Ven. Kassapa at work in Scarborough Buddhist Temple
Protected against chilly Fall weather with a beanie and a fleece over his saffron robe, Ven. Halmillewe Kassapa is busy in the oversized tool shed of the Scarborough Buddhist temple, Toronto, putting the finishing touches to a sculpture of a Buddha statue.
The Samadhi statue is one of the most revered and iconic figures of the Buddha showing him in a state of Samadhi, engaged in deep meditation at the first Enlightenment.
It is considered as a masterpiece of Buddhist sculpture dating back to 89-77 BC. When late Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru went to the ancient city of Anuradhapura on his first visit to Sri Lanka he stared at the statue for some time as if he was hypnotised by its beauty and serenity, saying that it was a source of great inner peace. He kept a picture of the Anuradhapura Samadhi statue at his residence, according to a biographer.
“Unlike the Greek figures the Buddha statues are designed to evoke his serene qualities rather than accentuating masculine features,” says Kassapa who has a Master’s degree in Pali from the University of Kelaniya. His minor was graphic design which enabled him to master the Photoshop and other related software but he prefers working without the help of modern digital technology.
Is it permitted in Buddhism for a monk to engage in art? “Buddha did not impose controls on monks who want to practice art but the only thing he said was not to go beyond permissible limits,” says the self-made painter, sculptor and wood carver, adding “The rule is that a monk cannot create any work of art likely to rouse desire or lust”.
Ven. Kassapa entered priesthood at the age of eleven and while he was a little boy he was influenced by his village artisan father in Pahalahalmillewa, a small town few miles off the graphite mining area of Eppawala. “My late father had picked up his craft all by himself and he was much sought after in the surrounding villages. He was a carpenter, builder, sculptor, painter and wood carver, in high in demand during religious and cultural festivals in the area,” Kassapa says.
Thirty-year-old artist-monk who teaches Pali at Ruwanbodhi Pirivena (a government-funded Buddhist education institution) in Kurunegala is on a brief stopover in Toronto before heading to Switzerland on a pre-arranged mission to construct a Buddhist chaitya (pagoda) at the Zurich Buddhist temple.
He will be leaving Toronto for Switzerland in the first week of November and in January he hopes to be back on his teaching job in Sri Lanka at the end of his sabbatical.
“The pagoda in the Swiss temple will be only 10 feet high. That’s the limit approved by the city. I will be constructing a ghantakara chaitya which means it will be in the shape of a bell. It is the easiest type to be built in a short time,” he says adding that he built a 20-foot pagoda of similar shape in the temple where he resides in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka.
Explaining various architectural shapes of pagodas, he says Ghantakara style is used in the construction of Ambastala dagaba in Mihintale. Other popular shapes are Dhanyakara (shape of a heap of grains), Bubbulakara (like a water bubble), Ghatakara in the shape of a pot, Padmakara (like a lotus) and Amlakara resembling a Nelli fruit (Indian gooseberry) but no records of such chaityas exist in Sri Lanka.
“The pagoda I built in Sri Lanka is also in the shape of a bell. I designed and constructed it with the help of villagers. We built it first with bricks and then I shaped it and plastered with cement, working on the scaffolding right up to the pinnacle.” He says he can build even bigger structures if there is a need.
His sculptures wood carvings and paintings are mesmerizing and hard to believe that they were done a young priest with no formal training in any form of art.
He constructed two traditional style lamps from gokkola (tender coconut leaves) when two of his nieces got married recently. He does paintings in water colours mainly because oil paint is very expensive in Sri Lanka, he says adding that he is involved in art as a hobby without any intention of earning money.
Last year the monk also built a Vesak pandal in his temple to celebrate the Vesak, the holiest day of the Buddhist calendar. “I drew all the paintings on the pandal which was more than 20 feet tall and of similar width, illuminated with thousands of multi-coloured bulbs. I also built the flasher that managed the complex network of automatic lights going on and off rapidly.”
Asked what made him enter the priesthood at a relatively young age, he says even a child his ambition was to be a priest. “My parents did not oppose my choice and I did not find it lonely at that tender age as eight of my friends too became priests on the same day, under the same spiritual teacher, senior monk Ven. Borawewa Ratanapala.”
Ven. Kassapa says he was placed third in an all-island painting contest among ‘pirivenas’ and at the moment engaged in painting, sketching, sculpting and wood carving to hold a solo exhibition. – Somasiri Munasinghe
