Cover

JEAN ARASANAYAGAM

All is Burning

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

ALL IS BURNING

Jean Arasanayagam is a Sri Lankan writer of Dutch Burgher origin. She attended a private Methodist Missionary School, is a graduate of the University of Ceylon and obtained an M.Litt in Literary Linguistics from the University of Stratchlyde, Glasgow. She was an Hon. Fellow in the Creative Activities of the International Writing Programme at the University of Iowa in 1990. In 1994 she was International Writer-in-Residence in the South West (U.K.) and was Visiting Fellow at Exeter University in the Faculty of Arts. Her work has been published widely in Sri Lanka and abroad.

She is married to Thiagarajah Arasanayagam, writer, painter and playwright, and has two daughters who are themselves writers. She lives in Kandy but has travelled extensively in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe and India.

Dedication

To my daughters
Parvathi and Dewasundari
Continuing sources of inspiration and support

Thus have I heard, The Blessed One was once living at Gayastsa in Gaya with a thousand bhikkus. There he addressed the bhikkhus.

‘Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?

‘Bhikkhus, the eye is burning, visible forms are burning, visual consciousness is burning, visual impression is burning, also whatever sensation, pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant, arises on account of the visual impression, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion; I say it is burning with birth, ageing and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

The Fire Sermon of the Buddha
(Adittapariyaya—sutta)

Here too, the night is dark, thunder-black, as the fire
In the village spreads, it’s best to escape while you can,
Take to the forest, mats rolled up on the head,
Children tucked under the arms, no time to cook
The evening meal, just milk in the breast, the morning’s
Rice wrapped up in a plantain leaf, to lie awake
Watching alert for the sound of gunshot and wailing
Cries, the moon wounded, the clouds bleeding …

Excerpt from Fire in the Village

The Journey

Oneself is one’s own protector (refuge); what other protector (refuge) can there be? With oneself fully controlled, one obtains a protection (refuge) which is hard to gain

—The Dhammapada