The 1979 Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism, literature and creative communcation arts - Artist Biography

The child who would be known all his adult life by his Buddhist monastic name, MANJUSRI, was born October 28, 1902 in the town of Alutgama, 30 miles south of Colombo in what was then British-ruled Ceylon. (Becoming independent in 1947, Ceylon has been known since 1972 as Sri Lanka.) He was called LOKUKAMKANAMGE THOMAS PEIRIS, his names unintentionally representing a capsulization of Sri Lankan history—the fine rolling Sinhala first name, followed by the appellation THOMAS recalling over a century of British rule, and the family name PEIRIS, reflecting domination by the Portuguese who had preceded the British and the Dutch as Western conquerors of the island.

THOMAS, as he was called by his family, was the third of the five sons of the fisherman Kokukamkanamge Appusinno Peiris, and his wife Ratnavira Patabendige Podinona de Silva. THOMAS's paternal grandfather, Kovis Gurunnanse, had been noted for his knowledge of astrology and Buddhist scriptures, having been for a period a Buddhist monk. He was also said to have been a student of black magic, a lore he found sufficiently disturbing that from his deathbed he ordered all his books on the subject burned. Although at one time there had been properties in the family, Kovis Gurunnanse had been unable to provide much education for his nine children and THOMAS's father was barely able to read and write, nevertheless he sent his own children to school.

Too poor to buy books, THOMAS borrowed his classmates' notes, reading them as he walked to Wan Abdullah, the local Sinhalese-language school, and he did his arithmetic sums on the back of the school building or on the ground. Nevertheless, the boy learned and his thirst for knowledge kept him always near the head of his class. His father also sent him to learn English under a Dutch schoolmaster in town, but was forced to withdraw him when it became impossible to pay the school fees of about US$50 a month.

THOMAS was alert and sensitive but was troubled by ill health—a persistent eczema and bouts with influenza that killed an elder brother—which forced him to leave school after the third standard at the age of 12. He loved poetry, song and dance and would sometimes sneak away from the family home to watch the masked actors who performed exciting historical dramas near his village. For awhile he accompanied an uncle who was a balladeer, traveling to other villages singing popular Sinhalese songs and reciting poetry. At the local vihara (Buddhist temple) THOMAS was fascinated by the murals painted on its walls by unknown artists.

After leaving school he was apprenticed for a year to a carpenter. Later he became the assistant in a tiny shop run by a cousin in the nearby town of Beruwala. When news of the First World War came to the town, the boy heard tales of flying ships and young aviators. Intrigued by the idea of flying, he questioned the monks about what he had learned. The monks told him stories of Mahinda, son of the Indian emperor Asoka, who had "flown" from India bringing the teachings of Buddha to ancient Ceylon, and of arhats (enlightened monks) who achieved levitation through meditation. His imagination captured, the boy joined the sangha (Buddhist monkhood) and entered the vihara at Beruwala as a samanera or novice; his aim was to learn to fly.

The 13 year-old assumed the samanera's traditional duties: performing the daily religious observances and maintenance chores at the temple, serving the bhikkus (monks), studying the Buddhist teachings and learning the techniques of meditation. He threw himself into the latter, hoping to experience levitation. "When I finished my duties to the priests and the temple," he recalls, "I would go underneath some high priest's bed and lie down meditating, because flying was my business."

When his intense devotion to meditation failed to send his body soaring, the young novice's attention and interest turned to the study of Buddhist philosophy and scriptures. He became an ardent student of Sinhalese, Pali and Sanskrit, languages necessary to read and understand the sacred texts and commentaries, and was fortunate to study with the Ven. (Venerable) Telvatta Ariyawansa and the Ven. Telvatta Amaravansa who taught at the Mangala Pirivena (temple school) at Beruwala. He discovered a love of languages which made him a quick and dedicated learner.

