The Control and Re-Distribution of Temple Property: (a) The Strategies Conceived

The control and the re-distribution of temple

properties served British policy, possibly in three ways. F i r s t l y , the reduction of the total extent of temple

lands reduced in proportion the capital available for the temples to propagate the religion. To an extent it reduced the comforts of the clergy and increased

their dependence on the British administration. Secondly, b y releasing the tenants or the Paraveni and Maruveni

sharers, the British government effectively reduced the extent of the political power wielded b y the incumbent priests. It reduced their constituents, their dependants, over whom the incumbents exercised economic control.

T h i r d l y , it created a vast ’Land Bank* of Crown property which could be made available for economic exploitation b y the plantation industry. It would be convenient to examine the laws affecting the control and re-distribution of temple property in the light of these three goals.

As a developmental strategy, these laws were used, well, towards laying down a viable economic substratum, in the form of land available for colonial exploitation. In the absence of expanding industries, the plantation industry became the basis for the colonial economy in

Ceylon. It is towards this end that the policy of control and re-distribution of temple land appears to have been directed.

By Article 21 of the Proclamation of 21st November, 39

1818, the British Government declared that: "The Governor, desirous of showing the adherence of Government to its stipulation in favour of the religion of the.people, exempts all lands which now are the

property of temples from all taxation whatever ••. ."

The foregoing article was strengthened by a Proclamation

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of the 18th September, 1819. . In that Proclamation, the Government declared that:

"Whereas by our proclamation bearing date, the 21st day of November, 1818, we did declare that all lands which then were the property of temples should be exempted from all taxation whatever, ... . The persons having the charge of the revenues of every

temple ... shall, and they are hereby required, to deliver into the Revenue Commissioner ... a list of lands of all descriptions which did belong to the said

temples, under their respective charge, at the date of the said proclamation •.. . Within twelve months from this date; where upon the said lands shall be registered b y

the Revenue Commissioner, if he is satisfied that such lands are the property of the said temple ... and a certificate of such enregis— tration shall be granted by such Revenue

Commissioners ... the production of which shall alone be considered sufficient proof that such land is exempted from taxation.

This for the first time introduced governmental control over temple property. The incumbents did not take this intrusion into their preserve with equanimity.

As they were not too conversant with the art of litigation before a British court, using English

principles of Constitutional Law, the constitutionality of the Proclamation was never tested. But the incumbents reacted b y adopting the posture of ascetics, by ignoring such secular demands. By a subsequent Proclamation of

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21st May, 1822, the British government warned the

incumbents that failure to register might end their right to exemption from tax and might even place their title to

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property in jeopardy. By the earlier Proclamation, the government reserved the power to refuse registration where "the Revenue Commissioner ... is not satisfied that any land was the property of such temple". In that event, the Proclamation required the Revenue Commissioner to submit

the matter "to the consideration of the Board of Commissioners, who shall direct a proper course of inquiry into the validity of the claim, and report the same to us, The Governor, for our decision how the said land is to be considered."

Considerable difficulties were faced by the incumbents when attempting to establish their land claims before the

cominissioners. The lands inherited by the incumbents were lands gifted to them b y the Kings of Kandy, not several decades earlier but several centuries before. In most cases the gifts were made verbally by the monarch, which was not evidenced b y any written document. If the

commissioners were to question their title, the incumbents would now be placed in considerable difficulties while attempting to establish their claims. The point must, therefore, be made, that insofar as the registration went, the temples were placed squarely at the mercy of

the commissioners who could, if they thought necessary, find every justification for refusing to register a claim. It may be suggested that policy often played a predominant part in the process of registration at times even eclipsing the available rules.

k h

The principal Proclamation of 1819 had a

carefully worded clause controlling gifts to temples. The clause made it unlawful to donate or bequeath

"any land whatsoever to or for the use of any temple ... without having first ... received a licence in writing to give or bequeath the same". A violation of

this caveat made such land not 11 to be considered as the property of a temple, but shall be given to the nearest heir of the person who has disobeyed the law ... provided he sues for the same before the Judicial Commissioner

... within twelve months ... or else the land shall • become forfeited to the Crown." This prohibition placed

the British government upon a collision course with the religious susceptibilities of the Kandyan Buddhists. For one thing it was considered to be a spiritual

prerogative to give some property to the temple at one's death bed. That property could be land, and therefore it placed quite clearly, an unavoidable duty upon the family of a dying Kandyan to carry that wish through. There was often little or no time left to rush out and seek a licence from the competent authority to make that death-bed donation legal. For another, no heir, would under the social constraints and the recognised mores of a Kandyan household sue for a return of such property, if a death-bed gift was subsequently declared void.

Considered within this social and religious framework, it is evident that the ultimate des tination of such property was not the temple but the *Land Bank* of the Crown. By 18^6, the relationship between the government and the Buddhists had become sufficiently strained that the British Administration thought it necessary to

propose a Bill 'to provide for the management of Buddhist

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Vihares and Dewales in the Kandyan provinces."

