“We know that loyalty of the Väddas to the king continued until the 1817-1818 rebellion against the British under their chief Kivulegedera Mohottala of Valapane. Eventually this resulted in the decimation of the Vädda communities by the British forces when they reestablished their control. The sad relics of this past is reflected in the loss…
The keynote address delivered on sociology day in 2015 at the University of Peradeniya, and elsewhere published as In Praise of Foolishness (with Apologies to Erasmus).In this essay he reflects back on his own works. “In the more popular paper I argue that right thorough history literary chronicles refer to the king in heroic terms…
“This is certainly not the case: most middle-class people, as well as ordinary villagers whom I know have a strong Sinhalese – Buddhist identity, But they did not engage in violence against Tamils and were for the most part shocked by the brutality and suddenness of these events. It is true that some connived in…
This essay by Gananath obeyesekere that appeared in Sri Lanka in Change and Crisis(Ed.James Manor, 1984) is a close investigation into post 1977 political realities, the implications of which have much to do with present impasse that Sri Lankan society seems to be in. Gananath obeyesekere, the greatest anthropologist produced by Sri Lanka was born…
Sri Lankan scholars and the Buddhist public generally believe that Portuguese influence after 1506 was characterized by a long period of Catholic proselytization and religious intolerance in the maritime regions of the island. What is little known is that by contrast, the kingdom of Kandy in the central region under the rule of King Vimaladhramasuriya…
Several weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a conference organized by colleagues in the University of Delhi and presided by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. The conference itself was on how children’s secular education could be transformed in order to bring in values of compassion and caring sorely lacking in…
'කතිකා' සංවාද මණ්ඩපය 'kathika' sanvada mandapaya 