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nature. To explore how these sramanic movements have been able to sustain members
for more than five decades, I will examine the practices of meditation and asceticism,
which were believed to have developed the integrity of the movements.
Meditation in Anuvrat and Sarvodaya
Ariyaratne, the founder of the Sri Lankan Sarvodaya, maintains that in classical
Sri Lankan culture, the awakening of the personality was based on four principles:
Sarvodaya interprets the first principle, metta, as respect for all life, cultivating love for all beings. This principle leads to second, karuna or compassion, which Sarvodaya understands as compassionate action. The third principle, mudita or sympathetic joy, results from acting on the first two principles. As well as, the fourth principle, upekha or equanimity becomes important for developing a personality, which is unshaken by praise or blame, by gain or loss. 59
With Sarvodaya's psychological connections to these traditional Brahma Viharas
(observances), it leaves me to ask what place meditation holds in the movement. In view
of Ariyaratne: "Meditation helps to purify one's mind and generate an energy of love.960
In a similar way, Tulsi laid stress on incorporating meditation in the movement
when the Anuvrat Movement was at its peak. According to one respondent: "Preksha
Meditation, a Jain form of meditation, was introduced in the Anuvrat program to develop
will power among the Anuvratis that would allow them to smoothly follow the vows. A
method of inner purification was needed that could give them the requisite strength." In
terms of the Sarvodaya movement, Joanna Macy contends that, "Sarvodaya has brought
39 George D. Bond, "A. T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka," in Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 127.
60 A, T. Ariyaratne, Collected Works Volume II (Sarvodaya Research Institute, 1980), 56.
Ravi Sharma, interview by Shivani Bothra, May 27, 2012.
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