma's critique of god worship was part of his attack on the false views that give rise to wicked conduct, which causes moral and national decline. He lamented the commercial aims of those who promote the profitable business of Hindu shrines at Buddhist temples, earning considerable sums of money from poor Buddhists who are desperate for help and liable to be tricked into believing that Hindu deities such as Lakshmi are Buddhist ones (Soma 2001, 72–73). At the same time, he castigated those who turn temples into places of business, he also criticized those who spread misleading ideas about the Dharma, such as suggesting that the rays that emanate from the bodhi trees at temples are good for the body and may even cure cancer (Soma 2001, 23). He even suggested that the “Buddha rays” sometimes linked to bodhi trees are fictitious because the bodhi tree never became a Buddha and thus could not emit rays in the same way (Soma 2001, 59). Soma also had similar critiques for other popular beliefs that cannot be substantiated by the word of the Buddha as found in the Pali canon.

According to Soma, greed and ignorance are the major factors for the rampant presence of false views and wicked conduct in Sinhala Buddhist society. And he believed that global forces and actors often serve to make this situation worse. He saw the widespread existence of false views among Buddhists as the chief cause for wicked conduct, and he felt that it was his duty as a monk to show people the correct path and to help them to see things clearly (personal interview, July 6, 2002). In his view, crafty businessmen and greedy politicians would happily exploit the ignorance and fears of simple Buddhists in order to take their money in exchange for liquor, cigarettes, and offerings to gods. The government control of liquor licensing contributes to the speculation that a small number of politicians and their cronies are lining their pockets from the sale of liquor and the licenses required to do so. Soma equated these kinds of political and economic policies with the work of Christian missionaries in nineteenth-century Sri Lanka. For him, the government's role in promoting liquor consumption and cigarette smoking today is no different from what the British did as colonizers—encourage immoral acts of drinking and smoking among Sinhala Buddhists to earn additional revenue (Soma 2004b, 5).

The use of an economic argument to critique transgressions of Buddhist moral conduct is a typical feature of Soma's rhetoric against the harm of global influences on local Sinhala culture. Even though local agents control much of the distribution and sale of alcohol and cigarettes, Soma continued to represent such activity as ultimately traceable to British colonial policy and an ongoing strategy of turning Sinhalas away from Buddhism and toward servitude to the West. The moral decline that Soma characterized as being acute in contemporary Sri Lankan society might increase the wealth of certain political and economic elites, but it also leads to economic decline and threatens the condition of Buddhism in the country. And for Soma, this problem is only getting worse: “It is no secret that our destruction has occurred because of the wicked conduct that is increasing on account of embracing the Christian practice of the English” (Soma 2004a, 5). Although he uses the word ingrisi here, it is clear that Soma denounced the acceptance or imitation of all foreign religious customs. He warned that economic policies that promote vice and undercut people's commitment to the Buddha's religion impoverish Sinhala Buddhists and may turn the country into something like Somalia in the coming years (Munasinghe 2004, 27).

The Struggle against Global Others

Attempts to align Buddhism and the nation together in Buddhist nationalist discourse often require demonstration of how a general lapse in Buddhist practice coincides with a rise in social problems. In his sermons and writings, Soma pointed to the apparent escalation in crime, immorality, and economic hardship as evidence of how the nation had been overwhelmed by wicked conduct. Immoral activities, including drinking, smoking, and gambling, were on the rise, according to this monk, because more people were being lured away from the Buddha's Dharma by greedy politicians and devious missionary organizations. And because the politicians were depicted by him as tied to the foreign businessmen and missionaries seeking to profit from innocent Buddhists and corrupt their moral discipline, he frequently lumped all of these agents together as conspirators in the destruction of Buddhism and the Sinhala nation.

The rhetorical bifurcation of the players in this alleged moral struggle is instructive. On one side, Soma lumped together all that, in his mind at least, is local and good—Buddhism, Sinhala culture, the national heritage, and the family unit. On the other side lay all that is somehow “foreign” and detrimental—corrupt and “Westernized” politicians, evangelical missionaries, the World Bank, Tamil separatists, Norwegian peace mediators, and the allegedly booming populations of Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims. Implicit in Soma's defense of Buddhism and Sinhala traditions is a critique of the external threats facing them and the general antipathy among people toward the effects of the global intervening on local lifeways. As such, Soma frequently had strong condemnations for the foreign foes allegedly bent on undermining Buddhism and the Sinhala nation. For him, any attack on one was an attack on the other, as their respective fortunes were imagined by him to be closely intertwined.