Although the British irjdministration was performing the tasks formerly undertaken by the Sinhalese Kings, in providing a military guard for the Tooth Relic, and in the Governor himself attending the ceremonies associated

with the annual exposition of the Tooth Relic, their interference with the temple property was considered to have no previous precedent* No Sinhalese King had ever attempted to control and redistribute temple property. Therefore, a clearer statement of the role expected from the British government was urgently required. The Bill of 1846 was meant to re-state that role in unmistakable terms. The legislature passed

that Bill unanimously and it was subsequently dispatched to the United Kingdom, for ratification. Commenting on

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the Bill, Dissanayake and DeSoysa wrote: "It was framed on the principle that government was not only bound to secure the Buddhists against molestation and injury in their persons or in their property on account of their religious observances, but were bound to advance further, and to enact and execute laws, having for their express object the more easy, convenient, and orderly celebration of the Buddhist rites and c e r e m o n i e s . " ^

The pith of the Ordinance was to make the government's involvement in the activities of the Buddhists more intimate. The enactment of this Bill was naturally regarded as a significant victory for-the Buddhists of Ceylon. Unknown to them, "the propriety of a Christian government acting as head of the Buddhist church began

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to be questioned", both in Ceylon and in the United Kingdom. As expected, the Colonial Secretary, Earl

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Grey, "refused to advise the Queen to confirm the

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said enactment ... as he declined to admit that the Convention of 1815 was capable of being interpreted in the manner put forward by the framers of the O r d i n a n c e . " ^ On the 30th August, 1847, Viscount Torrington, the then Governor of Ceylon, informed the Legislative Council^2 that Ordinance No. 10 of 1846 had been rejected b y Her Majesty's Secretary for the Colonies. He informed the members that Earl Grey,

had written to say that " ... to separate the British government from all active participation in the practice

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of heathen worship, they conceive to he a plain and

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simple, though urgent d u t y ’1, of the British government. The Bill would have required the British government to participate in the "appointment and removal of priests and the internal discipline of the ministers of the

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Buddhist religion", and would further require the active British participation in protecting the proprietary rights

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of the Buddhists. The Governor concluded his report to the Legislative Assembly by emphasising that hereinafter the Buddhist * C h u r c h 1 will be treated "as any (other)

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corporate body" in the country. Following this state— ment of policy, the government withdrew totally from

participating in Buddhist affairs. By 18^7, the government ceased to pay any allowances to priests, which they had previously done as a continuation of an ancient custom of the Kandyan Kings. The priests were left to regulate their activities, discipline their order and execute

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their regulations as best as they could. The refusal to recommend the adoption of the Bill of 1846 and the consequent change of attitude towards the Buddhist religion may be seen as a result of a legal opinion given by Sir John Stephens to the Colonial Office on July 4th, 1845. The importance of that opinion in

understanding the change in the British attitude towards Article 5 oF the Convention, merits extensive reproduction here. Sir John Stephens wrote:

"The conquest of Kandy, was, I fear, an unprincipled aggression on an independent people. It was one step in that progress which has created our eastern empire of which, I believe, the best that could be said is, that we have made ... atonement by the right use of our powers, for the inequity of the means b y which we obtained it. When the Kandyan monarch was deposed and his family and chiefs exiled, and his whole country confiscated, to avenge an insult with which, apparently, he had nothing to do, the conquered naturally

enough thought that we should make war on their religions in the same spirit as on their political state. To dispell that alarm the Convention declared the * religion of Budhoo i n v i o l a b l e 1 and that the British government were 1 pledged to the maintenance and protection of the rites, Ministers, and places of worship of the national religion of the p e o p l e . 1 We further under took that due respect should be paid to their Priests, ceremonies and processions.

Founding himself on this language, W. Buller declares it to be 'undeniable1 that the

British government placed itself fin the precise position of the Kandyan government that i s , at the head of the national

religion as its chief authority and guardian.1 He says that the British government pledged itself fto watch over the interests of that religion so that they should not suffer from the corruption of its Ministries, or from the indifference of the people that its rites should be kept up with due and punctual

solemnity1 - that we undertook that the

* national religion should not be left to shift for itself but should be maintained and pro­ tected b y the whole weight of the secular power*. He describes the British government as the 'avowed defender of the Buddhist faith which is neglected and betrayed by t h e m . ' Nothing, I think, but an inveterate habit of viewing all subjects sarcastically could have induced the chief legal advisor of the local government to address it in such a strain at this period. It seems superfluous to refute b y argument assertions of this kind in behalf of which no argument is aduced. The words of the Treaty have scarcely anything in common with this gloss on them. The object of the Treaty cannot justify such an expression of the plain .meaning of its words. That object was to reassure, on the subject of their religion people from whom we had taken every­ thing else. The Treaty did not and could not, mean that King George III should succeed to the religious duties and character of the King of Kandy and that the defender of the Christian faith should in the same sense become the defender of the Buddhist faith. The Treaty meant merely (and every inhabitant of the country knew that it meant merely) this - if you will surrender to Great Britain all its secular dominion you may keep up your religion. Xf you will deliver up to us your

treasury, your temple lands shall be inviolate. If you will become subject of our King he will permit no one to interrupt your religious

officers or to despoil your priest or your

temples. How maintenance and protection can be supposed to have meant all that W. Buller as­ cribes to those words is a question which he has not answered, and which, I believe, is unanswer­ able b y anyone else. He stands quite alone among the local authority in his views, and X think they may be safely laid aside as untenable•”^ga

As a strategy for the disintegration of the monastic order this attitude towards the Buddhist religion proved an effective recipe. The priests, unlike in the past, had no means "of compelling attendance, and no power of

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inflicting penalties for non-attendance before the monastic colleges, having the authority to discipline them. This hostile policy generated a sense of hopeless­ ness among the Buddhists which escalated into open

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rebellion with ease. But the psychological damage done both to the Buddhists and to the British government was to leave an indelible mark upon the future relation­

ship of these two important groups for the next Century, in fact until independence in 19^8. During the next 100 years the British Administration in Ceylon pushed forward their strategy for economic development, through the

plantation industry, which needed land and more fertile land. It is in this light that the Temple Lands Registra—

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tion Ordinance and the ServicesTenures Ordinance require scrutiny.

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(b) The Temple Lands Registration Ordinance of 1 8 56. The Temple Lands Registration Ordinance (herein— . after referred to as the Ordinance of 1 8 5 6 ) laid down six basic principles.

F i r s t : the Ordinance empowered the Governor to