Religion and Legitimation of Power in Sri Lanka

The volume is structured as a collection of essays focused on the interaction between religion and power across different periods of Sri Lankan history. The opening essays examine Buddhist historiography, especially the Mahāvaṃsa, and show how chronicle literature shaped political thinking, sacred history, and the memory of kingship. Alice Greenwald’s essay studies Duṭṭhagāmaṇī through the symbolic relationship between relic, war, historiography, and royal legitimacy. Other chapters analyze the Dhammadīpa tradition, the ideal social order represented in the Ceylonese chronicles, and the role of kingship and the Saṅgha in legitimating rule in Anuradhapura. The middle chapters move into medieval Sri Lanka, including the political charter of Buddhism, royal prerogative, the Polonnaruva period, the Gajabāhu synchronism, and Kandyan religious-political authority. The later chapters turn to modern issues, including contradictions in Sinhalese Buddhism, Bandaranaike’s legitimation of power through Buddhist ideals, and the Sri Lanka Vinaya Vardena Society as an example of Buddhism without bhikkhus. Overall, the book presents Sri Lankan political history as a complex field in which Buddhist doctrine, monastic authority, royal ritual, sacred relics, chronicles, nationalism, and social reform repeatedly interact to construct public legitimacy.