scholarly journals TAXONOMY AND DISTRIBUTION OF Liopeltis calamaria (GÜNTHER, 1858) (REPTILIA : COLUBRIDAE), INCLUDING REDESCRIPTION OF THE SYNTYPES

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
A.A. Thasun Amarasinghe ◽  
◽  
Suranjan Karunarathna ◽  
Patrick D. Campbell ◽  
S.R. Ganesh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South India ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Gangetic Plains

Liopeltis calamaria, a rare non-venomous colubrid snake of South Asia, is redescribed. Its syntypes and all the available type specimens of its recognized synonyms are examined, including information about the respective populations found across India and Sri Lanka. Our literature compilation and mapping analyses reveal three distinct populations – (I) Sri Lankan (probably also present in some parts of South India as well), (II) Peninsular Indian, and (III) Himalayan / Nepalese, separated by the Palk Strait and the Indo-Gangetic plains respectively.

The Role of Music and Allied Arts in Public Writings on Cultural Diversity: “People of Sri Lanka”

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Culturally Different ◽  
The World ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
The Way

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.

The Sri Lankan Refugee Crimes and Crisis: Experience and Lessons Learnt from South India

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Beulah Shekhar ◽  
Vijaya Somasundaram
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
South India ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Pull Factors ◽  
Push Factors ◽  
Refugee Convention ◽  
Indian State

Sharing porous borders with its neighbours, India has played a regular host to refugees from Nepal, Burma, Tibet, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. According to UNHCR, as of 2014, there are more than 200,000 refugees living in India. Notwithstanding the fact that India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its additional 1967 Protocol, its open-door policy to refugees has had adverse political and socio-economic repercussions. This article3 analyses the experience of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu with the Sri Lankan refugees from the first influx in 1983 up to 2000, when the refugees began returning to their homeland. The researchers identify the pull factors for the refugee influx and push factors that led to their return and in the process put together crucial learning that can be of significance to States dealing with the problem of refugees.

Sri Lanka: testimony to state terror

Race & Class ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
South Asia ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The South ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
State Terror ◽  
Authoritarian State

There are two nations in Sri Lanka, both ruled by the Sri Lankan government - one, the Sinhala/Buddhist South, under civilian rule, and the other, the Tamil North (and increasingly the East), under a military dictatorship. Ironically enough, the cause of this separate dispensation is alleged by the Sri Lankan government to be the figirt for a separate state by the Northern (and Eastern) Tamils. That story however, has been told at length in the special issue of Race & Class ('Sri Lanka: racism and the authoritarian state') which appeared in Ju ly 1984 on the anniversary of the '83 pogroms. Here we wish to record a few of the 200 affidavits (sworn before justices of the peace) from witnesses testifying to the atrocities of the security forces in Jaffna in the period March November 1984. (A fuller dossier, from which these documents have been excerpted, is published by the South Asia Bureau. *)

scholarly journals Divine Kingship in Medieval Sri Lanka: Dynamics in Traditions of Power and Virtue in South Asia

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Berkwitz
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Hindu Tradition ◽  
Cultural Borrowing ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Divine Kingship

The present article focuses on Sri Lankan views of divine kingship to illustrate how the figure of the king was developed in ways that borrowed and were shaped by the transfer of Hindu notions of kings and gods around the period of intensive Hindu interventions into the island from the tenth to thirteenth centuries CE. After discussing the paradigmatic figure of King Aśoka, the virtuous king (*dhammarāja*) held to be the model for all subsequent monarchs in the tradition, we will examine inscriptional and poetic writings that conflated Sri Lankan kings with Hindu gods. The dynamics of comparing kings with gods has ancient roots in India, and these notions were adopted by Sri Lankan Buddhists during the long “medieval” period of roughly the tenth to the sixteenth centuries CE. The dynamic introduction of new strands of Buddhist kingship expanded upon the figure of the king. I argue that this development was primarily metaphorical in nature, and it was further enhanced by eulogizing kings as bodhisattvas, or future Buddhas. By incorporating much of the language and notions of divine kingship from the Hindu tradition, Sri Lankan Buddhism made kingship into the dynamic site for cultural borrowing. Yet it stabilized and reinforced its local traditions by comparing kings with gods and bodhisattvas, presenting them as being *like* extraordinary beings in the context of praise for their power and virtue.

The New ‘Other’: Islamic Radicalisation and De-radicalisation in Sri Lanka

2021 ◽  
pp. 097492842110477
Author(s):  
N. Manoharan ◽  
Drorima Chatterjee ◽  
Dhruv Ashok
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Small State ◽  
The Core ◽  
Incipient Stage ◽  
Island State ◽  
Key Terms

One of the key terms to understand the nature of violence and conflicts world over is ‘radicalisation’. Sri Lankan case is instructive in understanding various dimensions of Islamic radicalisation and de-radicalisation, especially in South Asia. Though a small state, Sri Lanka has witnessed three radical movements, the latest being Islamic that got manifested in deadly Easter attacks of April 2019. Eco-space for Islamic radicalisation existed in the island for decades, but the rise of ultra-Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism post the end of Eelam War IV acted as a breaking point. The underlying context is perceived insecurity feeling projected by hardline Sinhala-Buddhist elements. In due course, the primary ‘other’ shifted from Tamils to Sri Lankan Muslims. Apart from inter-communal dissonance, international jihadist network also fostered radicalisation process in the island’s Muslim community. Political instability due to co-habitation issues between the then president and the prime minister was a perfect distraction from the core security and development issues. In response to the violent manifestation of radicalisation, de-radicalisation measures by the successive Sri Lankan governments were mostly military in nature. Socio-economic and political components of Islamic de-radicalisation are at the incipient stage, if not totally missing. The article suggests wide-ranging measures to address the issue of radicalisation in the island state.

