Forum for Culture

Narratives of early settlements of Sri Lanka: the unwritten

By ci ⋅ June 30, 2008 ⋅ ⋅ Post a comment

The fourth presentation in the series also in the Sinhala language was delivered by Ananda Tissa Kumara (Professor of Sinhala, University of Colombo). Tissa Kumara attempted to add a new chapter to memories of migration and settlement in recent Sri Lankan history by undertaking an initial reading of myths that refer to the dynamics of population settlement in Sri Lanka. Two stories of this kind that have enormous political power are the stories of Vijaya and Gajabha. Tissa Kumara looked at a number of 18th century texts known as Wanni Literature written in Sinhala that also refers to settlement dynamics and attempted to explore aspects of this process that might not have been narrated by the established tradition. The presentation was an effective attempt at outlining the specificities of a subaltern history.

A lively discussion took place moderated by Janaki Jayawardea from the Department of History, University of Colombo. There was significant interest among the audience to gain more information on the texts themselves as they are not widely available to the public.