Citing Buddhist texts that extol the righteous rule of “World-turning Monarchs” (cakkavatti-s) whose extensive power derives from their moral virtues, Soma drew contrasts with the country's current leaders, whom he said had been overcome by a lust for power and wealth. He compared contemporary Sri Lankan politics to a mud hole (Munasinghe 2004, 48). And he claimed that current politicians lack the proper amount of shame (viliya) and fear (biya) of moral repercussions from their actions, and thus they have lead the country and its citizens to the brink of destruction (Soma 2002, 33). In a Buddhist context, shame and fear are positive moral qualities that function to prevent individuals from engaging in immoral deeds. Drawing on a Buddhist vocabulary, Soma's critique of politicians acquired more weight and could not be easily dismissed by laypersons, who normally concede that educated monks understand these ideas better than themselves.

Soma's harsh words for the country's politicians resonated with many, and he was able to draw on the moral charisma of a disciplined monk to impugn the immorality of others. According to him, unrighteous leaders are prone to promote wicked conduct in order to serve their own personal gain, and the welfare of the people is therefore not achieved. And one of the main problems with Sri Lanka's unrighteous rulers is that their wicked conduct rubs off on ordinary people. Soma lamented that because of the current state of national politics, the most virtuous Buddhist laypersons will routinely break three or four of the five precepts that prohibit killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and taking intoxicants among followers of the Buddha (Soma 2002, 42). According to Soma, even among those Sinhala Buddhists who are attracted to his sermons, no more than a small fraction of the thousands of people in attendance could reliably be said to take his message to heart (personal interview, July 6, 2002).

Rampant immorality is also attributed to the external influences of globalization on local Sinhala Buddhist culture. Soma's critique of the greed and vulgarity of Sri Lankan politicians often spilled over to a condemnation of other purveyors of false views and wicked conduct beyond the Sinhala community. In what Anthony Giddens (1990, 21, 64–65) describes as the “disembedding” of social relations out of strictly local contexts and their restructuring over vast areas of space and time, which is characteristic of globalization, local habits and practices (not to mention goods and services) are forced to compete with alternatives supplied by people from many hundreds if not thousands of miles away. In real-world terms, increasing numbers of Sri Lankans can choose to watch films made in Bollywood or Hollywood rather than Sri Lanka, travel to Singapore or Dubai to buy goods that are too expensive or unavailable locally, and visit family members or work in London, Jeddah, Los Angeles, or Sydney. The heavy traffic of migrants and tourists going in and out of Sri Lanka, along with the increased electronic mediation of news and images from global sources, makes it much more difficult for the Sri Lankan nation-state and its self-appointed cultural arbiters (such as Soma) to shape the imagination and actions of local citizens (Appadurai 1996, 4–8). This constitutes a serious problem for Soma and other Buddhist nationalists who wish to insulate Sri Lanka from foreign influences that are perceived to weaken people's commitments to their religious and national heritage.

In the postcolonial period, Buddhist nationalists such as Soma must locate new culprits for the moral and national decline in the absence of British colonialists. They firmly believe that the correct practice of Buddhism would remedy most social problems, so they look to find groups and organizations that can be blamed for the largely Buddhist country's drift toward immorality and lawlessness. To this end, Soma frequently condemned the activities of foreign NGOs, whose relief work allegedly provides a cover for converting Buddhists to Christianity. He accused such groups of using foreign money as bribes to persuade and compel Buddhists to abandon their religious heritage, promising help to poor villagers if they would only come and join their religion (Soma 2001, 74–75).⁶ The main targets of this critique of unscrupulous relief work were the newer evangelical Protestant groups who have come to Sri Lanka in recent years, rather than well-established Catholic and mainline Protestant communities who are widely seen as having respect for local customs. Nevertheless, the polemical discourse of Soma and others has generated much public suspicion of NGO activity in general. Soma argued that NGOs have the goal of establishing a Christian government in Sri Lanka, offering poor people money and jobs for the sake of converting them to Christianity (Soma 2002, 28). Labeling such groups as “missionary” in nature, Soma lumped them together with other foreign economic interests who seek to promote wicked conduct among Buddhists so that they become weak, servile, and prone to abandon their traditions in favor of foreign religions and customs.

