Neglect, decay and sometimes desecration of cultural monuments to Asia’s past are among the major tragedies of this age. For all of their feudal ways, rulers of antiquity did truly patronize the arts. Religious architecture, sculpture, painting and monumental constructions often were created in part with carves labor. Taxes that supported the artisans frequently were onerous for the peasants. However, religious faith, combined with leaders’ desire of leaving an enduring heritage, inspired the finest artistic expressions of these ancient civilizations.
Secular societies now seem especially prone to forget their origins, and mass communications cater to the least common denominator of taste. Artists are left seeking a constituency among the small minority who take time to cultivate appreciation. Often today they are helpless to prevent the plastering of old church frescoes and weathered temple paintings in the name of modernization.
Born 77 years ago to poor parents in the fishing village of Alutgama in then Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, MANJUSRI had to borrow a shirt to attend school. After apprenticing as a carpenter, he joined the Buddhist sangha (monkhood) as a novice at the age of 13. He was fortunate in studying under two famous teachers at the Mangala Pirivena in Beruwala, learning Buddhist philosophy and four languages: Sinhala, Pali, Sanskrit and Bengali.
MANJUSRI’s artistic sense was awakened in 1932 when he went to study at Santiniketan Ashram of Rabindranath Tagore in eastern India. He was inspired after two years to return to begin copying the old temple paintings in Sri Lanka, which work, by 1936, had won the admiration of the scholars at Santiniketan. After further study of the Lamaist sect of Buddhism and Buddhist artistic traditions in Sikkim and the Himalayan heights, the gifted monk turned his talents to his life work.
In 1943 he inspired the organization of an association of young artists known, as the “43 group” that has now become one of Asia’s more important art schools. After his own original paintings were exhibited in Colombo, together with his reproductions of temple art, MANJUSRI was invited to London and Vienna where this wealth of the Buddhist artistic tradition began to be appreciated.
Taking off the robes of a Buddhist monk, MANJUSRI in 1950 turned his full attention to art and writing. Over the past 29 years he has published 155 serious articles in Sinhala and 55 in English, bringing to public ken the ancient and medieval art of Sri Lanka. Visiting hundreds of viharas, or temples, sometimes living on wild fruits from the jungle, he systematically documented, and copied or traced, thousands of neglected and fast disappearing mural paintings. In between he translated world classics including poems by Tagore into Sinhala.
Marrying late in life, MANJUSRI now is assisted by a devoted wife, Mangala, an artistic son and two daughters. They and the Archaeological Society of Sri Lanka helped him prepare for publication on his 75th birthday his book, Design Elements from Sri Lankan Temple Paintings, complete with 159 plates of designs from 75 temples. In their modest flat he and his family have created a haven where other artists now gather to cooperate in preserving Sri Lanka’s rich artistic tradition.
In electing LOKUKAMKANAMGE THOMAS PEIRIS MANJUSRI to receive the 1979 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes his preserving for the people of Sri Lanka and the world the 2,000-year-old tradition of classical art found in their great Buddhist temples.
