A R I ' S

Gateway
to
Sri Lanka

I am ARI WITHANAGE  of Sutton, Surrey in the United Kingdom. I am an expatriate of Sri Lanka, who has made his home in the United Kingdom. Like many thousands of other Sri Lankan expats, I still love Sri Lanka.

I was born in Matara, the capital of Ruhuna. RUHUNA is referred to as the Land of the Heroes, and no wonder I salute the sons of Ruhuna who fought and laid their lives, both in the past and at present, for the unity, integrity and one nationhood of our Paradise Island in the East. I was eduacated at Rahula College, Matara, from where I entered the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya (near Kandy). Since graduation I left the sunnier climes of Sri Lanka and made my way to a cold and unfriendly environment in the West.

So, here I am in the salubrious Surrey, one of the most prosperous Home Counties of the United Kingdom. I work in London for an organisation called the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority (in short called the London Fire Brigade) as a Computer Systems Administrator. My office is situated just south of the River Thames, in fact overlooking the river, at a place called Albert Embankment. Sitting at my desk, I can virtually see the time of the day on th Big Ben at the Houses of Parliament across the river.

I have developed two other websites to promote information and knowledge about Sri Lanka. If you want to jump to my other web pages the URL addresses are as follows. Click on either of them and you will launch yourself into that Island Paradise where all your dreams will come true.

A Forum for Sri Lankan Expats  - Ari Withanage's Virgin Net Home Page

A Gateway to Sri Lanka  - Ari Withanage's Members Tripod Web Page

This Homepage is dedicated to ...
those expatriates of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) who have made their home in the UK over the last 25 years, and particularly to those who hail from the South (Ruhuna) of the Island. There are hundreds and thousands of Sri Lankans living in the UK, but still nurture a nostalgic desire for their roots in the towns and villages of Sri Lanka. This page is a meeting place for those who wish to make their presence known and express their wishes and interests.

It is a well known fact that all Sri Lankans who now live in the UK as British citizens are totally loyal to their Queen and country. They are very well integrated with the local communities in the UK, both socially and economically. This, perhaps, is due to that the Sri Lankan community in the UK has always been scattered, and they never congregated into living together in any 'pocket' or 'stereotyped' locality of London or any other city for that reason. This is all the more reason for some Sri Lankans to feel themselves isolated and thus cherish a longing for news and tidings of their 'home' whenever and wherever they meet. The more you become secure and settled in this newly adopted country, the more you begin to feel and empathize with the tumultuous upheaval taking place in their island home far away. At present the island's history is going through such a turmoil due to a bloody and savage war waged against terrorism.

It is paradoxical that despite the terror and the turmoil inflicted by one of the deadliest and most fanatical terrorist organizations in the world (the LTTE or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam), the serenity and the sanity of the majority of Sri Lankans still prevail. The undisputed natural beauty of the island and the charm and hospitality of her inhabitants attract many thousands of tourists from all over the world year in year after. There has NOT been a single incident in the history of the 14 year war that a tourist has been affected. The ballot and the power of democracy have prevailed against the bullet and the fear of terrorism. The continuity of normal life in regard to political, economic and social activities goes on in defiance of terrorism.

Let this page bring you memories of the peaceful times you enjoyed in Sri Lanka. May the most popular images of Sri Lanka, the Lion and the Lion Flag re-kindle your love and affection for the Island Paradise you left behind. It is my objective to develop this homepage into a comprehensive web site as contacts and links grow during the course of time. I intend to have a column or a 'notice board' type feature where your can express your views or comments about the current political situation in Sri Lanka.

This site makes a particular welcome to any old boys or Old Boys Associations of
Rahula College Matara;  Mahinda, Richmond and St. Alosius Colleges of Galle and any old girls or Old Girls Associations of Matara Sujatha and Galle Sanghamitta Vidyalayas to contact me so that a register of Ruhuna Old Boys and Girls can be set up in order to maintain and strengthen their existing contacts and, perhaps, to re-establish any long lost contacts.

A Profile Of Sri Lanka

Destination Ruhuna

Best Links to Info on Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has had a continuous record of settled and civilized life for more than two millennia. The content and direction of this civilization has been shaped by that of the Indian subcontinent. The island's two major ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, and its two dominant religious cultures, Buddhist and Hindu, made their way onto the island from India. The various expressions of literate culture parallel those of India, and overall the culture and civilization of Sri Lanka are of the Indic pattern.

Yet it is also clear that in many respects the island's civilization has achieved an individuality and identity that distinguish it from its neighbour. Cultural traits brought from India have undergone independent growth and change. The Sinhala language, which grew out of Indo-Aryan dialects, exists only in Sri Lanka and has its own distinguished literary tradition. Likewise, Buddhism, which has a long history on the island, has all but disappeared from India.

A common experience of European colonial rule and its modernizing influences brought Sri Lanka closer to India and, with the attainment of independence in the mid-20th century, both countries developed similar social institutions and ideologies.

