Kushan Manjusri’s passing away will be felt deeply

News of Kushan Manjusri’s death is so sad. I remember meeting him on the lengthy climb to the cave temple of Dambulla in the early 1990s. He was a diminutive, broadly smiling figure in a sarong and a bare torso, with a pet mongoose on his shoulder. His name struck a chord because his father, the late T. P. Manjusri,  is such a familiar name in the annals of modern Lankan art – a founding member of the Group of 43.

On subsequent visits to the fresco-filled caves, I found him absorbed in a major UNESCO Cultural Triangle project to copy the paintings. He had helpers, but was clearly the driving force behind it. 

One of Kushan’s paintings

Kushan Manjusri

I met him later in Colombo, when he had clearly undergone a physical and spiritual transformation. I met him several times walking barefoot in the city streets, clad in a saffron robe. 

His father was ordained as a monk at age 19. I don’t know if the son became a member of the Sangha, or simply adapted the saffron robe as an outer expression of his search for spirituality and  deeper meaning in life. But he seems to have juggled the life of a painter, the search for meaning through art, with the loftier goal. I lost touch with him in the early years of the new millennium. But, from what I have heard, he certainly didn’t  lack ambition of the artistic kind. It’s unfair to compare him to his father, who was fortunate enough to  reach maturity at the right time, when the country was looking for its cultural identity, with talented people trying to combine tradition with the modern – in art, literature, theatre, film and music. 

Kushan as a young man matured during a more turbulent time, in the 1980s  when politics took precedence over culture. Perhaps it was his disgust with the neoliberal, materialistic madness which marked Sri Lanka which made him return to the roots and live closer to nature. 

His final project, it seems, was to try and record all ancient wood and stone carvings from the Anuradhapura period down to the Kandyan, and publish a series of monographs.

Whether he succeeded, I have no idea. In a society of conformists, Kushan Manjusri’s independence and non-conformism stood out. 

His remains are at the Jayaratna Araliya Parlour, Borella, and the funeral will be held today (Tuesday February 10) at the General Cemetary (kanatta) at 3.30 p.m.