Seminar-Workshop
on Asia-Pacific Forum for Library and Achives Management
Training
Bangalore, India, UTC- June 1 - 30, 2004
Sri
Lanka Report
Background
The
Sinhalese arrived in Sri Lanka late in the 6th century
B.C., probably from northern India. Buddhism was introduced
beginning in about the mid-third century B.C., and
a great civilization developed at the cities of Anuradhapura
(kingdom from ciraca 200 B.C. to circa 1000 A.D) and
Polonnaruwa (from about 1070 to 1200). In the 14th
century, a south Indian dynasty seized power in the
north and established a Tamil Kingdom. Occupied by
the Portuguese in the 16th century and by the Dutch
in the 17th century, the island was ceded to the British
in 1796, became a crown colony in 1802, and was united
under British rule by 1815. As Ceylon, it became independent
in 1948; its name was changed to Sri Lanka in 1972.
Tensions between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil
separatists erupted in violence in the mid-1980s.
Tens of thousands have died in an ethnic war that
continues to fester. After two decade of fighting,
the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
began a ceasefire in December 2001, with Norway brokering
peace negotiations.
Location:
Southern Asia, island in the Indian Ocean, South of
India
Area: total: 65,610 sq km.
Climate: tropical monsoon; northeast monsoon (December
to March); Soputhwest monsoon (June to October)
Geography: note-strategic location near major Indian
Ocean sea lanes
People
Population:
19,905,165 (2003 est)
Note- Since the outbreak of hostilities between the
government and armed Tamil swparatists in the mid-1980s,
several hundred thousand Tamil civilians have fled
the island: as of yearend 2000, approximately 65,000
were housed in 131 refugee camps in south India, another
40,000 lived outside the Indian camps, and more than
200,000 Tamils have sought refuge in the West (July
2004 est.)
Nationality:
Sri Lankan
Ethnic groups: Sinhalese 74%, Tamil 18%, Moor 7%,
Burgher, Malay, and Vedda 1 %
Religions: Buddhist 70%, Hindu 15%, Christian 8%,
Muslim 7% (1999)
Languages: Sinhala (Official and national language)
74%, Tamil (National language) 18%, other 8%
Note-English is commonly used in government and is
spoken competently by about 10 % of the population
Country name: conventional long form: Democratic Socialist
Republic of Sri Lanka
conventional short form: Sri Lanka
former: Serendib, Ceylon
Government type: republic
Capital: Colombol note- Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
is the legislative capital
National
Archives of Sri Lanka
History
As
early as the fifth century AD, an officer was in charge
of the King’s Archives in Sri Lanka. The nineteenth-century
account of Hay Macdowall reveals that an officer called
“Maha Mohotti” maintained the archives
of the Palace of Kandy during the eighteenth and early
nineteenth century. Systematic record-keeping, however,
was introduced by the Dutch who occupied the coastal
districts of Sri Lanka between 1640 and 1656 and after
that period in Colombo. In 1901, under the Britist,
the post of archivist was created, and the Department
of Government Archives was established in 1947. After
independence in 1948, the National Archives Law no.
48 was enacted in 1973 and the Department of National
Archives was established. In 1981 the Presidential
Archives and reference service was created to preserve
the official and semi-official records of the Executive
Presidents. The current repository is an impressive
building that was constructed between 1970 and 1976.
Subsequently, the archives were transferred to this
building. Since 1986, the repository’s capacities
have fully utilized.
Holdings
The
holdings of the National Archives include the following:
·
public records, consisting of Dutch period records
(1640-1796), British period records (1796-1947) and
records since independence (from 1948 onwards);
· legal deposits, consisting of newspapers
in Sri Lanka (from 1832 onward, in Sinhala since 1862,
in Tamil since 1864, in English since 1832 and other
languages since 1869) and publications printed in
Sri Lanka (from 1885 onward);
· donated, purchased and collected records,
consisting of private manuscripts and books of individuals
and institutions, historical manuscripts from temples
and private individuals, the Horagolla Library of
the Bandaranaike family and the Times collection of
paper cuttings and photographs;
· maps of the Portuguese, Dutch and British
periods (1505-1947) and maps produced since independence
(Surveyor General’s maps);
· microfilms and microfiches of Portuguese
records (1505-1656), Dutch records (18th century),
British records (19th century), temple manuscripts
and newspapers;
· governmental publications, consisting of
Government Gazettes (from 1802 onwards), Blue Books
(1821-1837), sessional papers (from 1862 onward),
Administration Reports (from 1867 onwards) and Hansards
(from 1870 onwards);
· books on Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka history, archival
science, record management and conservation;
· audio-visual material, consisting of colour
slides of temple paintings, cassettes and tapes of
folk music and videos containing speeches of Excutive
Presidents and cultural subjects.
Theological
College of Lanka, Pilimatalawa, Sri Lanka
The
Theological College of Lanka founded in 1963and affliated
with Senate of Serampore College, India.
Sponsered by: Methodist Church, Sri Lanka;
Church of Ceylon (Colombo Diocese);
Church of Ceylon (Kurunagale Diocese);
Baptist Sangamaya;
Presbyterian Church.
The
college is conducting B.Th, B.D, Dipcs cources. In
future college will start M.Theol programme.
Library
Books:
21, 000 volumes ( English, Sinhala, Tamil)
Periodicals/Magazine: 100 (English, Sinhala, Tamil)
Classification: Dewey Decimal Classification
Cataloguing: Manual Catalogue system. We will try
to computerize our library books.
Photocopier available.
Text book programme: English books translate into
Sinhala
Archives
– Church History Documentation Centre.
