Buddhists behaving badly: Sri Lankan monks march against Muslim mosque, demolish Muslim shrine, burn Muslim flag

Buddhists Behaving Badly: What Zealotry is Doing to Sri Lanka by William McGowan

In Sri Lanka last September, a Sinhalese mob led by some 100 Buddhist monks demolished a Muslim shrine in the ancient city of Anuradhapura.  As the crowd waved Buddhist colors, gold and red, a monk set a green Muslim flag on fire.  The monks claimed that the shrine was on land that had been given to the Sinhalese 2,000 years ago — an allusion to their proprietary right over the entire island nation, as inscribed in ancient religious texts.

The Anuradhapura attack was not the only recent incident of Buddhists behaving badly in Sri Lanka.  In April, monks led nearly 2,000 Sinhalese Buddhists in a march against a mosque in Dambulla, a holy city where Sinhalese kings are believed to have taken refuge from southern Indian invaders in a vast network of caves almost two millennia ago.  The highly charged — but largely symbolic — attack marked a “historic day,” a monk who led the assault told the crowd, “a victory for those who love the [Sinhala] race, have Sinhala blood, and are Buddhists.” 

Such chauvinism is at odds with Western preconceptions of Buddhism — a religion that emphasizes nonviolence and nonattachment — but is in keeping with Sri Lanka’s religious history.  Militant Buddhism there has its roots in an ancient narrative called the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle), which was composed by monks in the sixth century.  According to the Mahavamsa, the Buddha foresaw the demise of Buddhism in India but saw a bright future for it in Sri Lanka.  ”In Lanka, O Lord of Gods, shall my religion be established and flourish,” he said.  

The Sinhalese take this as a sign that they are the Buddha’s chosen people, commanded to “preserve and protect” Buddhism in its most pristine form.  According to myth, a young Sinhalese prince in the second century BC armed himself with a spear tipped with a relic of the Buddha and led a column of 500 monks to vanquish Tamil invaders.  In addition to defending his kingdom from mortal peril, the prince’s victory legitimized religious violence as a means for national survival. 

Militant Buddhism was a driving force behind the 25-year war between the majority Sinhalese (74 percent of the population) and the minority Tamils (18 percent), who were fighting for an independent state in the island’s north and east.  (Muslims, who make up six percent of Sri Lanka’s population, were often caught in the middle.)  During the war, monks repeatedly undercut efforts to work out a peace agreement.