ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the control and management of the affairs of the Sri Pada temple under new administrative and legal technologies of colonial powers, and the disputes that arose as a result of such control. By the mid-nineteenth century, the colonial state had introduced a new set of administrative technologies for the management of temple affairs on the island that would take the control of the site out of the hands of the monks and put it in the hands of local landowners. Under the new governing technologies, the District Buddhist Temporalities Committees (DBTC) was abolished and administrative powers were returned to the Chief Priest of Temples. The chapter shows that the Sri Pada temple has not been governed under the influence of particular (colonial) governmentality or a set of legal technologies but under several governmentalities or sets of legal technologies.
