Wilpattu Deer Shooting

Published: March 18, 2025

March 18, 1957

A royal visit

March 1957 was marked by the visit of a royal couple to Ceylon: King Mahendra and Queen Ratna of Nepal. The royals toured the island visiting several places.1 At the foot of Sri Pada, Mahendra told an audience that Buddhist teachings were as relevant as ever in a time when “mutual hates and fears have infected man so much that he now appears to be his own enemy.”2 What he did not realize was that he, or more precisely, his actions, would soon become the center of Buddhist controversy.

Mahendra of Nepal, 1957

King Mahendra of Nepal, 1957

On March 16, in Polonnaruwa, the king had requested to see wildlife. That night, he was taken to Manampitiya, but he only saw three deer and was underwhelmed. He asked for a spot that had more wildlife, and being an avid hunter, he wanted to shoot some. After a discussion with the Nepalese military secretary, police recommended the Wilpattu Game Sanctuary. Decisional authority was in the hands of ASP Henry Corea, who was now in a difficult position. On the one hand, he could accede to the king’s request, but he would be violating fundamental Buddhist tenets by allowing an animal to be so wantonly killed. On the other hand, he could spurn the king’s request, though this would mean an embarrassing rejection of a royal’s wishes. He chose the former.3

Wilpattu

The next evening, Corea received a letter of authority from the permanent secretary to the home ministry to give to the game warden to enter Wilpattu, and following dinner, Mahendra arrived at the sanctuary. Accompanied by Corea and the minister of cultural affairs, Jayaweera Kuruppu, he brought with him a gun. Mahendra’s jeep was in the front so that the other jeeps would not frighten away animals before he could see them, and Corea was in the jeep with him. In the early hours of March 18, they came across a stag in the moonlight. As the stag moved away, Mahendra shot it dead. Fearing the backlash from the shooting, the party hid the deer in a bush and later placed the carcass in police custody. After he left the park, Mahendra went to Anuradhapura where he asked to have the deer’s head and antlers sent to him in Nepal as a trophy. Word had spread in the town that a deer was shot at Wilpattu, and by the evening, pressmen were asking the police about the shooting and publishing the story in the papers.4 The next day, some papers carried reports that Mahendra shot a deer at Wilpattu.5

A spotted deer stag at Wilpattu

A spotted deer stag at Wilpattu. [Source: Dhammika Heenpella, CC-BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.]

The dead deer

The episode proved to be painful to the Buddhist public. That a king from the country where the Buddha himself was born, accompanied by a minister who was seen as the guardian of Buddha Jayanti celebrations, shot a sacred animal like a deer was unpalatable.6 The visit was in contravention of the park rules, which stipulated that nighttime visitors were prohibited. 7 However, the principal target of their fury was not the king, but Kuruppu.8 A ratepayer’s association in Anuradhapura called for Kuruppu’s resignation and “deterrent action” against Corea.9

At first, Kuruppu denied that the king shot a deer.10 However, this was hardly believed. The Ceylon Observer carried an editorial that accused Kuruppu of a “casual, almost brusque, denial” and laid the responsibility squarely on him and the police.11 Its sister paper, the Ceylon Daily News, further alleged that the deer had been quartered and shared among a police officer involved in the shooting, a high-ranking police officer, a protocol officer of the ministry of external affairs, and an official of the ministry of cultural affairs. It also alleged that Kuruppu himself was present at the carving of the deer.12

Bandaranaike was furious at Corea. His secretary, Bradman Weerakoon, later recounted that he had seldom seen the prime minister “as indignant as when he reprimanded ASP Henry Corea.”13 Corea later released a police report detailing the official version of incidents, prefacing it with an apology.14 With mounting reports of his commission of a sacrilege during the Buddha Jayanti, Mahendra too apologized for the shooting.15

Opponents of the government used the opportunity to denigrate the SLFP. The UNP summoned an emergency meeting on account of the “wanton shooting of a deer at Wilpattu Sanctuary in desecration of the Buddha Jayanti year.” 16 K. M. P. Rajaratna, the notoriously pro-Buddhist MP of Welimada who had defected from the government six month earlier, too launched criticism. He recounted that the Arahat Mahinda, who introduced Buddhism to the country, prevented King Devanampiyatissa from shooting a deer, yet the culture minister allowed a Hindu king to shoot one during the Buddha Jayanti. At the same meeting, a Buddhist monk chided Rajaratna, reminding attendees of the UNP’s roast calf incident in 1954, and called for people not to mix religion with politics.17 The mahanayake of Malwatte also referred to Buddhist consternation over the killing as “making a mountain out of a molehill.”18

