Category Archives: Indian religions

September 10, 2025 · 11:42 pm

A Zealot in USA targets Sri Lanka

Rohana R. Wasala, in The Island, 10 September 2025, with this title “The root of all evil”

Professor Michael K. Jerryson of Youngstown State University, Ohio, USA,  testified on the subject of ‘Human Rights Concerns in Sri Lanka’ before the ‘Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, House Committee on Foreign Affairs (of the U.S. House of Representatives) on June 20, 2018. While delivering his statement, Jerryson submitted a written testimony into the record. He thanked Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, and other Members of the Committee  for ‘addressing a very important issue facing Sri Lanka, which is also a larger issue of peace and stability for South and South Asia today’

A file photo of a US House Committee on Foreign Affairs meeting …. graced this item but refused  to comply with  Thuppahi’s ‘request’

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under accountability, american imperialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, democratic measures, disparagement, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, life stories, LTTE, Muslims in Lanka, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, propaganda, racist thinking, religiosity, religious nationalism, security, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, Sri Lankan scoiety, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

September 6, 2025 · 12:52 am

Two Reviews in 2010 of Copeman’s Book on Blood Donations in India

https://sacrificialdevotionnetwork.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/jacob-copeman_veins-of-devotion/

 ONE …. REVIEW OF Jacob Copeman: Veins of Devotion: Blood Donation and Religious Experience in North India (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009, 233 pp)………….by Ron Barrett of Macalester College …. Taken from the American Ethnologist May 2010, vol. 37/2, pp. 380-81.

Recent years have seen an emerging literature on the sociopolitical dynamics of human tissue exchange. Most of these studies are of a critical nature, focusing on the exploitative aspects of organ trade and other high-profile controversies. Yet few studies have closely examined the apparently mundane forms of biological exchange and the remarkable contexts in which these everyday activities can occur. Jacob Copeman addresses this important gap with Veins of Devotion, a well-researched ethnography about the contributions of several North Indian devotional movements to voluntary blood donation campaigns. Critical in the classical sense, this volume traces the flows of blood, spirit, and power through expanding domains of kinship, asceticism, nationalism, purification, and gift exchange in the urban heart of neoliberal India.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, charitable outreach, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, medical puzzles, psychological urges, religiosity, self-reflexivity, unusual people, welfare & philanthophy, world events & processes

August 29, 2025 · 1:30 pm

Sri Lanka’s Maritime Legacy: A Discerning Study … Many Revelations

Avishka Mario  Senewiratne in The Island, 24 August 2025, where the title is “A Mirror to the Sea: Revisiting Sri Lanka’s Forgotten Maritime Legacy” …. Review of “Sri Lanka, Serendib & the Silk Road of the Sea” by Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha …. with the highlighting here being impositions  by The Editor, Thuppahi

It is not often that a slim volume quietly arrives on the literary shore, only to awaken something dormant and forgotten within the national consciousness. Sri Lanka, Serendib & the Silk Road of the Sea, the latest work by Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha, is just such a book—a timely voyage through history’s less-traversed sea lanes, executed with scholarly rigour, personal charm, and a deep-rooted love for this resplendent isle.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under ancient civilisations, art & allure bewitching, centre-periphery relations, China and Chinese influences, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, Muslims in Lanka, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, world events & processes

April 5, 2025 · 7:33 pm

Introducing A Cutting Edge Journal: SOUTH ASIA

Michael Roberts

SOUTH ASIA has been a form of Australian exploration — in the plural form of manifold journeys and investigations — in South Asia for several decades. I was a small cog in this cluster of activities some 20 years back; but, alas, fell away. Some old partners in arms are still part of the Editorial Advisory Board; but its a fresh and bright team that is bringing the Indian subcontinent into the Aussie arena. Sri Lankan scholars and readers need to take note of this work and chip in with their own ‘commentary’ — whether in article form or as avid readers.

Check https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/csas20 …. AND/OR write to ……….. OR ……………………….. priya.chacko@adelaide.edu.au

Cover image for South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Volume 47, Issue 6 Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under ancient civilisations, australian media, British imperialism, Buddhism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, electoral structures, ethnicity, European history, governance, heritage, Hinduism, historical interpretation, Indian General Elections, Indian Ocean politics, Indian religions, Indian traditions, land policies, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, migrant experiences, modernity & modernization, parliamentary elections, patriotism, pilgrimages, plural society, politIcal discourse, Portuguese imperialism, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, power politics, Presidential elections, press freedom & censorship, racism, Rajiv Gandhi, religiosity, riots and pogroms, security, self-reflexivity, terrorism, transport and communications, working class conditions, world events & processes, zealotry

