Category Archives: cultural transmission

Beyond Imagination – Chandra Schaffter’s Life of Service

Ravi RUDRA has composed an extensive web-item describing Chandra Schaffter’s services to Sri Lanka,  S. Thomas College, cricket, hockey, the Tamil Union CC’, insurance services in the island and humakind in general. The account includes photographs and is so extensive that it is best presented in segments. THIS is the first instalment. As this segment includes heaps of photographs, it will take me time to insert all of them…. so the present version is incomplete .…. Editor, TPS 

Compilation by Ravi RUDRA …. with this title The Phenomenal Journey of Mr. CHANDRA SCHAFFTER 94* Story of Vision, Resilience, Disappointments and Success” …. 1 December 2024 

Mr. Chandra Thomas Adolphus Schaffter (born 3 April 1930) ‘The Father of Sri Lanka Insurance & Much, Much More’

“If you cannot do something for those who work for you, but you seek to get the best out of them and not worry about them, then, I don’t think life is worth living. What I am today, I owe it first to God and then to my School”– Chandra Schaffter

 Legendary Thomian (Jan 1937–March 1950)

“I was very fortunate to attend S. Thomas’ College because I had a good education and a good foundation. I lost my mother when I was only 3 and my father when I was 11, so I never had real parental guidance in that sense.But my school masters, especially in my early years, and some of my relatives were very helpful in making me find my way around.

S. Thomas’ was a great place to be in, as you learnt a lot of good values which you don’t see in the outside world. This up-bringing has stood me and many Thomians in good stead.”– Chandra Schaffter

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Vale = An Appreciation of Professor Padmasiri De Silva

Revd Mahinda Deegalle from London, in The Island 15 December 2024

The year 2024 is rapidly drawing to a close. This year marks the personal losses of many helpful academics, monks, family members, and friends. I place this brief note of appreciation here to pay tribute to the late Professor Padmasiri de Silva (1933–2024), one of my teachers at the University of Peradeniya in the 1980s, who was just about to celebrate his 92nd birthday on January 18, 2025 with the publication of his most recent contribution The Moral Psychology of Buddhism, which is currently under preparation for publication posthumously in Melbourne.

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The Murrays: Among the Pioneer Planters in British Ceylon

TPS presents here an item which bore the original title The Scotts, The Murrays And The Polkes – Scions Of Pioneer Planters’ In Ceylon” (2020)


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Encylopaedia of Ceylon – Ceylon Tea Industry Souvenir 196

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Seeking Ethnic Reconciliation Through Commemoration of the Dead-in-War

Capt Prasanna Rajaratne, SLN … in DAILY FT, 6 December 2024, ….. where the title reads “National security only through national harmony
They may still feel trapped in the same plight, and unless that perception is acknowledged, addressed, and their aspirations realised, the resurgence of dissent is not merely possible but inevitable

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A Thrilling Last Over Victory for South Australia

Andrew McGlashan, in ESPNcricinfo, 10 December 2024

After Agar’s yorker on the last ball was jammed out by Meredith, he thought he hadn’t seized the moment and that it would be a draw.

“It went from how have we managed to lose this to how have we won this?” Approaching 24 hours on from one of the most dramatic Sheffield Shield finishes of all time, South Australia quick bowler Wes Agar was still trying to make sense of the scenes that unfolded in Hobart on Monday evening when No. 11 Riley Meredith was run out off the last ball.
“I just remember seeing the ball getting thrown in and I see Riley running out of the corner of my eye,” Agar told ESPNcricinfo. “I stopped for a minute and thought, ‘what’s happened?’

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Facing A Corpse: Asia vs The West …. A Fundamental Difference & Its Political Implications

  Michael Roberts    

The sharp warring conflict in Syria today amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine and that in Gaza underlines stories and ‘pictures’ of battlefield dead (both civilians and soldiers). These in their turn highlight the fundamental differences in the manner in which some Asian countries conduct funerals and face the issue of death embodied in a corpse (in some cases that of a loved one or kinsperson).

This fundamental difference has equally fundamental political consequences. For this reason, I take my Thuppahi-readers (no offence meant) to a segment in one of my past presentations when I presented thoughts relating to the official display of Velupillai Pirapaharan as a corpse in May 2009.

THIS from https://thuppahis.com/2011/06/29/death-and-eternal-life-contrasting-sensibilities-in-the-face-of-corpses/ Continue reading

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Politics of Identity in Lanka: Mithran Tiruchelvam’s Introduction in 1997 to his Book

Introduction by Mithran Tiruchelvam …. a son of Neelan Tiruchelvam of the ICES [who was tragically assassinated by the LTTE in front of the ICES offices one year later]

The present collection of essays arose out of a symposium held at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo from 13-15 March 1997, where researchers and scholars presented some of their recent research interests. This volume seeks to gather the threads of a hybrid collection of essays and weave them together in their shared historical moment. An anthology of this nature seeks organizational cohesion based on the papers’ common origins at the symposium, thereby sacrificing some degree of thematic or disciplinary unity. It is intended that such a collection make available to the general reader and to the scholar alike, a sense of the variety of social science pursuits being undertaken in Sri Lanka today. As such its purpose is to flavour as much as to nourish the reader’s palate, providing a sampling of the eclectic diversity of topics, methodologies and critical perspectives. engaging the social scientist today.

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In Felicitation of Vincent Goonawardena -A Teacher Extraordinary at Richmond, Galle

Nihal De Alwis 

MR VINCENT GOONAWARDENA PATRON OF THE RICHMOND 60-CLUB (2024) ON YOUR BIRTHDAY Of SUNDAY THE 27th OCTOBER….

Dear Sir, It is with a heavy heart that I decided to express a few words in gratitude towards you as one of the few, or maybe the only, surviving teacher of my batch at RICHMOND COLLEGE. It has been a long time since we had a teacher of your repute who has been perpetually dedicated and committed at RICHMOND. You were of the class of our Late Mr E.R. De Silva (the first Sri Lankan to succeed the missionaries), and of the teachers of the calibre of Shelton Wirasinghe, Revd Shelton De Silva, Dunstan Fernando, A. Ariyaratnam, J.H. Gunasekera, & S Manawadu….. And few others whom I cannot recollect.

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A Sri Lankan Author’s Work …”Offerings to a Blue God”

Offerings to the Blue God by Shirani Rajapakse

Synopsis: A child saved from the tsunami finds herself trapped as a domestic slave, a young woman finds out the true face of her lover when she builds up the courage to visit his home, an ex-terrorist attempts to forget her past and start a new life, a bored journalist tries to find an easy way to migrate, a young woman reaches out to God to find a solution to her bad luck only to change her mind when confronted with a troubling thought.

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A Fork as the Way to Heaven

Alternative Title = A Fork on the Way to Heaven” …. being the TPS impositions on an Item sent by Charles Schokman with the title “An Inspirational Story About A Woman’s Final Request To Her Pastor” 

Optimism and hope are two of the greatest qualities that a human being can possess. And those qualities can certainly have a long-lasting impact upon others.

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