Lecture by Justin Henry on the Rāmāyaṇa in Sri Lanka
08 AUGUST 22
Justin Henry (Lecturer in Religious Studies, Georgia College & State University and AIIS Fellow) gave a talk entitled “The Kingdom of Ravana: The Ramayana in Sri Lanka, from Oral Tradition to Online Mythmaking” in the library at 4:30 p.m. on August 8.
Around the time of the end of Sri Lanka’s Civil War in 2009, a curious reworking of the mythological origins of the victorious Sinhala Buddhist people began to emerge in books, newspapers, and television programs throughout the island. This new account—popularized by a motley assortment of amateur historians, television producers, and tourism promoters—maintains that the Sinhala people are in fact the distant descendants of Rāvaṇa, demon-king antagonist of the Rāmāyaṇa, who ruled the island of Lanka millennia ago. This talk considers the conditions of possibility of the 21st century "Sinhala Ravana" movement by way of the diverse textual and oral tradition of Rāmāyaṇa storytelling in Sri Lanka, including Tamil tala-puranams, local lore, and Sinhala poetry.
lectures
Around the time of the end of Sri Lanka’s Civil War in 2009, a curious reworking of the mythological origins of the victorious Sinhala Buddhist people began to emerge in books, newspapers, and television programs throughout the island. This new account—popularized by a motley assortment of amateur historians, television producers, and tourism promoters—maintains that the Sinhala people are in fact the distant descendants of Rāvaṇa, demon-king antagonist of the Rāmāyaṇa, who ruled the island of Lanka millennia ago. This talk considers the conditions of possibility of the 21st century "Sinhala Ravana" movement by way of the diverse textual and oral tradition of Rāmāyaṇa storytelling in Sri Lanka, including Tamil tala-puranams, local lore, and Sinhala poetry.
lectures