Sinhalese Banners and Standards

Sinhalese Banners and Standards PDF Author: Edward Walter Perera
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Flags
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description

Sinhalese Banners and Standards

Sinhalese Banners and Standards PDF Author: Edward Walter Perera
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Flags
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description


Caste Conflict Elite Formation

Caste Conflict Elite Formation PDF Author: Michael Roberts
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521052856
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Caste Conflict and Elite Formation is a study in the social history of Sri Lanka. However, it does not merely document the remarkable successes in business enterprise and in the acquisition of Western-educated professional skills which were achieved by families from the Karava caste during the last two centuries; their advances, and the social and political struggles which accompanied this process, are employed as a window through which a survey of social change in Sri Lanka during the last four hundred years is conducted. The interest of the book extends beyond the many fascinating social incidents, historical trends and channels of elite formation that are described within its pages to a series of controlled comparisons which reveal the factors responsible for the formation of the Karava elite. Thus the book extends the methodological frontiers of the social history of the region. It emphasizes the significance of the patterns of caste discrimination and caste interaction in Sri Lankan politics, and reveals how these patterns were central to the incentives and opportunities which powered the advances of the Karava families.

The Plantation Tamils of Ceylon

The Plantation Tamils of Ceylon PDF Author: Patrick Peebles
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780718501549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Includes statistics.

The Legal System of Ceylon in Its Historical Setting

The Legal System of Ceylon in Its Historical Setting PDF Author: Nadaraja
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900464444X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Nobodies to Somebodies

Nobodies to Somebodies PDF Author: Kumari Jayawardena
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781842772294
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Nobodies to Somebodies examines the origins and growth of the bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka during British rule - an important but neglected aspect of the country's modern history. It traces its evolution from a 'feudal' society and mercantilist economy, to the age of plantations. In the course of this evolution local merchants accumulated capital through arrack and toll renting, subsequently diversifying into plantation cultivation and graphite mining, thereby making dents in the old caste-based division of labour.This study assigns primacy to class over caste, and details the rise of the new-rich 'Nobodies' of many different castes, ethnicities and religions into the ranks of the 'Somebodies'. It discusses the links between capital accumulation, religious revivalism, ethnic identity and political movements, and the marriage 'cartels' which led to further concentration of wealth.The book focuses on the rentier nature of the bourgeoisie and how they adopted Western culture and lifestyles and were basically collaborative with the colonial rulers. It highlights the constraints on further capitalist development, the obsession of the bourgeoisie with land acquisition and social status, and its consciousness as a class, especially on issues of political reform.

The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon

The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon PDF Author: Fernão de Queyroz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Sri Lanka
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka

Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka PDF Author: Tessa J. Bartholomeusz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791495868
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka explores Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist ideology and its power to shape the identities of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minorities. Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalists in contemporary Sri Lanka share an ideology that asserts a vital link between the island of Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people, especially in their role as curators of Buddhism, and often at the exclusion of the minorities. Minority responses to Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism are manifold, ranging from assimilation to the formation of rival fundamentalisms. The authors provide views of history markedly different from most scholarly reflections on Sri Lanka; thus, the history of shifting perceptions of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism offered here constitutes an important contribution to the subaltern history of Sri Lanka. By treating both the development of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism in the late nineteenth century and its hegemony in the late twentieth, this study links the present to the past.

The Cult of the Goddess Pattini

The Cult of the Goddess Pattini PDF Author: Gananath Obeyesekere
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
ISBN: 8120802136
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 665

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Book Description
Pattini-goddess, virgin, wife and mother; folk deity of Sinhala Buddhists and Jains; and assimilated goddess of the Hindu pantheon-has been worshiped in Sri Lanks and South India for fifteen hundred years or more, as she still is today. This long-awaited book is the culmination of Gananath Obeyesekere's comprehensive study of the Pattini cult and its historical, sociological, and psychoanalytical role in the culture of South Asia. A well-known anthropologist and a native of Sri Lanka, Obeyesekere displays his impeccable scholarship and a stunning range of theoretical perspectives in this work, the most detailed analysis of a single religious complex in South Asian ethnography (and possibly in all of anthropology). Since 1955 Obeyesekere has observed and participated in modern performances of the rituals of worship, healing, and propitiation in the Pattini cult, particularly the postharvest ritual known as the gammaduva. He presents detailed texts of the gammaduva, placing them in their historical and mythic traditions. Using the texts, he formulates a cultural analysis of the Buddhist pantheon and a critique of empiricist notions of South Asian historiography. Obeyesekere shows that some seemingly historical figures of South India and Sri Lanka are mythic characters and that their historical significance can best be understood by an anthropological analysis of myth rather than through a reification of myth in history. The concurrent Hindu worship of Pattini with its myths and rituals is described in detail. Obeyesekere documents the Sanskritization of Pattini, the changing physical structures of the goddess's shrines from the 1930s to the present, the assumption by Brahman priests of ritual functions formerly carried out by folk priest, and the sociocultural causes of these changes. He traces, too, the origins and diffusion of the cult throughout its entire history, as well as its survival today. Of psychological interest is the problematic status of Pattini as virgin, wife, and mother and her relationship with her god-husband Palanga and his courtesan Madevi. Obeyesekere discusses the psychodynamics of this relationship in detail and explains its role in Hindu-Buddhist socialization and family structure. Further, he uses this analysis to account for local variations in the performance and structure of the ritual. The ritual of the killing and resurrection of Pattini's husband and her role as mater dolorosa will interest scholars of comparative religion.

From Coffee to Tea Cultivation in Ceylon, 1880-1900

From Coffee to Tea Cultivation in Ceylon, 1880-1900 PDF Author: Roland Wenzlhuemer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047432177
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
In the early 1880s a disastrous plant disease diminished the yields of the hitherto flourishing coffee plantation of Ceylon. Coincidentally, world market conditions for coffee were becoming increasingly unfavourable. The combination of these factors brought a swift end to coffee cultivation in the British crown colony and pushed the island into a severe economic crisis. When Ceylon re-emerged from this crisis only a decade later, its economy had been thoroughly transformed and now rested on the large-scale cultivation of tea. This book uses the unprecedented intensity and swiftness of this process to highlight the socioeconomic interconnections and dependencies in tropical export economies in the late nineteenth century and it shows how dramatically Ceylonese society was affected by the economic transformation.

A Celebration of Demons

A Celebration of Demons PDF Author: Bruce Kapferer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000323102
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The Sinhalese exorcism rituals are perhaps the most complex and the most magnificent in performance still extant. For this second edition, the author has written a new preface and introduction in which he argues that the techniques of healing in Sri Lanka and the aesthetics of this healing cannot be reduced to Western psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic terms, and develops new and original approaches to ritual and the aesthetic in general.