Soma also blamed the weakened state of Buddhist morality and Sinhala culture on global “others” who campaign for lowering birth rates and distribute contraception. Citing unidentified demographic data that points to smaller Sinhala families compared to larger Tamil and Muslim ones, Soma warned that Sinhalas would lose their majority status in the country within fifty years. He accused Christian-sponsored NGOs of establishing local health organizations to decrease the birth rate of Sinhala Buddhists (Munasinghe 2004, 40–41). This activity, combined with the promotion of vices such as drinking and smoking, has supposedly caused Sinhala Buddhists to decrease their affection for children and place a higher premium on earning money to support their wicked habits. Here again, for Soma, the family unit is also a victim of pernicious global forces. Complicit in this alleged effort to undermine the Sinhala Buddhist community is the World Bank—a common foe of antiglobalization movements worldwide. Soma argued that the World Bank's promotion of smaller families is destroying the Sinhala nation, and the efforts made to sterilize Sinhalas over the last several decades have led to a decline in their birth rate, while the birth rates of Muslims have increased dramatically (Soma 1999, 11–12). The World Bank is also party to foreign efforts to increase Sri Lanka's debt load, a trend to which Soma objected. He accused foreign donors of lending money to enslave Sri Lankans and condemn them to perpetual servitude (Munasinghe 2004, 42). Burdened by the weights of expensive vices, smaller families, and economic debt, Sinhala Buddhists are said to be in danger of losing their sovereignty and heritage to foreign lenders and businessmen, as well as cultural “others” or minority groups.

In the light of these developments, Soma helped to articulate a fairly coherent anti-Western ideology that critiqued most foreign efforts to encourage peace and development inside the country. He was highly suspicious of most foreign-based organizations operating in Sri Lanka, and he was prone to call for Sinhala Buddhists to resist the global intervention into their country's political and economic affairs. Like many Buddhist nationalists, he rejected peace proposals between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE that would have created an interim self-governing territory in the northern and eastern parts of the island under Tamil separatist authority. He argued that no political settlement was possible with LTTE supremo Prabhakaran, as he is determined to seize land, not change laws (Soma 2002, 124). The intervention of foreign peace mediators such as Norway has thus been an unwelcome development for Buddhist nationalists like Soma, as it threatens to dissolve the integrity of the country without settling the terrorist problem. Although Soma was neither the first nor the only monk to speak out against a peaceful settlement with the LTTE and instead to advocate a military solution (see Bartholomeusz 2002), his high public profile and persona as a virtuous monk meant that his words could carry more weight than others.

Moreover, Soma's comments about ethnic identity and relations in Sri Lanka reflect his opposition to a globalizing discourse of multiculturalism that, in his eyes, further weakened the privileged status of Buddhism and Sinhalas in the country. Debates over multiculturalism and minority rights have often become linked with arguments over human rights and women's issues, and the assertions and demands they generate serve to illustrate both their transnational character as well as the inability of nation-states to control the public sphere in which representations of the nation are made (Appadurai 1996, 22; Jeganathan 1998, 523–25). The perceived loss of privilege and ability to define the nation among Sinhala Buddhists that has accompanied the globalizing discourses of minority rights and the political and economic interventions of global organizations and foreign countries into Sri Lankan affairs caused Soma to criticize multicultural politics as well.

