Martin Wickramasinghe

 

Martin Wickramasinghe  

    Martin Wickramasinghe was born in 1890 in the village of Koggala bounded on one side by the beautiful expanse of the Koggala Lake and on the other by a coral fringed sea teeming with marine life. The Small white house near the eastern boundary of the parkland surrounding this museum is the place of his birth.

          As a village boy he first learnt Sinhala letters from an ola leaf alphabet, tracing the letters on a sandboard. The flora and fauna of the village hinterland, the lake dotted with little mangrove islands, and the beautiful underwater world of the coral reefs, kindled his curiosity and stimulated his imagination about the nature and origin living things and the world. These insights into nature and the changing patterns of life in the rural village background acquired during these early years was the spring-board for Martin Wickramasinghe's unceasing intellectual exploration and his creative and critical writings relating to the life and culture of the people of Sri Lanka, which he continued unbroken for a period of over 60 years.

          Martin Wickramasinghe's intellectual exploration and application of modern knowledge in natural and social sciences, anthropology, literature, linguistics, the arts, philosophy, education and nationalism has helped guide us to the enduring roots of our common identity that is embodied in the folk life and folk culture of Sri Lanka. Through his writings, Martin Wickramasinghe identified our folk culture as the resilient bonding substance which has not only prevented our social disintegration and alienation, despite assimilation of elements from a multitude of Eastern and Western cultures, but also moulded our collective identity and values as a people.

          His vision was primarily nurtured in the tolerant, humane, realistic attitude to life, traditional to Buddhist folk culture. He valued the intellectual freedom and independence inspired by the Buddha’s ‘Kalama Sutta’ which he saw as a tradition to question tradition, not unlike the western scientific attitude. Through his writings he consistently opposed dogmatism, casuistry, elitism and oppression in any form, be it cultural, religious, political or social.

          Martin Wickramasinghe recognized that change and modernization are both necessary and inevitable. But he also recognized  the need for maintaining and nurturing our roots. A museum of folk culture was close to Martin Wickramasinghe’s heart. The various objects he acquired during his life time have been the starting point of the Martin Wickramasinghe Museum of folk culture.

          The Martin Wickramasinghe Trust proposes to make the Museum at Koggala, established in 1981, a growing repository of artifacts depicting the history of our folk culture from ancient to modern times, in order to remind the people of Sri Lanka of their living roots.

          Martin Wickramasighe died on the 23^rd of  July, 1976. He is recognized as one of Sri Lanka’s greatest authors and intellectuals of the 20^th century. Several of his novels and short stories have been translated into English, Tamil, Japanese, Chinese, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Russian and Romanian.