The historic connection between Sri Lanka and India was the result mainly of geographic proximity. Geologically an extension of peninsular India, Sri Lanka's separation from the Indian mainland could possibly be as recent as the Miocene Epoch. Historically, the island has also been influenced by its location along the east-west sea route. Even before the discovery of the oceanic route from Europe to India in the 15th century, Sri Lanka was a meeting point for Eastern and Western trade. The island was known to Greek and Roman cartographers and sailors and later to Persian, Armenian, and Arab navigators. With the coming of the Europeans, the strategic importance of Sri Lanka increased, and Western maritime powers fought to control its shores.

The island's first human settlers were probably tribes of the proto-Australoid ethnic group, akin to the pre-Dravidian hill tribes of southern India. Remnants of these people were absorbed by the Indo-Aryans who immigrated from India about the 5th century BC and developed into the Sinhalese. The Tamils were probably later immigrants from Dravidian India, their migrations being spread out over a period dating from about the 3rd century BC to about AD 1200. The Tamil element was strengthened in the 19th century with the immigration of southern Indians to work on the plantations.

Sri Lanka possesses a continuous historical tradition preserved in written form by Buddhist chroniclers. The core of this tradition,the chronicle called the Mahavamsa ("Great Chronicle") and its continuation called the Culavamsa ("Little Chronicle") constitutes a literary record of the establishment and growth of Sinhalese political power and of the Buddhist faith on the island.

The history of Sri Lanka is inseparably intertwined with the history of Buddhism in the island. Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) is the oldest continually Buddhist country in the world, Buddhism being the major religion in the island since its introduction in the 2nd century BC. Monks from Sri Lanka have an important role in spreading both Theravada and Mahayana throughout South-east Asia. It was Sri Lankan nuns who introduced the Sangha of nuns into China in 433AD. In the 16th century the Portuguese conquered Sri Lanka and savagely persecuted Buddhism as did the Dutch who followed them.

When the British won control at the beginning of the 19th century Buddhism was well into decline, a situation that encouraged the English missionaries that then began to flood the island. But against all expectations the monastic and lay community brought about a major revival from about 1860 onwards, a movement that went hand in hand with growing nationalism. Since then Sri Lankan monks and expatriate lay people have been prominent in spreading Theravada in Asia, the West and even in Africa.

Later traditions usually called the Savakayana Hinayana, a derogatory name meaning the Little or Narrow Vehicle. However the name Savakayana, meaning the Vehicle of the Hearers, is both more courteous and more accurate in that for at least the first 300 years the Buddha's teachings were orally transmitted i.e. they had to be heard in order to be learned by heart and transmitted.

The only Savakayana school that still flourishes is the Theravada which was introduced into Sri Lanka at the time of King Asoka (approximately 250 BC) and later spread from there throughout South-East Asia. The Savakayana as represented by the Theravada school is characterised by minimal doctrinal development from the earliest versions of the Buddhist teachings and by an emphasis on Vinaya by monks.

Theravada is still found in Sri Lanka and Burma, where it successfully weathered Western colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and in Thailand. In Cambodia, it was decimated by Communism in the 1970s. Today, Theravada has gained many new adherents in India, Malaysia, Singapore and particularly in Indonesia. It has also gained a significant following in the West.

The religion and philosophy founded in India in the 6th and 5th century B.C. by Siddhartha Gautama, is now called the Buddhism. One of the great Asian religions, it teaches the practice of Meditation and the observance of moral precepts. The basic doctrines include the "four noble truths" taught by the Buddha: existence is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire; there is a cessation of suffering, called Nirvana, or total transcendence; and there is a path leading to the end of suffering, the "eightfold noble path" of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

Buddhism defines reality in terms of cause-and-effect relations, thus accepting the doctrine common to Indian religions of samsara, or bondage to the repeating cycle of births and deaths according to one's physical and mental actions. The ideal of early Buddhism was the perfected saint, 'arahant' or 'arhat', purified of all desires.Of the various Buddhist schools and sects that arose, the Theravada school of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) is generally accepted as representative of early Buddhist teaching. Mahayana Buddhism has as a central concept the potential Buddhahood innate in all beings. Its ideal for both layman and monk is the bodhisattva, the perfected one who postpones entry into nirvana (although meriting it) until all others may be similarly enlightened.

Buddhism was greatly strengthened in the 3d century B.C. by the support of the Indian emperor Asoka, but it declined in India in succeeding centuries and was virtually extinct there by the 13th century., while it spread and flourished in Ceylon (3d century A.D.) and Tibet (7th century A.D.). In the 1st century A.D. Buddhism entered China, where it encountered resistance from Confucianism and Taoism, and from there spread to Korea (4th century A.D.) and to Japan (6th century A.D.). Two important sects that became established in the 5th century A.D. and have greatly increased in popularity are Zen Buddhism, featuring the practice of meditation to achieve "sudden enlightenment," and Pure Land Buddhism, or Amidism, a devotional Mahayana sect centered on the worship of the Buddha Amitabha, who vowed to save all sentient beings by bringing them to rebirth in his realm, the "Western Paradise." Buddhism still flourishes in Asia and has an influence in the modern Western world.

Buddhism-Related Sites

Buddhism Page

Theravada Buddhism

Dhamma Web

Buddhist Cultural Centre