ABSTRACT
In modern times most traditions have had the experience because of the explosive spread, especially in the 19th century, of a potent mix of Western ideas and forces: colonialism, capitalism, Christianity, liberalism. In India itself the interplay was complicated by the fact that the subcontinent which Britain came to subdue was itself a melange: it had scarcely coalesced as it did later into two or three major traditions. If India created a new Hindu ideology, Ceylon scarcely gave rise to anything so new or comprehensive. The rise of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party produced a new Protestant Buddhist nationalism, in which to a great degree the Sangha became politicized. The new Hindu synthesis is based on a doctrine of the Divine which has in many ways less adaptation to modern thinking than does Buddhism; but the Hindu-style nationalism has less of a problematic stance than Buddhist nationalism.
