3
" It is the postscript to the war that offers the most revelatory and startling commentary on Dutugemunu's life. Despite his newfound wealth and his peactime luxuries, Dutugemunu wanders gloomily about his palace, too often remembering the carnage he wrought on the battlefield and worried over the deep karmic deficits he has incurred. The elders of the Sangha, the Buddhist clergy, notice this and send a delegation of eight monks to minister to his anguish.
'In truth, venerable sirs,' Dutugemunu tells the monks when they arrive, 'how can there be comfort to me in that I caused the destruction of a great army of myriads of men?'
'There is no hindrance on the way to heaven because of your acts,' one of the monks assures his king. Slaughtering Tamils is no moral mistake. Only the equivalent of one and a half men died at Dutugemunu's hands, according to the Sangha's official arithmetic, because the Tamils 'were heretical and evil and dies as though they were animals. You will make the Buddha's faith shine in many ways. Therefore, Lord of Men, cast away your mental confusion.'
Being thus exhorted, the great king was comforted; his kill rate would never disturb him again. He does, however, recall that, once upon a breakfast, he ate a red-pepper pod without consciously setting aside a portion of it for the Sangha, as was the royal practice. 'For this,' he decides, 'penance must be done by me.' A hierarchy of sin springs into being, in which dishonouring the Sangha by denying it a due share of a red-pepper pod counts as a graver transgression, worthier of penance, than massacring thousands of Tamils on the battlefield. "
― Samanth Subramanian , This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War
6
" Being a Tamil in the army, he said, was like being a bat. ‘Because the bat is a mammal, he goes and talks to the other mammals, and they say: “No, no, you’re a bird. Get out of here.” Then he goes to the birds, and they say: “No, no, you’re a mammal, you don’t lay eggs. "
― Samanth Subramanian , This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War
10
" In old census reports, I found a hint of how British administrators had vivisected Sri Lanka in the early 20th century. In 1901…the census classified people into seven categories—Europeans; Burghers, Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors, referring to Muslims of south Indian origin; Malays; and the indigenous Veddahs of eastern and south-eastern Sri Lanka.
“A mere 10 years later, the matrix had exploded. By ethnicity, a Sri Lankan in 1911 could identify himself in any one of 10 ways, and then again in any one of 11 ways by religious denomination—a multiplicative tumult of identity. Slender distinctions were now officially recognized. A Sinhalese could be a low-country Sinhalese or a Kandyan Sinhalese; a Tamil could be a Ceylon Tamil or an Indian Tamil, depending on how recently his family had settled in Sri Lanka; a Christian could be a Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, or a Salvationist, or he could belong to the Church of England or ‘Other Sects.’ Assembling legislatures based on such muddled ethnic loyalties helped the British by disrupting solidarity and nationalism because, as Governor William Manning once wrote to his secretary of state in London, ‘no single community can impose its will upon the other communities. "
― Samanth Subramanian , This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War
17
" [describing the Mahavamsa, 6th-century chronicle of Sri Lanka]
The king Yasalakatissa, who had come to his title by killing his older brother during a watersports festival, had a gatekeeper named Subha. Subha was the spitting image of the king, and so Tasalakatissa draped Subha in royal regalia and seated him on the throne. Whole the courtiers clustered around the impostor and sang his praises, Yasalakatissa, having dressed as a gatekeeper and stationed himself at the door, shook with laughter at the ingenuity of his jape.
Then one day Subha addressed the ministers while the king was laughing, 'Why does this gatekeeper laugh in my presence?'
He had King Yasalakatissa killed. Subha then reigned six years. Even when the truth was later discovered, he retained his throne and became known as King Subha. "
― Samanth Subramanian , This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War