The quiet, disciplined life of the vihara allowed him ample time for study and the atmosphere was ideal for a neophyte scholar. The days were unvarying: after picking the morning flowers to present to the Buddha, cleaning the temple premises, and performing the rites of devotion and chanting before the Buddha image, the monks and novices ate a simple breakfast. Later in the morning they took up their black alms bowls and walked through the town, receiving the offerings of food given by pious Buddhists in order to obtain merit. The last meal of the day was eaten at noon and the monks were then free to study, meditate or teach until 6:00 p.m. when flowers were again presented to the Buddha, the lamps lit and incense burned to the accompaniment of the beautiful Pali chant, "Oh may I become perfectly enlightened so that I am able to help enlighten others." After taking a cup of sugared tea, the monks and novices could study or recite until they retired.

THOMAS sometimes read until 3:00 a.m.; he had discovered a passion for books which equaled his previous enthusiasm for meditation. He borrowed from the bhikkus every book he could, and bought many others. "My teachers told me," he later reminisced, " 'you are buying useless books,' but I hungered for books—that is why I bought them. They were really interesting—very deep and more scholarly than my teachers. Still I can remember them!" After over six years in the vihara, the novice was ordained and given the name MANJUSRI, the only name he would use as long as he remained a monk.

By the age of 22 MANJUSRI had mastered Sinhalese, Pali and Sanskrit and was writing poetry in all three. He became a teacher himself and gained a reputation for intellectual achievement which extended beyond the confines of the Mangala Pirivena. He was one of a quartet of brilliant scholars which included the Ven. S. Mahinda, a Tibetan by birth who had come to Ceylon, joined the sangha and wrote fiery polemical poetry extolling Sinhalese nationalism; the Ven. Kalalelle Ananda Sagara (better known as the poet Sagara Palansuriya), who was to become a member of the Sri Lankan parliament; and the Ven. Walpola Rahula, who went on to become a distinguished professor and author and the Vice-Chancellor of Vidyodaya University (and now Chancellor of Kelaniya University). The four young monks personified the Buddhist intellectual revival which had begun in the middle of the 19th century with the establishment of pirivenas and with renewed interest in Buddhist culture and Sinhalese literature, language and traditions, a revival which was both a precursor and an ally of Ceylonese nationalism. MANJUSRI's fellow scholars, already considered "radical" in their thinking, would become vital elements in the struggle for Ceylonese independence. (Ceylon/Sri Lanka as a political entity includes, besides the Sinhalese-Buddhist majority, various other ethnic religious groups induding a large Tamil-Hindu community.)

Recognizing their students' gifts for scholarship, and at the same time somewhat discomfited by their students' inclination to extend their intellectual pursuits beyond the traditional confines of the vihara, the monks suggested that the four prepare themselves for the state examination in oriental languages so they might qualify for the title of pandit, learned one. But MANJUSRI was less interested in titles than in attending Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, the school founded in 1901 at Bolpur, Bengal, India, by the great poet and educator, Rabindranath Tagore. At Santiniketan MANJUSRI proposed to study Chinese and compare the texts and teachings of the Theravada Buddhism of his native Ceylon with the Mahayana Buddhism practiced in much of Asia.

He had become quite facile both with the grammatical and colloquial idioms of Bengali when, with a donated railway ticket for as far as Madras, the 30 year-old monk set out for Santiniketan to enter an exhilarating intellectual and artistic environment. He eagerly sought out the famous professors who resided and taught at the school, e.g. Professor Vidrushekara Bhattacharya, noted for his knowledge of Pali, Sanskrit and Buddhist philosophy, and Professor Lan Yon Chen, an expert in Chinese. He argued with his classmates on differences in religions and religious customs. When questioned by Hindus about why he ate meat and fish, he replied that he he did not eat "meat or fish," he ate "pinda," that which is given. "I eat from the plate before me because I must live," he explained, "I receive what is given—that is Buddhist monks' food."