Holdings
Theological
college of Lanka punblications (journals, Newsletters,
translated books), Individual Church history; Christian
schools history in Sri Lanka, 17th century Dutch minutes,
Baptism registrars, Souvenirs, Photographs, Private
Collections (Bishop Lakshman Wickramasinghe, D T Niles,
etc.) Christian organizations (YMCA,YWCA, NCC etc.),
Annual Reports, Rare books, Ashram movement history,
History of Homes (Talawa, House of Joy, Paynter’s
Home, Evyling Nursary etc.), Periodicals, Phamplets,
Newspapers cuttings etc.
We
celebrated 40th anniversary in 2003. At that time
we exhibited our Church History Documents. We plan
to keep mobile exhibition in our country.
We
wish to present two stories.
A
story from the Pre-European period
From
1505 three European powers, namely the Portuguese,
Dutch and the British, captured Sri Lanka (then known
by many other names). The Christian story of Sri Lanka
is generally known from the 16th century with the
arrival of the Portuguese. There is, however, another
story we can date back to earlier times. This story
is an ancient story. According to this story, there
were Christian communities long before the missionaries
arrived in the 16th century.
Archaelogical
evidence
a.
There was a cross, found during excavations in 1912,
in Anuradhapura, one-time capital of Sri Lanka. This
cross is now in the Anuradhapura museum. This cross
is similar to those found in India. Persian Christians
lived in Sri Lanka from the 5th century. They brought
this cross with them.
b. There is a bowl used for religious cleansing. This
bowl is in museum in Vavuniya, to the north of Anuradhapura.
Persian Christians are supposed to have used for baptisms.
A
story from the Dutch period
The
Dutch captured coastal area of Sri Lanka in 1656.
The Portuguese had been in control of this area since
1505 until then and had introduced their faith. Because
of that, there were a number of Roman Catholics. The
Dutch harassed the Portuguese and Roman Catholics
during the Dutch rule. Joseph Vaas arrived in Sri
Lanka during this period in disguise, and strengthened
the faith of the Roman Catholics. The king of Kandy
welcomed him. He traveled around, mainly keeping to
the border of the Kandyan kingdom. The Dutch also
persecuted the Buddhists during this period. They
destroyed many Buddhist places of worship. It was
a time of persecution. This history torments our people
until now, and for the slightest thing, non-Christians
refer to the harassment during the Dutch period.
There
is another story relate from this period. This is
a very unusual story. There is a Buddhist Vihara called
Ride Vihara at Ridigama on the border of the central
part of Sri Lanka. There are some interesting ceramic
tiles in the Vihara, on the flower table in front
of the sleeping Buddha. There are about 100 of them.
There are pictures on some of those ceramic tiles.
Those pictures depict certain incidents in Christ’s
life. One of those tiles contains a picture of two
persons carrying an infant. Some say that the infant
is the baby Jesus. Another marble has a picture of
Christ doing a miracle from sky in front of two persons.
These tiles are not fixed in any proper manner. They
face in different directions. It could be that even
the masons did not have any idea what these pictures
were.
How
did pictures depicting Christ come into a Buddhist
place of worship? A Dutch Governor is supposed to
have donated these ceramic tiles. Probably the Buddhist
sangha would have accepted these ceramic tiles because
the Governor gifted it. Although Ridi Vihare was in
the Kandyan kingdom, there was some connection between
the Dutch government and the Kandyan kingdom. The
Dutch government supplied ships to send Sinhala envoys
to Siyam (Myanmar) to bring upasampada when Buddhism
was at a low level. It could be that the Dutch governor
donated these ceramic tiles to the sangha at Ridi
Vihare in appreciation of their work.
The
Theological College of Lanka, Pilimatalawa, launched
a very exciting programme with the creation of the
Church History Documentation Centre (CHDC). It is
only about 15 years old. Until then the resources
for writing and studying history were found in archives
in Europe. Most of the resources on the history of
Christianity in Sri Lanka were in Lisbon (Portugal),
The Netherlands, and Britain. Further, the few local
resources available were scattered in different denominational
headquarters in Sri Lanka or with individuals. The
CHDC takes an ecumenical approach in collecting together
various resources scattered all over the island and
preserves them. It was said that some time back, certain
individual of a particular denomination was destroying
old records when another official walked into the
headquarters. This official was not able to save those
records. Further, after the burning of the Jaffna
library in,1981, and during and after the 1983 riots
in Sri Lanka many other documents, mainly from the
north of the country, were destroyed. If all the valuable
documents can be collected, stored, and preserved
in one place we can avoid such situations.
We
have a major uphill task to identify the persons who
have important documents. For that purpose someone
has to be in the field, constantly traveling to different
parts of the country. Once we identify documents,
then we have to collect and preserve the documents
of all Churches, events and individuals in an ecumenical
setting. A researcher will have the opportunity to
refer to most of the resources in one place. For this
reason the CHDC is important. We are only at the initial
stages, and we have to collect and preserve the prevailing
documents. In this way, we can find many interesting
documents by which to write our history using the
resources of our people. We presume that this history
is both connected and disconnected with the history
of the colonial period.
The
history of Christianity in Sri Lanka is an exciting
history. To make it even more interesting and exciting,
we need to identify new resources, and preserve them
in an ecumenical setting for use by our present historians
and by future historians.
The
Sri Lanka country report presented by Sarah J Niles
& Deepa N Rajarathne on 4th June, 2004 at Ecumenical
Resource Centre, United Theological College, 63, Millers
Road, Bagaloore for The Library and Archives Management
for Asia – Basific Forum.
Theological College of Lanka
Pilimatalawa
Sri Lanka.
T/p:0094-81-2575278
T/fax: 0094-81-2575618
e-mail: tclpri@slt.lk