ABSTRACT
The nineteenth century was a watershed in the history of Buddhism in Ceylon. In 1796 the British succeeded the Dutch as rulers of the maritime provinces, the ‘Low Country’, a term which referred to the now comparatively populous and developed west and south of the island, with its capital at the port of Colombo. In 1815 they acquired control of Kandy, the city in the central highlands which had been the capital of the Sinhalese kingdom since the sixteenth century; they thus acquired political control over the whole island, a control they were not to relinquish till 1948. While a few of the kings over the previous centuries had favoured Śaivism at the expense of Buddhism, 1815 was the first time in its recorded history that the whole island had been brought under foreign domination and Buddhism had accordingly lost its symbolic place at the head of the nation’s affairs. On the other hand, it was also the first time since about the end of the twelfth century that the island was brought under single rule. There were small local uprisings against the British in the Kandyan provinces in 1818 and 1848, and disturbances (Buddhist-Muslim riots which the government aggravated by seriously overreacting) in 1915; but otherwise the country was not only unified but completely peaceful till Independence.
