Category Archives: Buddhism

June 17, 2022 · 7:58 pm

Sandadas Coperahewa’s Lifework

A Bibliography of Published/Unpublished Work by Sandadas Coperahewa (1923 – 2022)


Books:
*  යුර ෝපා කලාරේ ලුහුඬු ඉතිහාසරේ සිංහල රපරැළිය හා යුර ෝපා කලා රහළ කලා සසදුව (1958)
[The Sinhala Translation of R.H. Wilenkski’s A Miniature History of European Art and a Comparative Study of European and Sinhalese Art]
*   රෙරේ හිමි සෙරුව ( 1991) …. [A commemorative poem on Ven. Pamburana Metteyya Thera of Vajirarama]
*   ජගේ කලාකරු කතන්ද – 1 : රලරයෝනාරදෝ දා වින්ි (1992)
*   ජගේ කලාකරු කතන්ද – 2 : ෙයිකල් ඇන්ිරලෝ ( 1997)
*   ජගේ කලාකරු කතන්ද – 3 : ෆාරයල් ( 1998) …………………. A series of books on World famous artists – Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael 

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June 11, 2022 · 1:00 am

The Killing of SWRD Bandaranaike: Part Two

Sanjiva Senanayake,  …………. “Who Shot the PM?” Part II ** … with higlighting being emphasis implanted by the author

The first point that had to be proved by the prosecution beyond any doubt was that Somarama actually pulled the trigger. Without that the entire case, conspiracy and all, would fail.

Despite the large number of people present that morning, only three ‘eye-witnesses’ were called by the prosecution to establish that Somarama was the actual shooter. They were : (a) the Buddhist monk Niwanthidiye Ananda; …. (b) one of his acolytes from Polonnaruwa named Wedage Piyadasa …   and (c) a teacher named Wijekoon Wickramasinghe.

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June 10, 2022 · 8:41 pm

Leonard Woolf’s Remarkable Novel

Nick Rankin, in BBCnews, 23 May 2014, where the title runs thus: “Leonard Woolf’s forgotten Sri Lankan novel” …… The Bloomsbury Group and Sri Lanka are rarely spoken of in the same breath, but that is partly because Leonard Woolf’s groundbreaking first novel, The Village in the Jungle, is unjustly ignored, argues writer and broadcaster Nick Rankin.

She was born Virginia Stephen, daughter of the Victorian bookman Sir Leslie Stephen, but when she married in 1912, her name changed to Virginia Woolf, and she went on to become the best-known woman writer of the 20th Century.

 

Her lesser-known husband, Leonard Woolf, however, wrote and published a novel first. That almost forgotten book, first published in 1913, is called The Village in the Jungle and it is a remarkable work because it is the first novel in English literature to be written from the indigenous point of view rather than the coloniser’s.

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May 27, 2022 · 1:51 pm

A Note on the Bandaranaike Assassination Case & Its Sources

KK De Silva

The Bandaranaike Assassination case continues to fascinate readers, because two of the three persons convicted of the crime were Buddhist monks.

 

Bhikkhu Talduwa Somarama  was sentenced to death &  the death sentence  was carried out in July 1962, but he converted to Christianity a few days before the date set for the execution. Rev. Fr. Mathew Peiris, a controversial priest even then, was the Christian Prison Chaplain & was believed to have convinced him  to convert to  Christianity & there  was much speculation at the time about this conversion. He was baptized as Peter.

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May 10, 2022 · 1:18 pm

No Balls! Mahinda Rajapaksa stripped ….

His situation in April-May 2021 ….

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May 3, 2022 · 12:54 am

Vihares and Verandas: Barbara Sansoni’s Magnum Opus

Most versions of this set of amateur reproductions are due to the work done by David Sansoni on amateur mobile-camera pictures taken by Michael Roberts; but the first ‘snap’ of the lion frieze is by Roberts at his Thuppahi worst.

Exif_JPEG_420 ………. “Lions from inner wall of PADENIYA TEMPLE” …. 

 

 

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April 30, 2022 · 6:40 pm

Nationalisms in Ceylon: Origins, Stimulants and Ingredients

Michael Roberts, … reproducing Chapter III in Volume I of Documents of the Ceylon National Congress and Nationalist Politics in Ceylon, 1929-1950, Vol I, 1977, Department of National Archives, 1977 , pp. lxviii–lxxviii **

While the political activists of the first half of the twentieth century were drawn from both the national and the local elites, the political leadership (at significant island-wide levels) was largely composed of individuals who could be ranked among the national elite. As indicated earlier, the national elite was a small segment of the Ceylonese population. Its levels of wealth, power and status, its lifestyle, and its value-system marked it off from the rest of the population.

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April 9, 2022 · 8:36 pm

Buddhist Temples in Lanka: Evocative Thoughts

Uditha Devapriya, in The Island, 9 April 2022, … With input from and photographs by Manusha Lakshan … & bearing this title  “Some reflections on the temples of the South”

The social and cultural history of Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka has been the object of study for well over a century. Far from receding into a world of their own, these temples occupied a prominent place in the world around them. Buddhist monks lived under a code of piety and self-denial, and they operated under their own rules and customs. Yet despite being cut off from mundane concerns, they were very much linked to the society they hailed from. Granted entire villages for their upkeep, the clergy made use of the social institutions of their time, most prominently caste, to maintain their hold.

 

 Ceityagiri, 

Dharmasalava, Pushparama Continue reading →

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April 4, 2022 · 8:06 pm

Obeyesekere’s New Book on the Kandyan Kingdom

Uditha Devapriya, reviewing Gananath Obeyesekere’s new book The Many Faces of the Kandyan Kingdom (1591-1765) Colombo, Perera-Hussein, 2020, 200 pp., Rs. 1,200 ... with ‘arbitrary’ highlighting imposed by the Editor, Thuppahi

In 1602, the year of the Dutch East India Company’s founding, Joris van Spilbergen reached the shores of Sri Lanka after setting sail from the seaport of Veere in Holland a year earlier. Tasked with opening up trade negotiations with the King of Kandy, Vimaladharmasuriya, Spilbergen bore with him a letter from the Prince of Orange, acknowledging their willingness to counter the Portuguese. Not for one moment underestimating the Portuguese presence in the island, though, they disembarked at Batticaloa, which fell under the jurisdiction of the Kandyan Court. They anchored off the coast on May 31.

 

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March 11, 2022 · 11:36 pm

Dissecting Sri Lankan History & Politics through Book Reviews

Sophie Roel in conversation with Razeen Sally on “The best books on Sri Lanka recommended by Razeen Sally”

Many visitors to Sri Lanka have been beguiled by its charms, from its hill towns to its beaches, its ancient temples to its friendly people. And yet, for a quarter of a century until 2009, it was torn apart by a brutal civil war. Here, Sri Lanka-born political economist Razeen Sally, author of Return to Sri Lanka: Travels in a Paradoxical Land, recommends the best books to get a better understanding of Sri Lanka and the complexities that make the country so fascinating to visit and read about.

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