Eventually, public and political criticism over the shooting led to an apology from the education minister, Wijayananda Dahanayake, at a meeting sponsored by the Ceylon Humanitarian Society. He issued several questions to the Lake House Press regarding the complicity of Mahendra’s accompaniers and his possession of a gun. He alleged that a certain police official, likely Corea, had failed in his duty and was hiding behind the Daily News’ editorials.19 On April 2, the prime minister addressed the shooting in parliament. He read a letter from Mahendra’s secretary outlining the sequence of events that led to it and explained that Kuruppu’s initial denial was to avoid implicating a distinguished guest like the Nepalese king in a crime most foul. But, to show the government’s resolve, he announced that the issuance of sport hunting licenses would be suspended for the remainder of the year.20

By mid-April, the issue had left public and political attention. The Daily News, ordinarily not sympathetic to the prime minister, commended his defense of Kuruppu, which was apparently so robust that it “would have been difficult even for the most suspicious critic to pick holes in it.”21 Attention returned to the more pressing Jayanti issue, the language question, but the deer shooting was nonetheless a major embarrassment for a government claiming to represent Buddhist interests.

Bibliography

Weerakoon, Bradman. Rendering Unto Caesar: A Fascinating Story of One Man’s Tenure Under Nine Prime Ministers and Presidents of Sri Lanka. Berkshire: New Dawn Press, 2004.

Footnotes

  1. “King Presents Rs. 5000 to Maligawa Fund,” Ceylon Daily News, March 16, 1957; “King Firm Believer in Panchasila,” Ceylon Daily News, March 14, 1957; “King and Queen Spend Night in Sacred City,” Ceylon Daily News, March 18, 1957. Hereafter, “Ceylon Daily News” will be abbreviated as “CDN.”
  2. “‘Man (His Own Foe) Needs Message of the Buddha’,” CDN, March 18, 1957.
  3. “Agamæti Andamanda Kaḷa Vesakdā Muva Daḍayama,” [The Deer Hunt in Vesak that Befuddled the Prime Minister] Lankadeepa, May 16, 2018. https://www.lankadeepa.lk/diyatha_news/%E0%B6%85%E0%B6%9C%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%90%E0%B6%AD%E0%B7%92-%E0%B6%85%E0%B6%B1%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%AF%E0%B6%B8%E0%B6%B1%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%AF-%E0%B6%9A%E0%B7%85-%E0%B7%80%E0%B7%99%E0%B7%83%E0%B6%9A%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%AF%E0%B7%8F-%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%94%E0%B7%80-%E0%B6%AF%E0%B6%A9%E0%B6%BA%E0%B6%B8/48-528631.
  4. “Police Report on the Deer Incident,” CDN, March 30, 1957.
  5. Parliamentary Debates (Senate), vol. 10, col. 1400.
  6. “Deer, O Deer!” Ceylon Observer, March 23, 1957, quoted in Parliamentary Debates (Senate), vol. 10, col. 1400 – 1401.
  7. “Police Report on the Deer Incident,” CDN, March 30, 1957.
  8. “Bhikkhu Blames the Minister,” CDN, March 27, 1957; “Culture Minister Blamed for Deer Episode,” CDN, April 8, 1957.
  9. “Sequel to Deer Shooting: ‘Resolution’ by Ratepayers,” CDN, April 1, 1957.
  10. “Dead Deer Denial,” CDN, March 27, 1957.
  11. “Deer, O Deer!” Ceylon Observer, March 23, 1957, quoted in Parliamentary Debates (Senate), vol. 10, col. 1400 – 1401.
  12. “That Deer – Who Shared the Spoils?” CDN, March 30, 1957.
  13. Bradman Weerakoon, Rendering Unto Caesar: A Fascinating Story of One Man’s Tenure Under Nine Prime Ministers and Presidents of Sri Lanka, (Berkshire: New Dawn Press, 2004), 16.
  14. “Police Report on the Deer Incident,” CDN, March 30, 1957.
  15. “King Apologises for Hunting Deer,” The Guardian, April 3, 1957.
  16. “U.N.P. and the Deer,” CDN, March 30, 1957.
  17. “Sri Pada Chief Monk Atacks Rajaratna and ‘Deer’ Critics,” CDN, April 2, 1957.
  18. “P. M. Explains Deer Incident,” CDN, April 3, 1957.
  19. “Dahanayake Says ‘Sorry’ for Deer Incident,” CDN, April 2, 1957.
  20. “P. M. Explains Deer Incident,” CDN, April 3, 1957.
  21. “There’s No Need for ‘No Quorum’ Cry,” CDN, April 6, 1957.