Edmund Rowland Gooneratne
| Edmund Rowland Jayathilake Gooneratne | |
|---|---|
 Gate Mudaliyar E. R. Gooneratne | |
| Born |
06 May 1845 Galle, Ceylon |
| Died |
1914 Galle, Ceylon |
| Nationality | Ceylonese |
| Education | St. Thomas' College, Mutwal |
| Occupation | Administrator, Writer |
| Title | Gate Mudaliyar |
| Religion | Theravada Buddhism |
| Spouse(s) |
Lady Matilda Ilangakoon Lady Corneliya Thilakaratne |
| Children |
Dr. Valantine Goonaratne Mark Sigmund Goonaratne Eva Tagora Goonaratne |
Edmund Rowland Jayathilake Gooneratne, Gate Mudaliyar, JP, (Sinhala: එඩ්මන්ඩ් රෝලන්ඩ් ජයතිලක ගුණරත්න) was a Ceylonese British colonial-era administrator and a literary figure. He was the Atapattu Mudaliyar of Galle and Mudaliyar of the Governor’s Gate.[1] A resident of Atapattu Walawwa in Galle, he also served as the Police Magistrate of Balapitiya and as the assistant government agent of Matara.[2] E. R. Gooneratne was also a scholar, writer, intellectual, social worker and Buddhist revivalist.[1]
Biography
Edmund Rowland Gooneratne was born on 06 May 1845, as the second son of the family of Mudaliyar David Jayathilake Goonaratne and Catharina Cecilia Dias Bandaranaike. His father was the Mohotti Mudaliyar of Galle. Young E. R. Gooneratne had his education at S. Thomas' College, Mutwal. He was a Christian by birth, but later converted to Buddhism and became a Buddhist nationalist.
He married Matilda Ilangakoon in 1873, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Their son Dr. Valantine David Goonaratne was the home Surgeon of the Galle Hospital. E. R. Gooneratne later married Corneliya Thilakaratne as his second spouse. They had a son, Mark Sigmund Goonaratne and a daughter, Eva Tagora Goonaratne.
E. R. Gooneratne sponsored eduction to both locals and foreigners and gave leadership to the revival of civilian and Buddhist education of the country. He was a co-founder of Bataduwe Ratanajothi Vidyalaya. He also started one of the first Pirivenas in the south in around 1880s at the Gooneratne Mudalindaramaya in Matara. He is also the founder of Simbali Avasaya in Galle, now known as Gooneratne Mudalindaramaya.
A trustee of the Mahabodhi, he actively took part in the Buddhist revival and the social reform group of Ceylon in the 1890's. He repaired and reconstructed the Buddhuge (Shrine hall) and the Buddha Statue in Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura. He also took part in the restoration work of Dambulla cave temple and sponsored the reconstruction work of Buddha statues there.
E. R. Gooneratne was awarded the Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Medal in 1897. He was a friend of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thero, Rhys Davids, Maharaja Jyotindra Mohun Tagore, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Henry Steele Olcott. After rendering a great service for the Buddhist, educational and social revival of Ceylon, E. R. Gooneratne died in 1914 at the age of 69.
Literary works
A committed editor and translator of Pali texts, E. R. Gooneratne wrote commentaries on classical Sri Lankan literary works such as Rasavahini, Sariputta and Rupamala.[3] He was the secretary of the Pali Text Society for Ceylon. He was in the editorial Board of the magazine Serendipity a successor to the abandoned magazine the Orientalis. Some of his literary works are;
- The Dhatu Katha Pakarana: And Its Commentary (1892)[4]
- Translation of Anguttara Nikaya to English
- The Vimanavatthu
- Dhatukatha with Commentary[5]
- Telakatahagatha