Abstract:
This ethnographic study demonstrates a comprehensive discussion on the community and space
of the bearers of an indigenous warrior combat art known as Ritigala Vishuddhi Haramba which
originated in the countryside of Ritigala, Sri Lanka. According to its custodian, Ritigala Vishuddhi
Haramba is a “combat discipline” combining meditation and combat which involves an ancestral
knowledge system that came along with a long tradition; it is a “way of life” which has the ability to
transform an average human into a wise, resilient, and well-disciplined individual who can handle both
combat abilities and human responsibilities with patience, discipline, and sensitivity (Sumedha 2019a).
The study examines what this community is, what its members do, the knowledge and
worldviews they employ and rely on, and how they create and maintain their identity and meaning of
life through their dedication and deep engagement in this combat. I focus on how they produce their
own spaces by redefining, modifying, sanctifying, and transforming the very spaces they believe to have
used by their vishuddhi ancestors using a traditional cultural proceeding, ancestral connections, and
occult powers negotiating time, space, and authority within the mainstream social, spatial, and cultural
constraints of Sri Lanka.