Soma lamented the shameful lack of pride among Sinhala Buddhists and blamed other countries for trying to divide Sri Lanka into different territories for each ethnic group. Claiming that Sinhala Buddhists should have pride in their heritage and not be ashamed to call themselves “Sinhala,” Soma took on the claim that Sinhalas are ethnic chauvinists unable to tolerate minority groups in their midst (Soma 2002, 68). Variations of this claim have been made by Tamil separatists, scholars, and foreign media since the riots of 1983. And like other nationalists who feel compelled to refute Western critiques of Sri Lanka's human rights record, Soma attempted to dismiss common foreign interpretations of Sri Lanka's recent past as one of conflict between Sinhala villains and Tamil victims (Ismail 2005, 42–44). His remarks on this subject appear somewhat forced, but the fact that he made them at all shows the degree to which nationalist discourse must take the remarks and opinions of global actors into account.

Generally speaking, Soma disputed the ethnic origins of Sri Lanka's civil unrest and asserted that most Sinhalas, Tamils, and Muslims coexist without any problems in most parts of the country (personal interview, July 6, 2002). Instead, he blamed Tamil extremists and greedy politicians for the lack of a permanent solution to civil war. And he ominously warned of a time when militant Muslims would demand their own state on the island as well. According to Soma, the multicultural arguments for guaranteeing minority rights ignore the fact that Sinhalas already provide sufficient opportunities and entitlements to Tamils and Muslims (Soma 2002, 23). Moreover, Western-educated leaders wrongly refuse to govern in accordance with Buddhist principles because they believe it would be unfair to other religious groups (Soma 2004b, 5). The result of the government's commitment to the multicultural demands made upon it by Tamil politicians, NGOs, and international aid organizations, among other groups, is in Soma's opinion to abandon its responsibility to promote and protect Buddhism and the Sinhala nation (see figure 6). Whether we wish to concede his claims or not, it does appear true that Buddhist nationalists such as Soma must argue their cases within a discursive arena that is largely defined by Western institutions and scholarship (Ismail 2005, 43). And it may well be that because the discourses of human rights, international development, and multicultural politics often cast the Sinhala Buddhist community in a negative light, nationalists such as Soma have begun to rail against the global.

Recent Constructions of Buddhist Nationalism

Soma's untimely death in 2003 briefly interrupted the attempts of Buddhist nationalists to imagine and mobilize a Sinhala Buddhist nation able to fend off the internal and global forces that they believe are conspiring to weaken and destroy it. Soma's rhetoric of reform relied on an idealistic image of the Buddha's teaching and a monolithic view of Sinhala cultural heritage. Both of these ideals, objectified in the forms of monks, temples, and ancient Buddhist sacred sites, were cast as those things most under threat by the actions of immoral, local elites and nefarious, global forces. At the same time, however, the religion and the nation were also cast as the antidotes to all that threatens to render them obsolete. Soma, in this way, has provided his supporters with a revised script for the reform and critique of contemporary religious, political, and cultural entities. This script privileges native sources of knowledge and practice over against the rush of foreign ones being introduced through various modes of economic and cultural globalization. His denunciations of inauthentic Buddhist practice accompanied efforts to represent the true form of Buddhism as concerned with moral purification (sila) and consistent with the Buddha's Dharma in its textual forms.

The popularity of Soma among many Sinhala Buddhists is attributable as much to his personal charisma as to the persuasiveness and relevance of his message. The image he cultivated as a disciplined, learned preacher helped to separate him from other “political monks,” whose lack of learning and close associations with political parties served to tarnish their image in the minds of many Sri Lankans (see, e.g., Seneviratne 1999, 279–81). Soma was critical of other monks who supported political parties in exchange for money and other gifts (personal interview, July 6, 2002). His persona as a virtuous monk, free from all potentially comprising ties to existing political parties, helped to boost his moral standing and credibility.

The content of Soma's discourse was also received warmly by many Sinhala Buddhists, who have grown increasingly tired and skeptical of political corruption and ineffectiveness in Sri Lanka. In an environment where political and business elites regularly form ties to acquire more power and wealth, and political opponents meet with intimidation and legal action, most ordinary Sinhalas have limited opportunities to speak out against their government. Many people welcomed Soma's critiques of those elites, and people would praise him for his direct speaking style and willingness to address issues that matter to them. His appeal, then, is more about populism than ethnic chauvinism, and to view it in terms of the latter is to do a serious injustice to the many people who are sympathetic to his views. Like Dharmapala, Soma was transformed into a patriotic advocate for Sinhala Buddhists, though he was a different sort of figure with a message founded on Buddhist morality and tailored almost exclusively to Sinhalas through newer forms of media.

