Viragaya is a novel by Martin Wickramasinghe (1890-1976), first published in 1956. This is a Sinhala-language edition of the book. Wickramasinghe's own Trust describes it as a psychological novel, and it is widely regarded as one of the outstanding works of modern Sinhala fiction, and it has been hailed as the greatest Sinhala novel. The title refers to detachment from worldly passions.
The story is set in the rural south of Sri Lanka and centres on Aravinda Jayasena, a gentle, conscientious young man brought up in a traditional Buddhist household. Most of the novel is Aravinda's own first-person account, presented as a diary that reaches his friend Sammy after Aravinda's death. Through it we follow his schooldays, his work as a government clerk, his hesitant relationship with his former classmate Sarojini, who goes on to marry his cousin Siridasa, and his care for Bathee, the daughter of a housemaid, whom he takes in and educates.
Aravinda gradually withdraws from the ordinary ambitions and attachments of the people around him. The novel explores the futility of worldly attachment and the search for inner peace, and sets the respect the villagers come to feel for Aravinda against the ridicule he meets from the striving middle class. Conversations with a retired postmaster, Lokusuriya, add a strand of existential questioning.
Viragaya has travelled well beyond Sinhala. It was translated into English by Ashley Halpé as The Way of the Lotus (1985), and into Tamil (1992) and French (1995). In 1987 it was adapted for the cinema by Tissa Abeysekara.
It suits readers who want the most celebrated of Wickramasinghe's novels in the language in which it was written.
- Author: Martin Wickramasinghe
- Published: 1956
- Language: Sinhala