Tagore himself began to notice the young monk who always "seemed to be drawing nearer and nearer to the front of the audience" at plays, concerts and scholarly discussions, in spite of his monk's vows which prohibited participation in performances of dancing, singing, music and drama. When asked about his behavior, he said that in spite of his vows he wanted to study what was taking place at Santiniketan so that he could take this knowledge back to his own country. Tagore approvingly remarked that MANJUSRI was a "modern Buddhist priest," and MANJUSRI expressed his admiration for Tagore by translating two of his works into Sinhalese.

MANJUSRI also became an interested observer at the school's outdoor painting classes. In the evenings he would visit Nandalal Bose, the art professor, to talk. Bose introduced him to a new appreciation of Buddhist art, showing him pictures of the ancient Gupta-style frescoes found on the walls of the Ajanta caves which had been brought to the world's attention only 60 years before. Noticing the monk's enthusiasm, Bose encouraged him to try his hand at painting, not knowing that he was already sketching in the privacy of his rooms.

Now, drawing upon his imagination for subjects, MANJUSRI began to paint. Bose was surprised at his talent, seeing in his pictures an association with the works of artists of the modern school then appearing in the West. When he asked the monk how he had come to be a "modern artist," MANJUSRI was puzzled. He had no idea what was supposed to be "modern art," nor had he ever had any exposure to contemporary art trends. He knew only that he had "always loved color as young boys do," and that he liked to paint and draw.

On vacation in Ceylon in 1934 MANJUSRI put his newly developed artistic ability to the test. He began to make copies of temple murals, first at the Sunandarama Vihara at Ambalamgoda where he had seen and been impressed by a painting of dancing figures. Living in the temple compound, he spent 21 days tracing the painting, recording details and making careful notes of broken or destroyed portions, and he took another month reproducing the work in color. He returned to Santiniketan with copies of seven murals. Tagore, who had taken up painting at the age of 68, was having an exhibition of his work at the school. Seeing MANJUSRI's copies he insisted that one side of the exhibition room be reserved to display these temple murals.

The reproductions of the temple paintings caused a sensation at Santiniketan, revealing a previously unknown treasure trove of Sinhalese religious art. Although historians were aware of the 5th century Sinhalese wall paintings at Sigiriya, which were roughly contemporary with the period of the great cave paintings of Ajanta, little if anything was known of the Sinhalese temple murals created during the period of Buddhist revival in the 18th and 19th centuries. These paintings, appreciated in Ceylon more for their moral and religious teachings than for their artistic merit, were crumbling away due to neglect and decay, or were being overpainted by zealous benefactors who wished to freshen temple interiors.

The 18th and 19th century murals represented a continuation of the traditions of Buddhist art started under royal patronage by trained artists in earlier centuries, but they had been executed by rural artists who interpreted the stories of the life of the historic Buddha and the Jataka tales (didactic stories of events in the previous lives of the Buddha) with accretions of contemporary life and folk traditions.

Harry Pieris, the Ceylonese Director of the Tagore School of Art, became interested in MANJUSRI's copies, both as works of art and as priceless replicas of a vanishing tradition of religious art. When MANJUSRI wanted to present his mural copies to Santiniketan, Pieris told him that the works should go back to Ceylon and bought the paintings from him for that purpose, offering him a sizeable sum of money. Having, as a monk, no use for large sums of money, MANJUSRI accepted only the amount necessary for his needs.

Pieris contimled to encourage the monk in his study of art and one summer paid his way to Darjeeling to see and purchase Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhist art objects available there. In Darjeeling MANJUSRI heard of a famous master in Gangtok, Sikkim. With Pieris' aid he proceeded to that beautiful mountain kingdom where he was fortunate to receive his first and only formal training in painting from Abbot Uchima, the court painter to the Tashi Lama. MANJUSRI stayed in Sikkim for several months, studying the art and the Buddhist philosophy of the Lamas.

