Category Archives: pilgrimages

January 18, 2024 · 10:46 am

Searching for Familial Roots: An Odyssey …. with Lamentations

Bernard Van Cuylenburg ….. presenting an essay penned in 2020 – one which has had highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi … and pictorial additions

This is the story about a family – a personal story which I wish to share with a wider world. This family consisted of four brothers who lived in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. They were the Eagars and one day, following catastrophic events in the land of their birth, they set their sights on far horizons and left their motherland for a little island still known today as the ‘pearl of the Indian ocean’. One of them was my great grandfather, Halley Eagar.

A partial map of Ireland with a miniature crate of potatoes depicting the potato famine of 1845 – 1852

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December 24, 2023 · 6:02 pm

Galgiriya Mountain and Its Unique Monastic Ruins

Prageeth Sampath Karunathilaka, in Daily Mirror, 20 December 2023, where the title reads thus: “Longest mountain in Sri Lanka: How Saliya-Asokamala shaped the history of Galgiriya Mountain” ….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Galgiriya mountain seen from afar

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September 28, 2023 · 1:29 am

An “Indian Ocean World Museum” in Sri Lanka?

Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, presenting a proposal with this fuller title “Concept Note for an Indian Ocean World Museum, Researc and Resource Center”

 Sri Lanka is ideally located for an Indian Ocean World Museum in what has been termed the “Asian 21st Century.”  People of diverse cultures, religions, histories, and linguistic communities have mixed and mingled for centuries along the ancient spice and silk trade routes of the Indian Ocean where Lanka is centrally placed.

Map from Arundathie abeysinghe’s article referred to below

 

 

 

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September 27, 2023 · 7:21 pm

EA Hornell’s Photographs Revealed & Scrutinised

Antonia Laurence Allen

EA Hornell 

 

 

The National Trust Sri Lanka is holding its 154th session of its Monthly Lecture Series on “Reversing cultural erasure: looking again at the photographs of E. A. Hornel” by Antonia Laurence Allen, ….. The lecture will be held via ZOOM this Wednesday  at 6.00 PM

Zoom Link  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87283573525

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July 10, 2023 · 6:29 pm

Intertwining Pathways in Past Lanka Time …. A Tale. A Tale

Synopsis by the Publishers

In the month of 11 in the year 2048 of the Buddhist era, how many people knew that the South of Lanka would face a deadly cyclone which would change the entire history of the country. The lion race came to know of the year 1505 of the Christian era only then. The life of ten-year-old Hethu who lived on the coastline of the South changed in the same way as everybody else’s life. The life of 10-year-old Juan who worked on the Portuguese ship “Maria Helena” also changed on the same day. Their lives became intertwined with that of a monk named Rahula who lived in a Vihare in Kotte. Destiny brought them together in a strange way. It is through their meeting that the thoughts and knowledge of the realities of life changed each one of them. They see God and man in different ways. “Balakotu and Nauka ” is a new kind of novel.

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June 13, 2023 · 12:16 am

Special Vistas For Tourists in Sri Lanka Today

Lee Tulloch, in Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June 2023, where the title reads = “Why you should visit this undersold, teardrop-shaped island right now”

If there’s a country that could do with a lot of love right now, it’s Sri Lanka. Over the past three decades, the island nation has been ravaged by conflict and disaster, beginning with the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed 30,000 lives, and the 26-year-long civil war, which ended in 2009.

It had just re-emerged as a popular tourist destination when, on Easter Sunday 2019, an Islamic group, in retaliation for the Christchurch attacks thousands of kilometres away, bombed three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo, unnerving the tourists who had returned in record numbers.

Sri Lanka’s famous Nine Arch Bridge.
Sri Lanka’s famous Nine Arch Bridge.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES

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May 20, 2023 · 1:33 am

Memories of Peradeniya University Campus Sparked by A Visit in 2012

Rex Olegasegaram, whose favöured title runs thus: “Peradeniya Campus – A Visit Down Memory Lane

In November, 2012 when I drove into the Peradeniya University along with my wife Navaranjini, it was indeed a wonderful visit down memory lane covering my very enjoyable undergraduate spell in 1955/59. Then known as the Peradeniya campus of the University of Ceylon, it has indeed seen a number of physical changes in the interim period with new Halls of Residence, some significant changes to existing buildings (e.g. the old tinned roof of the Economics Department replaced with new modern structures), new approaches etc. Notwithstanding, a number of features that obtained at that time still continue: the older Halls of Residence, some lecture theatres, the library including the “pilloring” area, the gymnasium and the sport venues.

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May 18, 2023 · 12:00 am

How The War Memorial in Colombo came into Being

Dr. Narme F. Wickremesinghe, in the Sunday Times …………….. https://www.sundaytimes.lk/071111/Plus/plus00012.html  …….. where the  title is  “The Genesis of the National Remembrance Park”

The red poppy which s”ymbolizes the blood of war heroes is from the poppy that grows in Flanders, France, a Remembrance Park for the war dead. It was at 11 a.m. on November 11 (- the 11th month) 1918 that the Armistice was signed, bringing to an end the First World War. The war heroes are remembered on the Sunday closest to November 11th at 11 a.m. with two minutes silence and all life comes to a standstill including electronic channels and vehicular movement. In this article I will give you an account of how Sri Lanka’s Flanders – the Remembrance Park at Mailapitiya, off Kandy, came into being.

 

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May 14, 2023 · 1:26 am

Garry Sobers Feted in Sri Lanka in October, 2015

NEWS ITEM ONE: …. Sri Lanka welcomes Sobers …. http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=sports/sri-lanka-welcomes-sobers

One of the world’s legendary cricketers, Sir Garfield (Gary) Sobers, arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday to a warm welcome. Sobers’ visit coincides with the ongoing Sri Lanka-West Indies Test series where a trophy to honour him along with the island’s ex-captain Michael Tissera will be awarded to the winners.

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May 12, 2023 · 8:38 pm

Bernard’s Odyssey in Sri Lanka: Further Marvels

Bernard Van Cuylenberg, whose chosen title is  “An Odyssey: The Search for Heritage, Part Two”

Nilaweli Beach in 2020 –Pix by one Mike Roberts

PROLOGUE: Saying “Goodbye” is never easy. The “Goodbyes” I bid to the Staff at Nilaveli Beach Hotel after a relaxed idyllic holiday following the first leg of my tour was hard. This was where I cut my teeth on life’s road and the ties that bind me to this Hotel were, and remain, very strong. But there was a long road ahead, a road I never travelled before. Travice Ondaatjie, whose late Dad Mr. George Ondaatjie was my Boss when I worked for Nilaveli Beach Hotels Limited drove up to Nilaveli on Friday the 24th and told me that on Sunday the 26th March we would leave for Passekudah, Arugam Bay and travel down the Eastern seaboard right down to the Lahuggala National Park in Amparai to visit the archaeological sites there, and then head for Wellawaya and finally to Colombo.

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