Ven. Jinarathana. Body floating in the lagoon with legs tied together
The body of a foreign Buddhist monk found floating in a lagoon on December 8 was buried on Friday in the south of Sri Lanka. A large number of priests and people attended the event.
Though cremation is the best practice according to funeral rituals in the case of a Buddhist monk, he was buried as an open verdict has been issued at the post mortem while further investigations into the suspicious death are going on.
Dutch-born Ven. Olandaye Jinarathana, age 59, lived in the small wooded island monastery of Polgasduwa in Rathgama, 85 km south of capital Colombo. He was in the habit of going on pindapatha (begging for alms) from the villagers every morning, and the people alerted the police as he failed to make his usual rounds for a few days last week.
According to police, the late monk’s body was floating in the lagoon with hands and feet bound and a rock tied to his neck.
A website quoted a monk, Ven. Thirikunamale Ananda, the head of a Buddhist sect saying that the postmortem into the accidental death has suggested that it could be an act of suicide.
In a letter bearing a temple address, he said that “we strongly feel that it is entirely unethical for certain broadcast and print media to create news items adjudging a murder”. He did not cite any medical or police reports.
“As per our knowledge, there had been no circumstances whatsoever to lead to the potential murder of this highly respected foreign monk. Those were the reasons for me to believe of a possible suicide from the very beginning personally,” he added further.
In a video circulated by Colombo-based Hiru TV, the boatmen in the area were seen refusing to ferry the journalists to cover the burial, saying that police had asked not to take them to the island.
According to residents of nearby villages, the monk had been devout. He meditated most of the day at his isolated cottage and went to the village to beg for alms by rowing his canoe across the lagoon in the mornings.
Police said they would record statements from 13 monks who reside at the temple and devotees who had associated with the late monk.
The people had addressed him affectionately as Sudu Hamuduruwo (White Monk), and the canoe was a gift from them.
He was ordained in Thailand under Ajhan Chah, a respected Therawada Buddhist monk who passed away in 1992. Ven. Jinarathana lived in Thailand for 24 years and arrived in Sri Lanka in 2011. According to him, one reason for leaving Thailand was the difficulty in renewing the visa in that country.
After checking a list of Buddhist monasteries worldwide, he came to Sri Lanka, he said during an interview.
“I travelled all around Sri Lanka, spending time in different places, including the hill capital of Kandy. When I came to this place, I really liked the atmosphere,” Ven. Jinarathana said in the interview.
He said as a young boy he developed an interest to study religions to find answers to questions puzzling him. He had read widely about all the religions and finally settled for the Theravada tradition of Buddhism.
On his morning pindapatha rounds, he also brought food for the wild animals he befriended on the island. He survived on one meal a day and fed the remainder to the animals.
A family of civet cats was in the habit of coming to his cottage to eat bananas and cookies around six in the evening, he said. “Recently, the couple had four babies, and the mother came to introduce the cubs to me. There are many porcupines, monitor lizards, giant squirrels (dandu lenas) and mouse deer who visit me daily for food. I feed the animals by hand and give water and rice to many birds visiting the island. “
A monk speaking at the burial ceremony said, “We, as the Buddhist monks living in the area, request the authorities to find the ‘savages who committed this heinous crime.'”
“We have great suspicion as journalists who try to procure material about the death get beaten up, and their requests being ignored, and therefore an in-depth investigation into the death is a must,” the monk told the Hiru TV.
Major newspapers and web sites in the Netherlands too carried the details of the death. – newstrails.com
