"The place where all senses meet"

Once I asked Siripala: - What is the official name of the centre?

- We call it “Sathkara Educational Institute” (සත්කාර අධ්‍යාපන ආයතනය), Siripala answered.

- Don’t you think the term “institute” is a bit too much scholarly or academic? I replied.

- The Sinhala or Pali word for “institute“ [āyathane] (ආයතනය), has got a richer, more profound meaning, Siripala stated. The true or etymological interpretation will be “the place where all the senses or faculties meet”. The senses recognised are the six internal and six external senses. They constitute internal-external (organ-object) pairs of sense bases:
 - eye (ඇස) and visible objects (රූප)
 - ear (කන) and sound (ශබ්ද)
 - nose (නාසය) and odor (ගන්ධය)
 - tongue (දිව) and taste (රස)
 - body (ශරීරය) and touch (ස්පර්ශය)
 - mind (මනස) and mental objects (සිතුවිලි)
So as you now will understand, our Educational Centre try to evoke and engange all our senses, Siripala told me.

Asbjørn