Returning to Ceylon in 1937 MANlUSRI entered the Gotami Vihara, a landmark of the Borella area of Colombo, and began a period of serious study of temple murals. He traveled to other temples, staying in each while he made tracings and sketches as the basis for future watercolor and tempera paintings. Searching in temples in current use, and in others long abandoned, he measured, traced and copied hundreds of paintings and sculptures, keeping meticulous records in his notebooks. A journalist reports that "on shaky scaffoldings erected by himself, he spent days and nights with the bats, candle in hand, tracing the fading murals . . . . He noted the colors and shades for filling in later, and he carefully left the faded patches blank in the reproductions he later made." Some of the copies were very large and were traced in actual size on long rolls of paper; other copies were made in smaller sizes, usually duplicating the "registers," or series of pictures drawn in rectangular areas which often depicted the unfolding of a Jataka tale in successive cartoon-like episodes with explanatory words sometimes written in or under each picture. With careful scholarly attention, he checked and rechecked the originals so that the copies would faithfully reflect their spirit. Occasionally he tried to interpret a damaged work, always remaining "faithful to its existing condition, color, tonal variation, weathering and decay, the vitality of line and compositional relationship."

MANJUSRI was so engrossed in his work that he was criticized for neglecting his vocation as a monk for the pursuit of art. The conservative Buddhist religious and lay community frowned upon a monk who painted pictures and roamed alone through the countryside looking for temple murals to copy, rather than lived the semi-cloistered life of the traditional Buddhist priest. Although wounded by the censure, MANJUSRI continued his work; he was determined to preserve the artistic tradition which he saw neglected and unappreciated by his countrymen.

With the involvement of Asia in World War II in 1942. MANJUSRI's sense of urgency about his work became heightened. He felt that he had to collect or record all the murals, wood carvings and sculptures he could discover for fear they might be destroyed in fighting between the English and the Japanese. Leaving his vihara at Borella he broadened his travels to search out sites where antiquities might be found. Traveling alone, carrying copying materials, maps, sketchbook, flashlight, binoculars and a large black umbrella for shelter from sun and rain, he plunged into the jungles.

In the atmosphere of wartime suspicion and hysteria, the movements of the solitary monk were reported to the local constabulary who suspected him of being a Japanese spy who had parachuted into the area. While tracing paintings in a cave near a wild life preserve at Yala he was apprehended and questioned. His binoculars, maps and sketchbooks were expropriated—as the tools of a spy—and with difficulty he convinced his captors that he was an eccentric scholar-monk rather than a danger to the state. One of the soldiers became so impressed by MANJUSRI's devotion to his goal that he volunteered to leave the army and become his helper—an offer MANJUSRI thoughtfully declined.

The monk's detainment drew the attention of an American of ficer serving in Ceylon with the Office of Strategic Services. S. Dillon Ripley, who later became the head of America's great Smithsonian Institution, became interested in MANJUSRI's work and visited him at Borella where he saw some of the temple murals and also his original paintings. The visit became the basis of a life-long friendship.

In 1943 MANJUSRI's growing mastery of painting led to his association with a group of gifted modernist Ceylonese oil painters who dubbed themselves the "43 Group"—so named because it was founded in 1943—and defiantly declared their freedom from the artistic conventions of the "old school" of rigid realistic painting then current in Ceylon. The group included Justin Deraniyagala, Ivan Pieris and George Keyt, artists who had studied in Europe under impressionist masters and who were interested in creating new forms of expression in painting. Without formal training and from a different perspective MANJUSRI had already produced works which intellectual artists of the group characterized as belonging to modernist schools. Through his association with these trained artists MANJUSRI learned techniques of brushwork and knowledge of paints and canvas. But he painted as the mood struck him, freely admitting that he sometimes hadn't the faintest idea what his paintings represented. He simply loved color and design, and his paintings reflected his vivid imagination and a latent appreciation of the sensual in art. His abstract representations of forms proceeded from the Buddhist philosophy of the impermanence of life. Through his philosopher-artist eyes objects and persons took "millions of forms" as seen in different lights, at different times and in different states of mental perception. Although MANJUSRI's paintings have been described as surrealistic, cubist and colorist, in truth they are uniquely his own in style and subject. In fact MANJUSRI had quite a different outlook toward art than the rest of the painters in the group. He was not consciously trying to push the boundaries of his media; his intellectual interests were those of the conservator and historian rather than of the avant-garde artist.