March 26, 2025 · 10:05 pm

An Epitaph for Gananath Obeyesekere

Chandra R. De Silva, … with highlighting emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi

I write to add a few words to the outpouring of appreciations of Gananath Obeyesekere, a scholar whose research in anthropology, religion, myth, and cultural practices  has won him accolades across the world. I will not comment on the advances in knowledge and the discussions he provoked by his many scholarly works of which among the best known are Land Tenure in Village Ceylon, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini, Buddhism Transformed (co-author), The Work of Culture, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific, and The Doomed King. There has been much written on this world renowned scholar, and there will undoubtedly be more comments by experts in the years to come.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, art & allure bewitching, Buddhism, caste issues, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, electoral structures, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, island economy, land policies, language policies, Left politics, life stories, modernity & modernization, nationalism, patriotism, performance, pilgrimages, plural society, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, social justice, sri lankan society, teaching profession, vengeance, working class conditions, world events & processes

February 18, 2025 · 4:35 pm

Hero Stones in India in the Past

https://kvramakrishnarao.wordpress.com/2024/05/05/the-origin-development-and-importance-of-hero-stones-in-india-special-lecture-by-dr-poongundran-organized-by-the-indological-research-institute-iri-2/

rao’s Blog

Posted on May 5, 2024 by kvramakrishnarao

 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under architectural innovation, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, cultural transmission, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, population, religiosity, Saivism, the imaginary and the real, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

February 5, 2025 · 3:45 pm

The Parsi’s of Sri Lanka: A Small but Vibrant Community

Item in Daily Financial Times circulated by Keith Bennett

Very few people today have heard of the Parsi community in Sri Lanka, because there are only about 60 in all including men, women and children.Although small in number, the contributions to our nation by this intriguing community throughout the years, have left an indelible mark in the history of Sri Lanka. They have produced eminent citizens, including a Government Minister, a Judge of the Supreme Court, barons of business and industry, high ranking military officials, media and educational personalities and philanthropists, among others.

Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under art & allure bewitching, Colombo and Its Spaces, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, performance, religiosity, sri lankan society, tolerance, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

November 7, 2024 · 1:06 pm

Assorted Data on Walter T. Stace

A = A Note from Lucy McCann at the Bodleian Library in Oxford – Michael Roberts, some years back…

At the Institute of Commonwealth Studies there is an autobiography of W.T. Stace as a civil servant in Ceylon, written in 1964 – ………………see https://archives.l………………libraries.london.ac.uk/Details/archive/110022875

There is also something about his appointment to the Ceylon Civil Service in the India Office Papers at the British Library and some correspondence with him among the papers of philosopher George Edward Moore at Cambridge University Library – …………see https://archives.libraries.london.ac.uk/Details/archive110022/875

Best wishes,  Lucy

Historical view of Kandy. 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under art & allure bewitching, British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, ethnicity, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, life stories, literary achievements, meditations, politIcal discourse, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

October 10, 2024 · 11:59 pm

Engaging India …. With Love …. Dalrymple

Q and A with William Dalrymple, Historian …. in Q and A in The Weekend Australian Magazine, 21/22 September 2024

William Dalrymple was born in Scotland in 1965, and brought up on the shores of the Firth of Forth. He was educated at Ampleforth and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was first History Exhibitioner then Senior History Scholar.

He is the author of nine books about India and the Islamic world, including City of Djinns , White Mughals, The Last Mughal and Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Afghanistan, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, British imperialism, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, Empire loyalism, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, historical novel, Indian religions, Indian traditions, landscape wondrous, life stories, literary achievements, modernity & modernization, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, power politics, religiosity, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

September 30, 2024 · 7:51 pm

Fr Aloysius Pieris, s.j. on Cyril Ponnamperuma

Fr Aloysius Pieris .… now residing at the TULANA RSEARCH CENTRE in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

Cyril Ponnamperuma was an ex-Jesuit. As a former Jesuit scholastic, he studied at Sacred Heart College in Shambaganur (in the State of Madras or Tamilnadu). The Sacred Heart College was an international Jesuit Philosophate where he secured his Licentiate in Philosophy (L. Ph), as did many of us Lankan Jesuits.

Licentiate in Philosophy is a universally recognized ecclesiastical degree (not a BSc) and had nothing to do with the Madras University. That degree corresponds to an M. Ph in a secular university today.

Ponnamperuma on right with George Keyt

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, economic processes, education, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian religions, life stories, meditations, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, teaching profession, unusual people, world events & processes