Buddhism and Ethnicity in Sri Lanka: A Historical Analysis

The book is organized into six parts. Part I frames the problem through violence, identity, Sinhala and Tamil symbolic worlds, and the idea of one nation with two minds. Part II examines the emergence of the Dhammadīpa concept and the normative structure of Sinhala Buddhist civilization. Part III turns to the historical arrival and representation of Tamils, including narratives of political encounter, kingship, invasion, and resistance. Part IV studies the Portuguese, Dutch, and British periods, showing how colonial power, plural society, administrative systems, and constitutional developments altered ethnic and political relations. Part V focuses on Buddhism within modern Sri Lanka, including refuge in the Buddha, the relationship between tradition and change, the two wheels of the dhamma, and the role of the Saṅgha as “sons of the Buddha.” Part VI returns to Buddhism in a world of violence and reflects on apocalyptic and millenarian visions, ending with unresolved agendas for Sri Lanka’s future. Overall, the work presents Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis as a historically accumulated condition shaped by religion, political imagination, colonial transformation, communal identity, and the unresolved tension between Buddhist moral ideals and modern nationalist conflict.