ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the spatial imaginary of the evangelical Protestant missionaries, who arrived in Sri Lanka from 1805 onwards. Predicated on exclusion and indivisibility, this imaginary drew a non-negotiable distinction between ‘heathen’ and Christianized space. Charged spatial vocabulary was utilized to express the missionary struggle to proselytize, namely to persuade Sri Lankans to move across into Christianized space. The chapter ends with missionary reactions to the British colonial administration’s seeming endorsement of Buddhism, through allowing civil servants to formally enter ‘heathen’ space or inviting Buddhists to bring their rituals into civic, government-controlled space. I demonstrate here that the missionary imaginary was not shared by the British administration and, therefore, that Sri Lankan Buddhists were faced with diversity within colonial spatial practice.