Soma's rhetoric and representations of Buddhist nationalism enjoy considerable currency in Sri Lanka at present, and his influence has continued to be felt in Sinhala society even since his death. He revived familiar tropes such as the “dark-skinned European” (kalu sudda) who abandons his Sinhala heritage to adopt Western attitudes and customs, but he also popularized newer ones such as the unscrupulous NGO worker who seeks to convert poor Buddhists or offers covert assistance to the LTTE. He relied on cultural generalizations that sharply distinguish Sinhalas from Tamils, Muslims, and Westerners, helping to reinforce and polarize ethnic identities employed under colonial rule. But Soma's rhetorical foes were a broad collection of immoral or foreign actors, not simply British colonialists. Soma's attempts to reassert the primacy of the local over the global—that is, of Buddhism and Sinhala culture over the foreign forces and discourses perceived to undermine them—pervaded his sermons and writings, investing older forms of Buddhist nationalism with a contemporary relevance in an era of increased globalization. What one discovers in Soma is a kind of rhetoric of desperation, wherein the targets of his critiques are so diffuse and overwhelming that he had to resort to stressing personal morality, which constitutes a realm over which he, as a Buddhist monk, had more knowledge and control.

Likewise, Sinhalas who have fears and anxieties over economic inflation, Christian evangelicals, trade agreements, terrorism, and sexually suggestive images in Hindi and Western films form a receptive audience for Soma's brand of Buddhist nationalist discourse. Religious nationalism, as Friedland (1999, 310–11) notes, is not antithetical to the modern state, but rather it simply refills existing state forms with new cultural contents, drawing on notions of truth, family, and land to represent a collectivity in ways that differ from the representations of identity bestowed by the spread of global cultural commodities and ideals of democratic individualism. For Sinhalas who feel more trust and comfort in local customs in their homes and temples than in transnational political treaties, economic agreements, and mass-mediated images, the rhetoric of Soma's Buddhist nationalism resonates strongly.

His discursive attempts to constitute a collective subjectivity around Sinhala cultural identity and the territorial identity of Sri Lanka were consistent with those of earlier nationalists (cf. Friedland 2001, 138) but formed a response to uniquely contemporary circumstances, wherein the nation is widely seen to be losing its sovereignty over the island's territory (to Tamil separatists), markets (to foreign traders and lenders), and youth (to global cultural forms). And yet, as we have seen, Soma's virulent critique of the global threats to Buddhism and the Sinhala nation did not preclude his selective embrace of certain features of globalization. His dharmaduta activities in Australia and his periodic trips to speak to the Sinhala Buddhist diaspora in Europe, Canada, and the United States exhibited his efforts to engage a global audience of Sinhala-speaking Buddhists. However, his diasporic activity reveals him to be a much less global figure than, say, Dharmapala and Rahula, who sought to spread their modernist constructions of Buddhism to other international communities. Soma traveled globally to speak primarily to Sinhala Buddhists and to employ their assistance to preserve “local” Buddhist forms and customs.

One of the important effects of Soma's discourse has been to create a new space for monastic involvement in national politics. As Seneviratne (1999) has shown, monks have long been involved in politics by appearing at rallies, promoting certain parties, and speaking out on political issues in Sri Lanka. But Soma helped to set a precedent whereby monks could enter politics as officeholders and legislators not beholden to any particular party. Near the end of his life, Soma began to argue that virtuous monks can become lotuses in the mud hole of politics, freeing themselves from the surrounding filth of immoral conduct and acting unselfishly to protect country, nation, and dispensation without seeking personal wealth or power (Munasinghe 2004, 48). This flowery image taken from the Dhammapada represents another instance in which Soma drew on ideas from ancient Buddhist texts to pattern his nationalist discourse after his monastic identity.

