A NATIVISTIC REACTION TO COLONIALISM: THE SINHALA-BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN SRI LANKA
K. N. 0. DHARMADASA University of Sri Lanka
Not very long after· the British had. succeeded in accomplishing what two earlier European powers -- the Portuguese and the Dutch - had failed to do for a period of about three hundred years1 a Com- mission of Inquiry sent by the Colonial Office to investigate and make recommendations on the island's affairs declared that Ceylon was the "fittest spot in our Eastern Dominions in which to plant the germ of European Civilization whence we may not unreasonably hope that it will hereafter spread over the whole of those vast territories."2 This hope never materialized. On the contrary within a few decades a resurgence of indigenous culture had begun which proved to be the foundation of the struggle for political independence. The form of the cultural resurgence which began in the mid 19th century appears to have been defined by nostalgic memories of a glorious past acting upon the humiliations of a dismal present. The great accomplishments of the Sinhalese in the fields of engineering, architecture and the arts had originated in an almost total dedication to the cause of Buddhism.3 National historiography has recorded that the island self-sufficient in worldly requisites, was in spiritual matters the repository of the Buddhist doctrine, as prophesied by the Buddha himself on his deathbed.4 Tradition claims that the self-content and