Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has written to the Mahanayake Theras of all three Buddhist chapters calling for a formal reform programme and urging them to convene a Dharma Sanghayana — a Buddhist Council — to address what she describes as a “serious crisis” facing the clergy in Sri Lanka.
In her statement, Kumaratunga drew on historical precedents stretching from the First Buddhist Council to the Kandyan-era reforms led by Welivita Sri Saranankara Thero. She recalled that reform efforts under the 1956 Bandaranaike administration — led by her father, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike — and again during her own presidency, when a Buddhist Council was planned under the late Madihe Pannasiha Thero, were blocked by groups that benefited from the status quo within the Buddhist establishment.
Kumaratunga warned that responding only to isolated incidents, rather than confronting the structural roots of the crisis, will not produce lasting change. She offered to work alongside senior lay Buddhist leaders to organise and support a Dharma Sanghayana, stressing that the long-term preservation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka depends on upholding both Dhamma and Vinaya discipline.
Her appeal is distinct from the government’s concurrent legislative move: on the same day, President Dissanayake pledged at the State Vesak Festival in Matara to revive the Dharmadhikaranaya through amendments to the Vihara and Devalagam Act. Both reforms are widely seen as responses to the BIA monk drug-smuggling case and the President’s subsequent meeting with the Maha Sangha, which brought the clergy crisis to the political forefront. CBK’s letter is a civil-society call for a bottom-up consultative council, independent of the state-led legislative process.
