Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of HistoryZoltán Biedermann, Alan Strathern The peoples of Sri Lanka have participated in far-flung trading networks, religious formations, and Asian and European empires for millennia. This interdisciplinary volume sets out to draw Sri Lanka into the field of Asian and Global History by showing how the latest wave of scholarship has explored the island as a ‘crossroads’, a place defined by its openness to movement across the Indian Ocean.Experts in the history, archaeology, literature and art of the island from c.500 BCE to c.1850 CE use Lankan material to explore a number of pressing scholarly debates. They address these matters from their varied disciplinary perspectives and diverse array of sources, critically assessing concepts such as ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and localisation, and elucidating the subtle ways in which the foreign may be resisted and embraced at the same time. The individual chapters, and the volume as a whole, are a welcome addition to the history and historiography of Sri Lanka, as well as studies of the Indian Ocean region, kingship, colonialism, imperialism, and early modernity. |
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advv AISLS Albert Museum Anthropological Research Project Anuradhapura Archaeological and Anthropological Arts author’s photograph authors axis 6 o’clock back panel Barber Institute basement mouldings Bequest of William Berkwitz Bhikkhu Birmingham Buddhist Felicities Buddhist Poetry Ceylon Collins Colombo Coolidge Cosmopolitanism Dambadeni Katikāvata Dharmakirti Dimitrov dosa Five Precepts front panel Global History Godakumbura Gold solidus grams guna Harrassowitz hinterland Indian Ocean Inventory Jātaka Jewel Mind kārikās kāvya Kāvyādarśa Kökila Sandeśa late sixteenth century lateral panel left Literature in Pali London LR489 Whitting Mahāvamsa mid-sixteenth century monk Nirvana Oxford University Press Pāli canon Pali Text Society Paranavitana Pariccheda Peradeniya Poetry and Colonialism Polonnaruva Polonnaruva Archaeological Portuguese in Sri probably Kōṭṭe Rāmāyana Rāstrakūta Ratnašrijñāna Ratnašritikā Robinson casket Sangharakkhita Sanskrit Śāstra Săvul SandéSaya Schatzkammer Schatzkammer der Residenz Sheldon Pollock Sinhala Sinhalese Sinhalese Literature solidus of Theodosius Sri Lanka Subodhálankāra Theodosius II Theravāda trans Tree of Jesse Valentinian III verse Victoria and Albert Wijayawardhana