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ID:
168813
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper aims to study the history and significance of Vibhishana in Sri Lanka, an important character in the Ramayana, one of the two most renowned classical epics originating from India that became popular in South and Southeast Asia. Although the protagonist of the Ramayana, Rama, along with his spouse Sita and ardent ally Hanuman, are venerated throughout Hindu and Buddhist South and Southeast Asia, a Vibhishana cult is only found in Sri Lanka. How this came about is the central question investigated in this paper. Towards this end, historical and cultural factors specific to Sri Lanka are interrogated to tease out the circumstances that have contributed to Vibhishana’s divinity. Representations of Vibhishana in literature, art and temple worship are scrutinised to problematise Vibhishana’s significance within the Buddhist religious cosmos and his continued relevance even during the recent emergence of the cult of Ravana, his mighty older brother in the Ramayana.
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| 2 |
ID:
168812
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| Summary/Abstract |
This essay explores the identification of the island of Sri Lanka with the ‘Lankapura’ of Ramayana literary fame, tracing the transmission of the mythical geography of the epic from late medieval South India to Sri Lankan Tamil temple literature. The invading Cholas of the tenth century were the first to identify Sri Lanka as the ‘Lanka’ of the Ramayana, a geographical equivalence maintained by the Arya Cakravarti rulers who dubbed themselves ‘guardians of Rama’s bridge’ (cētu kāvalan). I highlight the uniquely sympathetic treatment of Ravana by the Hindus of eastern Sri Lanka, and explore the likelihood that Tamil impressions of Ravana impacted his appearance in Sinhala Buddhist literature from the fifteenth century onwards.
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| 3 |
ID:
168814
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyses the ways in which a little-known Sinhala text called the Ravana Rajavaliya articulates a moral topography of late medieval Sri Lanka. Rather than expressing a kind of all-consuming xenophobia in response to social and cultural difference, the text indexes a set of local political responses to the surge in social mobility occasioned by changing patterns of trans-regional circulation in Sri Lanka’s southwest. We argue that ‘others’ are represented in terms of proximity to a generalised moral order, one which highlights desirable forms of selfhood as instruments for assimilation within an emerging state society.
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| 4 |
ID:
113715
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| 5 |
ID:
168816
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper considers the appropriation of Ravana, the demon-king antagonist of the famed Ramayana epic, as a Sinhala Buddhist cultural hero in the context of twenty-first-century, post-war Sri Lanka. We highlight the irony of the recent Buddhist appropriation of Ravana as a signifier of indigeneity and sovereignty, given that he has already been employed in this capacity in the Tamil Hindu context for nearly a century. We note several convergences between the ‘Sinhala Ravana’ phenomenon and its Tamil counter-narrative, including a shared archive of textual material invoked as evidence, the introduction of alleged physical evidence as proof of Ravana’s historicity, and a sympathetic outlook on Ravana’s character, emphasising his qualities as a learned and righteous king.
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| 6 |
ID:
000840
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| Publication |
Hyderabad, Orient Longman, 1997.
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| Description |
xiv, 259p.: figures, mapshbk
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| Standard Number |
8125013849
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Copies: C:1/I:0,R:0,Q:0
Circulation
| Accession# | Call# | Current Location | Status | Policy | Location |
| 042217 | 954.02/KOC 042217 | Main | On Shelf | General | |
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| 7 |
ID:
027634
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| Publication |
New Delhi, Metropolitan Book Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1989.
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| Description |
xiv, 472p.hbk
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| Standard Number |
8120002822
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Copies: C:1/I:0,R:0,Q:0
Circulation
| Accession# | Call# | Current Location | Status | Policy | Location |
| 030822 | 954.01/BHA 030822 | Main | On Shelf | General | |
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