The traditional village of old, never had a temple in every village. That is a myth for the ages!

In a Country dotted with Purana Raja Maha Vihares, wherever one’s head is turned, it reinforces the concept that every village has a temple, with the Tank and Dagoba. It is the tank and not the temple “This makes Sri Lanka unique.”

I, for my part am on a mission to get my Countrymen to relate to the village concept differently, in trying to preserve its identity, but in a sustainable manner, and towards that end, the rationale of having one or more temples just does not make sense, with the future in mind.

Why you may ask? Well, sustainability my friends requires that it can last into the future. We cannot do that if we don’t understand TODAY. So what is happening today? There are fewer men being ordained into the priesthood.

I have been a self-appointed observer of villages for the past 15 years, initially in search of a tank wherever I travelled. My question when I got to a place was, Is there is tank, or at least an abandoned tank from the past in this village?

This invariably starts a conversation. It either goes, yes we have a tank, that needs de silting. We used to be able to do two crops a year, but now there is only water for one, if we are lucky. Even then the weather is unpredictable, unlike in the past. Then, we knew exactly when the rains will come, and it was gradual. Today, the rain will fill the tank in a day, and there is then no rain for months. Thus, we don’t have enough water for cultivation with hope for rain.

Of course there are other variations, but this is the most common denominator! There are many long abandoned tanks, that AT LEAST require rehabilitation if only for making the village habitable, attractive, and a place where the community can center round, and leverage, as they did in the past.

As for TEMPLES, less than a quarter of villages have one. The problem with most village temples is that, it is increasingly becoming difficult to attract priests, and if one does, it is those who are not particularly devout, but who see an advantage in making use of the village people for their personal advantage. Once the game is up, and people in the village stop going to the Temple when they see through the priest’s behavior, it is either the priest who realizes the time is up, and leaves, or hangs around, as he has a place to call his own for life.

With the lack of institutional rules, and management of temples from the respective Nikaya, there is too much independence given to the clergy to establish their own rules and create obligations on the part of the village, to ensure the Temple is maintained in some way to suit the Priest.

With most people having at least a motorcycle at their disposal, travelling to an adjoining temple on better roads today, is not difficult and so we should allow the temple to survive on its own respective merit, or merely be used as a place of meditation and maintained by the laity when priests become scarce.

One very significant point easily ignored is that youth, both male and female appear to eschew temples and spend their free time on other activity, this will add to the limited hold of the temple on the community. Increasing demands by temples for final rights at funerals, (pansakulaya) are further alienating the laity, reducing attendance, despite the theoretical notions people imagine.

My point then, is for each village to decide, based on the merits of the temple, priest and the examples set, to patronize or abandon and every village temple in future will either survive or disappear depending on the spiritual service it performs. Let us NOT try to force change, let whatever happens happen. We will then see a gradual reduction in temples, and those with value survive.

This means that a temple is neither necessary, or is one whose demise should affect the survival of the village. The village is an organic place which will only survive if there is life in the village, that is employment, and means of living. Merely providing water, and electricity, does not a village make, and in the worst case only provide a place to stay, where all the people go elsewhere, either daily, weekly, or monthly returning sometimes very irregularly to call their house their home! These are villages populated by the old and infirm only.

In order to provide continuity, an economic activity that is sustainable, without being dependent must exist to provide a village with purpose. The village Tank, provides some of this, if it is large enough to sustain a fishery, and provide irrigation for land that can truly sustain some families. The fragmentation of lands, is not the answer to survival, but the re consolidation of such lands, either by permitting the purchase of paddy fields to provide an economic unit of production, or cooperative use of existing land, as the way to go.

The increasing threats of wild elephants, as well as climate uncertainty, is going to drive more people out of agriculture, by making it less productive and more risky, unless proper steps are taken to ring fence the villages instead of the proposal to ring the elephants. Climate uncertainty will force water savings.