Realizing that the image of men in robes serving in politics would be controversial, he appealed to his supporters not to reject monks who enter politics in order to preserve the country and its heritage. Soma even began discussing forming a new political party and running for the office of president. His sudden death brought such speculation to a halt, but the huge turnout for his funeral, coupled with lingering questions over the cause of his death, led directly to the formation of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) party composed of ordained monks, 280 of whom ran in the 2004 parliamentary elections (Deegalle 2004, 88–91; Berkwitz 2006, 58–59). The considerable support given to the JHU, especially among older female lay devotees (upasika) and university lecturers, earned nine seats for monks who became full-fledged members of Parliament and quickly embarked on campaigns to curb “unethical conversions” and political corruption in the country. The lingering controversy over monks serving as members of Parliament and the party's uncertain future notwithstanding, the JHU stands as a direct legacy of Soma's calls for monks to purify politics in Sri Lanka and bring about a more righteous state.

Despite Soma's attempts to energize a movement to reform the nation, his story clearly illustrates the idea that religious nationalism is, at root, a discursive practice that offers an institutionally specific way to organize modern forms of collective representation through sets of symbols, signs, and practices (Friedland 2001, 138). The discursive basis of Buddhist nationalism and its current proclivity to define itself in opposition to the global may thus give rise to popular, nondiscursive expressions. Some Sinhala Buddhist activists and sympathizers pattern their behavior and display symbols that are consistent with Soma's calls for reform. As an iconic figure with his own television programs and the respected status of a disciplined monk, Soma popularized a Buddhist nationalist polemic for people to use in criticizing large-scale political and economic forces and mobilizing groups into action. His sudden rise to national importance is not easily explained, but he managed to capture the attention and sympathy of large sections of the Sinhala population, including students, salaried workers, pensioners, lay female devotees, and overseas migrants who share the sense that their local traditions and future opportunities may be slipping away in the face of ongoing war, political corruption, greater economic competition, and cultural dislocation.

In this way, Soma's recent construction of Buddhist nationalism offers Sinhala Buddhists confirmation of their political and cultural hegemony and highlights the apparent need to take steps to preserve it in the face of globalizing pressures. Indeed, it is precisely the rapid social and economic changes ushered into Sri Lanka by the processes of globalization that shaped Soma's message and made him such a popular figure. The crucial role that moral conduct and Buddhist terminology played in Soma's discourse allowed him to speak authoritatively on a wide range of contemporary political and economic subjects with which Buddhist monks are not normally associated. His discourse and persona also helped fashion a new vision of Buddhist identity, one constructed with the help of global technologies but largely in opposition to global actors and cultural forms. After Soma, the “contingent conjunctions” that Abeysekara cites as moments when identities are constructed and contested must now also consider instances in which globalizing political and cultural influences make themselves felt in local Sri Lankan society (cf. Abeysekara 2002, 3–4). As such, Soma's nationalist discourse illustrates how local debates over national and religious identities increasingly involve transnational actors, some of whom are not even fully cognizant of the important parts they play in these agonistic contests.

Global actors and organizations may sometimes appear merely as tropes in nationalist polemics, but at other times their increasingly visible roles in Sri Lankan society have invited public denunciations by Soma and others, complicating the efforts of foreign diplomats and development workers to help Sri Lanka become a more peaceful and prosperous country. Soma's discourse has brought more attention and suspicion to the effects of globalization in Sri Lanka. And Soma helped to pioneer a new form of “social service” for the monk (cf. Seneviratne 1999, 264), whereby monastic involvement in politics is pursued more directly and independent of existing political institutions, with the goal of augmenting economic development through the practice of Buddhism and the preservation of Sinhala culture. As global actors and cultural forms continue to make their presence felt in Sri Lankan society, many Sinhala Buddhists will likely continue to embrace Soma's message to critique the global on what, for him, is a locally based religion and culture. His discourse merges the universal truth of Buddhism with its particular expression in Sinhala traditions while rejecting global intrusions into religion and nation as particular forms of corruption and malevolence that threaten what he felt holds the keys to individual and societal well-being.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the insightful responses of Ananda Abeysekara, Jack Llewellyn, Caitrin Lynch, and the anonymous journal referees of this work. Imali Berkwitz offered helpful assistance during the research for this project. A version of this article was presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Philadelphia.

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