Dr. Emil Savundaranayagam

email from Karals -

The prince of con men

https://youtu.be/qn4B5JxM4Ww

Karals,
 I remember him in his hey day and his saying - "The British were wary of driving a 'mini' through a legal loop-hole, I drove a double-decker bus through it".

I think he was a close relative of Cyril Gardiner of 'Tuckers Autodrome'.

I remember our 'Block Concert' where the Late 'Karthi' played Lord Profumo and 'Geri' played Miss. Christine Keeler.

I also remember Prof Milroy Paul mentioning about Christine Keeller and Profumo and the Osteopath Dr. Stephen Ward.in a Ward Class.

Good viewing

Philip

Birth of King Rajasinghe II of Kandy, Sri Lanka

.As related by Paul Peiris in 'Ceylon and the Portuguese'

'At this point there first appears on the stage
of events the great Commander who was destined for
the last time to fan the smouldering energy of the
Sinhalese into a blaze. The Court was in hiding at
Mahiyangana when the Maha Biso Bandara, as the
Queen was called, gave birth to Maha Asthana, the
future Raja Sinha ; but auspicious omens had attended
his birth. And indeed to the Sinhalese mind no
place of better augury could have been selected for
this important event than that historic spot so closely
interwoven with the remotest legends of their religion
and race— a spot rendered sacred by the visit of the
Buddha himself, and which had witnessed the gathering
together of the avenging armies of Wijaya Bahu. On
that very night, it was said, the Portuguese Comman-
der had dreamed that he saw a tiny spark, no bigger
than a firefly, floating from the west and growing in size
as it traveled through the sky, till it waxed
exceeding great over the port of Colombo and set
everything there on fire ; and the appearance of the
infant Prince had been signalized by the success of
the King's arms at Balane. It is customary for the
horoscope of every Sinhalese child to be cast ;
Diyakelinawala, the great astrologer, was entrusted
with the preparation of the Prince's, and sedulous
care was lavished on his education to fit him for
the high destiny which, it was prophesied, awaited
him in life.
In 1628, when the Prince was sixteen years
of age, Senerat summoned his three sons, and
divided his kingdom among them by lot. He had
seen clearly that of the three the youngest was
also the strongest, and to his great delight it was
to the youngest that the Uda Rata proper fell ;
Maha Asthana thus became Aga Raja or Chief King
with the title of Raja Sinha ; his brothers Kumara
Sinha and Wijaya Pal a received respectively the
districts of Uwa and Matale".

https://goo.gl/images/LF1wdT

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The Three Kings of the Orient.

The Magi - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi#/media/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Magi_Journeying_(Les_rois_mages_en_voyage)_-_James_Tissot_-_overall.jpg

Anne Murray - We Three Kings [with lyrics] -
https://youtu.be/BaheOgdGKJQ

"Legends are told about them and they have been given names. This is how they are often described:
• Gaspar (or Caspar), who has brown hair and a brown beard (or no beard!) and wears a green cloak and a gold crown with green jewels on it. He is the King of Sheba. Gaspar represents the Frankincense brought to Jesus.
• Melchior, who has long white hair and a white beard and wears a gold cloak. He is the King of Arabia. Melchior represents the Gold brought to Jesus.
• Balthazar, who has black skin and a black beard (or no beard!) and wears a purple cloak. He is the King of Tarse and Egypt. Balthazar represents the gift of Myrrh that was brought to Jesus".
…
"When the Wise Men found Jesus and Mary, they would have been living in a normal house in Bethlehem, because by this time Jesus would have been aged between one and two. Then they gave their gifts to him. The gifts seem quite strange to give to a baby, but Christians believe that they had the following meanings:
• Gold: is associated with Kings and Christians believe that Jesus is the King of Kings.
• Frankincense: is sometimes used in worship in Churches and showed that people would worship Jesus.
• Myrrh: is a perfume that is put on dead bodies to make them smell nice and showed that Jesus would suffer and die.
The gifts are also all thin"
https://www.whychristmas.com/story/wisemen.shtml

The legend has been recorded by Courtenay in his Historie du Christianisme a Ceylan, and we are told: "There is also a tradition that one of the Magi, who came to adore the Lord, was a native of Ceylon. He was king of Jaffna, and bore at home the name of Peria Perumal. This must be the Black Magus, for Perumal is a Tamil name, pretty common even to this day in South India and Ceylon. This Roi-Mage, they say, joined Saint Thomas in India and there won the crown of martyrdom together with the Apostle, at Mylapore. They were buried in the same grave".
http://www.island.lk/2000/12/23/satmag01.html

Lankan furniture

Please click on the web-link below:-

https://roar.media/english/life/srilanka-life/timber-tales-traditional-lankan-furniture-and-their-origins

Stones thrown, Sri Lanka.