The first exhibition of the "43 Group" drew controversy but MANJUSRI's 13 paintings were hailed with critical approval. He was called the "only man of the group who sees things through his own eyes" while the other artists of the group were dismissed as imitators of Western trends. In 1945 he broke away from the others and held his first one-man show under the sponsorship of the Ceylon Society of the Arts, an organization considered by the rest of the "43" to be conservative and academic. Members of the "43 Group" such as George Keyt (who in 1949 was to decorate in modernist style the walls of MANJUSRI's old vihara at Borella) went their own way as the vanguard of an artistic movement which has deeply affected Asian attitudes toward painting. MANJUSRI with his monks' detachment from most of the passions of the world, continued to paint alone.

Through the sale of his original paintings MANJUSRI was able to purchase the supplies and equipment necessary for his work. A growing interest in him among the foreign community in Colombo led to his invitation to travel and exhibit abroad. After a farewell exhibition in 1947 the monk left Ceylon for two years in Europe. His paintings and temple mural reproductions were shown in England, France and Austria, with four exhibitions held in Vienna alone. His temple murals received critical acclaim and his paintings were purchased by museums and private collectors.Through the sale of his original paintings MANJUSRI was able to purchase the supplies and equipment necessary for his work. A growing interest in him among the foreign community in Colombo led to his invitation to travel and exhibit abroad. After a farewell exhibition in 1947 the monk left Ceylon for two years in Europe. His paintings and temple mural reproductions were shown in England, France and Austria, with four exhibitions held in Vienna alone. His temple murals received critical acclaim and his paintings were purchased by museums and private collectors.

His mother's illness brought MANJUSRI back to Ceylon in 1949. Instead of returning to a vihara he lived alone, painting and working on his mural reproductions. In 1950, after over 30 years as a monk, he left the sangha to become a full time painter and journalist. "I decided to leave," he said, "believing that my life as an artist was contradicting the spirit of my monastic robes." But he remained grateful to the sangha for the years of education and discipline which had left him with the mastery of five languages and the inspiration which had guided his career as a scholar and artist.

As a free-lance journalist MANJUSRI began to contribute illustrated articles on art and culture to Lankadipa, the Sinhalese-language daily of the Times of Ceylon group of newspapers. Many of the articles were devoted to the temple paintings he had labored so hard to preserve.

Through two decades MANJUSRI's writing for
Lankadipa and other papers, such as the English-language Ceylon Daily News and Ceylon Observer, drew the public's attention to temple art and established his credentials as the acknowledged expert on Sri Lankan Buddhist painting.

Troubled by deterioration of his health, due in part to an unhealed liver abscess, MANJUSRI began to consider finding a helpmeet by contracting an arranged marriage. He sought out a matchmaker and described his ideal mate—a mature woman of approximately his own age. The matchmaker instead brought him a beautiful young girl 30 years his junior. Acutely conscious of the discrepancy in ages, MANJUSRI at first rejected the idea of such a match, but when the lovely young woman poured him a cup of tea and touched his hand, his reserve, he said, crumbled and he found himself "tempted to get married." Therefore in 1955 at the age of 53 MANJUSRI married Daluwatte Hewage Yogeendra Bandhumathie de Silva, known to her family and friends as Mangala. He brought her to live in his flat which was sparsely furnished, with little more than a mattress on the floor, a bookshelf and box after box of paintings and tracings.

His wife became a support and a joy to him. When she reported a frightening dream of being pursued by an elephant, the delighted MANJUSRI correctly interpreted the dream as an auspicious sign that a son was to be born to them. The prophecy was fulfilled in 1956 with the birth of their son Kushan. Two other children, the girls Manjistha and Mandalika, were born in 1958 and 1960.

In 1962 MANJUSRI returned to Santiniketan to lecture and to meet old friends and associates. The joyous occasion was marred slightly when MANJUSRI, rejuvenated by marriage and fatherhood, noticed the marks of age on the women he remembered as the beautiful young girls of 30 years past.

As his family grew MANJUSRI's reputation as an author, painter and art historian also increased. The collection of temple mural copies and tracings overran its boxes and had to be cached under the furniture which had been added to their home. Foreign residents and visitors to Colombo, always MANJURI’s most appreciative admirers, supported him with their purchases and praise. Karl Kup, Curator of Prints of the New York Public Library, sought him out and purchased seven of his beautiful copies of temple murals illustrating a well-known Jataka tale. Kup introduced the artist's work to the American Steuben Glass Company which commissioned him to create a design for a large crystal vase which was later included in the exhibition of "Asian Artists in Crystal" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Some of MANJUSRI's original paintings were included in a Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition of the works of four contemporary Ceylonese painters. The introduction to the show's catalogue was written by MANJUSRI's old friend Dillon Ripley. Recommended to MANJUSRI by Ripley, Dallas Pratt of the Columbia University Library purchased a magnificent nine foot reproduction of a temple mural of the Katthahari Jataka, as well as a smaller tracing of another Jataka story done by MANJUSRI's son Kushan who had become his father's assistant and fellow artist. Other mural copies were purchased by the Harniman Museum in London and the Vienna Museum in Austria.

After having written over 200 serious articles on Sinhalese art and culture, MANJUSRI retired from journalism in 1968 to devote himself entirely to his own painting. He has subsequently held several large annual exhibitions in Colombo, including major shows at the Alliance Francaise in 1970 and the National Art Gallery in 1972. In 1976 MANJUSRI and Kushan held a joint show of original paintings and mural reproductions at the Lionel Wendt Gallery.

Kushan at the age of three had started helping his father and was now his assistant and collaborator in transferring the carefully documented mural tracings to the scrolls where they were reproduced in the colors of the originals. In 1979 Kushan further followed his father's example by taking monk's robes and traveling to India and Nepal. Manjistha and Mandalika, both talented artists, assumed their brother's role of patient assistant to their father, helping him with the exacting work of reproducing temple murals.

In honor of the artist's 75th birthday in 1977 MANJUSRI's friends, and members of the Archaeological Society of Sri Lanka, got together to publish a major art book of the tracings MANJUSRI had been collecting for over 40 years. Gathering every Wednesday at the artist's apartment, they sorted the scattered designs and laid out the pages. MANJUSRI wrote the introduction describing the history of Sri Lanka temple art. The 230 page volume, Design Elements from Sri Lankan Temple Paintings, was an inmediate success, its prepublication sales alone covering the expenses of its production.

The book's black and white drawings present a cornucopia of motifs and designs taken from temple paintings and articles for religious use. Carefully catalogued as to their source, the drawings portray abstract designs, leaves, flowers, fishes, animals and human figures. The tracings show Bodhisattvas, gods, kings, queens, dancers, acrobats, soldiers, actors, Brahmins, fortunetellers, accountants, beggars and saints. The characters are shown at weddings, in processions, playing dice or cards, gossiping, weeping or smiling. Figures of troopers, lancers, charioteers and royal attendants are reproduced. Musicians beat the udakkiya (small hour glass shaped drum), blow through conchs, finger the strings of the veena and clash the cymbal-like raban. Page after page show details of the clothing and headdresses of dancing girls, heralds, royalty, ministers, mahouts (elephant keepers and drivers) and the wealthy.