Vesak Nannayakaara in his very informative book ‘Return to Kandy’, relates an incident during the days of the reign of King Kirthi Sri Rajasinghe. The King had a feudal Lord who was his friend. The feudal Lord while on his death-bed, sent a prophetic message to the King, through an associate. The following was a translation of the message.
“Far away I see a hornets nest gather. It is a ‘Yak Debera’ (Devil Hornets). Tell the King not to throw stones at it”.
When Pilimathalawa Adigar went to see the British Governor with a plan to capture King Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe, the Governor inquired whether he wanted to betray his King and refused to see him. Later the British changed their view, when Ehelapola Nilame defected to them.
‘The stone thrown at them’ was when the King arrested a few British Merchants in Kandy, when he heard about the treason of Ehelapola. They took this as a reason to invade Kandy. The so far unconquerable Kingdom fell, when the British were given an imitation resistance, with the cooperation of the Chiefs of the Kingdom, to come into Kandy
‘Throwing stones’ at powerful enemies has brought ruin to us in the past.
1. The Cholas invaded to capture the Pandyan King and his Crown Jewels when Rajasimha Pandya fled to Ceylon with the crown jewels, during the reign of Dappula IV (924-935). They did not succeed. A second Cholian invasion occupied the Rajarata, from 1017 to 1070 AD. They were successful in retrieving the Pandyan crown jewels this time and capturing the king of Sri Lanka at that time, Mahinda.

https://www.google.com/…/column-the-imperial-cholas-con…/amp
2. During the Presidency of Athikaru J R Jayawardena, his quip ‘Mehe Amma mehe Putha, Ehe Amma ehe Putha’ The ‘Mother here and the Son here’ - referring to Sirimavo Bandaranayake and Son and ‘The Mother there and Son there’ referring to Indira Ghandhi and son Rajeev, was another time 'a stone was thrown' at a powerful neighbor and we all know the consequences of that.
3. The construction of the Hambanthota and Colombo Port is another ‘stone thrown’. Only the future will tell us what will happen.

The agony of Queen Kuweni

The story of 'Thonigala' - We went on a trip to this place. A youngish girl of the area took us round. I asked her about the origin of the name 'Thonigala'. She repeated the legends related by the elders of the area. The name 'Thonigala' referred to the 'Lathoni' - 'anguished wail' - of 'Kuweni' the Veddah Queen, at this rock, when King Vijaya threw her out of his residence, to accommodate a Princess from Southern Madura. King Vijaya had brought her to the banks of this lake, drawn a line on the granite rock by the side of the lake and commanded Kuweny not to step beyond that line. The heart rending wail of Kuweny, abandoned with her young son and daughter, gave the name to 'Thonigala'.
Kuweny, who was a queen of the 'Yakkas' had enticed Vijaya and later married him. She had let down her tribe and helped Vijaya to defeat them. When Kuveny after being thrown out of Vijaya's household had tried to go back to her tribe. The Yakkas had stoned her to death. Her son and daughter by Vijaya were rescued by Kuweni's uncle. Legends had it that the son and daughter were the origin of the 'Veddhas' of Ceylon. The young guide corrected this part of the story and claimed that all of us in present Sri Lanka were the descendants of "Yakas'. I was reminded of the epithet 'Yaka' used to refer to any acquaintance in Sinhalese as 'Ey Yaka'. A recently appointed laborer at the Kynsey road Medical Faculty, coming from Bibile, was sent with a letter by a member of the academic staff, to be delivered to the Vice-Chancelor in his office, a short distance away. He came back with the letter undelivered and told the Professor, 'Ey Yaka ehey naa' - that Yaka is not in the office. I think that all of us must accept the fact that we are all descendants of Yakas. Quite a few place names and legends in Sri Lanka are associated withe Yakas eg. 'Yaka bendi Ela' etc. I will leave you to discover them.

 The rock where a line was drawn by King Vijaya

 The earthh bund of one of the tanks

 The longest Brahmi inscription dated to the 1st Century AD at Thonigala

 A second Brahmi inscription.

Siva - Nataraja

 

Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja)

Period: Chola period (880–1279)

Date: ca. 11th century

Culture: Indian (Tamil Nadu)

Medium: Copper alloy

Dimensions: H. 26 7/8 in. (68.3 cm); Diam. 22 1/4 in. (56.5 cm)

Classification: Sculpture

Credit Line: Gift of R. H. Ellsworth Ltd., in honor of Susan Dillon, 1987

Accession Number: 1987.80.1

Description

As a symbol, Shiva Nataraja is a brilliant invention. It combines in a single image Shiva's roles as creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe and conveys the Indian conception of the never-ending cycle of time. Although it appeared in sculpture as early as the fifth century, its present, world-famous form evolved under the rule of the Cholas. Shiva's dance is set within a flaming halo. The god holds in his upper right hand the damaru (hand drum that made the first sounds of creation). His upper left hand holds agni (the fire that will destroy the universe). With his lower right hand, he makes abhayamudra (the gesture that allays fear). The dwarflike figure being trampled by his right foot represents apasmara purusha (illusion, which leads mankind astray). Shiva's front left hand, pointing to his raised left foot, signifies refuge for the troubled soul. The energy of his dance makes his hair fly to the sides. The symbols imply that, through belief in Shiva, his devotees can achieve salvation.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1987.80.1/