The animal kingdom is represented by elephants, squirrels, lions, rabbits, monkeys, bulls, horses, deer, jackals, dogs, fabulous birds and the makara, a mythical creature with both animal and bird attributes. Abstract designs of flowers, vines, buds, leaves, petals and branches are woven into intricate borders and patterns. In addition to designs taken from the walls of shrines and monasteries, MANJUSRI has faithfully reproduced motifs taken from old flags, book covers, textiles, chariot panels, roof tiles and temple eaves.

The reproductions, taken from drawings dated 1788 to 1906, show the unmistakable style of 18th and 19th century Ceylonese religious artistic tradition. They have a playful quality; even the ogres and demon soldiers of the evil Mara are curiously benign and gentle of countenance, unlike the sometimes terrifying portrayals found in Indian and Tibetan religious art. Most of the individuals represented are Sinhalese, but Arabs, Indians and Europeans are sometimes depicted.

Although the themes of most of the temple paintings are from traditional Buddhist lore—the life story of the Buddha and his eventual enlightenment, the "twenty-four declarations" of the previous Buddhas and the Jataka tales—contemporary clothing and customs are portrayed as well as then living figures, e.g. Queen Victoria and British imperial symbols in positions which indicate contemporary acceptance of British suzerainty.

Since there are no color plates in the book MANJUSRI notes in the introduction that the most commonly used colors were red, yellow and black on a white base, and that mineral, rather than vegetable dyes as popularly supposed, were employed. He further comments that the strength of the paintings resides in their strong lines and that they have been characterized as line drawings to which color has been applied. MANJUSRI marks the end of this period of temple decoration as the early 1900s when the introduction of oil paints, perspective, light and shade and three dimensional modeling "transformed the Sri Lankan mural paintings beyond recognition."

It has been remarked by Will Durant that "painting is the frailest of the arts, easy victim to indifferent time," a statement whose truth MANJUSRI acutely recognizes. Over a period of four decades he has copied paintings in over 75 temples and amassed an incomparable archive of tracings, sketches, photographs and reproductions, as well as dozens of diaries and notebooks documenting almost all of the ancient and medieval temples in his country. Some of the temples have already disappeared and murals in many that remain are in danger of being destroyed by time and neglect.

MANJUSRI has received little or no state support for his work; indeed he has not asked for it, using instead his own resources. He has lived frugally, dedicated to his passion for the heritage which he sees as disappearing forever unless others take up his endeavors; a few of his fellow countrymen seem prepared to do so. His only wish is to be granted enough time to furnish the scholarly projects he has set for himself— the completion of his histories on Sri Lankan temple art. He plans to use the Ramon Magsaysay Award monies to print three books he has completed: History of Ceylon Art, History of Ceylon Temples and Paintings of Ceylon Temples Between the 17th and 19th Centuries.

Thus, at an age when many men seek rest he is still working, his active mind ranging over whole fields of art, history, archaeology and philology, which have fascinated him since his first introduction to the study of languages as a boy. A frail, serene man, he finds companionship within his family and stimulation from the scholars and art lovers who seek him out at his small flat in Colombo.

His copies of temple murals are recognized as works of art in their own right, having been appraised as having an artistic spirit which is both faithful to and transcends the fading originals, "not mere copies in the narrow sense, but closely true to the original, full of feeling and sincerity." And his own paintings have been recognized for their beauty and imagination. As one art critic wrote, "For delicacy of line and wealth of fine intricate detail and subtly changing shade and tone of color there is no other contemporary work to compare with a MANJUSRI original. As for content, only MANJUSRI can unravel their mysteries. They are for visual, often sensual enjoyment, not for thinking about. They are projections of phantasies floating in MANJUSRI's highly imaginative mind."

MANJUSRI has survived disapproval, disinterest and neglect within his own society to become a force for the recognition of the need for an independent Sri Lanka to appreciate and preserve its artistic heritage because, as a fellow scholar, Walpola Rahula, has written, "if a nation

loses its own culture it cannot hope for freedom or development; it can only expect degeneration and slavery."