Embodied shame and gendered demeanours in young women in Sri Lanka

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asha L. Abeyasekera ◽  
Jeanne Marecek
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Social Control ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Sri Lankan

In South Asia, shame is valued as a virtue and a means of social control, particularly for women. For Sri Lankan women, shame ( læjja-baya) denotes modesty, purity, innocence, and self-effacement. For unmarried girls, sexual improprieties—rumoured or real—threaten loss of respectability and jeopardise a girl’s marriageability and her family’s honour. We investigated the dynamics of shame and norms of propriety in adolescent girls’ lives by re-analysing a subset of interviews of daughters and mothers (N = 24 pairs) collected in a prior study of nonfatal suicidal acts. Many such acts took place after girls were accused of violating norms of propriety. Other such acts served to ‘blame and shame’ wrongdoers. Girls and their mothers reported further that public knowledge of a suicide-like act sullied a girl’s reputation because onlookers ascribed sexualised meanings to it. We point out the incommensurability between parents’ goals and aspirations for their daughters’ educational and occupation attainments and the rigid demands for respectable comportment to which they must conform.

A review of previous studies on the Sri Lankan echinoid fauna, with an updated species list

Zootaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4231 (2) ◽  
pp. 151 ◽  
Author(s):  
GAYASHAN M. ARACHCHIGE ◽  
SEVVANDI JAYAKODY ◽  
RICH MOOI ◽  
ANDREAS KROH
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Indian Coast ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Species List ◽  
Systematic Revision ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Annotated List

A comprehensive review and analysis of the literature on echinoids from Sri Lankan waters were conducted to compile an annotated list that integrates the existing published data with original data from recent research. According to the published literature, 115 echinoid species and one subspecies have been reported from Sri Lanka to date. However, the current study revealed that only 66 echinoid species and one subspecies belonging to 20 families can be verified to occur in Sri Lankan waters. According to the present analysis, 49 species were excluded from the list due to uncertain records (16) or synonymy (33) with other taxa known from the region. Of the 66 species and one subspecies occurring in Sri Lankan waters, 11 were first described from type material collected from this region. Six of the type specimens are “regular” echinoids and five are Irregularia. Out of these 11, Araeosoma coriaceum indicum has been recorded only from and appears to be endemic to Sri Lankan waters. However, 34 species of Sri Lankan echinoids have not been recorded in the last 90 years. Echinoid species recorded from Sri Lankan waters represent 6.7% of the currently accepted species of extant echinoids and include representatives of 28% of the extant echinoid families. Forty-five percent (45%) of echinoids recorded from the Indian coast (113 species and subspecies) are present in Sri Lankan waters. The current study highlights the need for systematic revision of echinoid records in Sri Lanka through field surveys and reconciliation of discrepancies in the existing literature. Offshore sampling is also needed due to lack of recent information on local deep-sea echinoids. 

A reappraisal of leaf morphology in Aponogeton natans (Aponogetonaceae)

Phytotaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 265 (1) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHAPA G. MANAWADUGE ◽  
DEEPTHI YAKANDAWALA ◽  
DONALD H. LES
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Type Species ◽  
Leaf Morphology ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Morphological Description ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Old World ◽  
Latin Description

The aquatic monocotyledon genus Aponogeton L.f. (Aponogetonaceae) consists of about 57 species distributed mainly in the tropical or subtropical regions of the Old world.  Aponogeton natans (L.) Engler & Krause is the type species of the genus and occurs in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. During recent field work, which focused exclusively on Sri Lankan Aponogeton, we were unable to satisfactorily reconcile our collections of A. natans with the morphological descriptions given in several previously published accounts globally, as all description indicated the presence of submersed leaves. Detail investigation carried out with literature and the type specimens revealed that the presences of submersed leaves is only a misconception that was propagated by a misinterpretation of the Latin description provided by Krause & Engler in 1906. To clarify the nature of the foliage in A. natans we provide here a revised morphological description of this taxon along with an illustration and images.

Theriya Networks and the Circulation of the Pali Canon in South Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 245-259
Author(s):  
Alexander Wynne
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South India ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Pali Canon ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Textual Transmission ◽  
Pāli Canon

This article offers further support for Lance Cousins’ thesis that the P?li canon, written down in the first century BCE in Sri Lanka, was based largely on a Theriya manuscript tradition from South India. Attention is also given to some of Cousins’ related arguments, in particular, that this textual transmission occurred within a Vibhajjav?din framework; that it occurred in a form of ‘proto-P?li’ close to the Standard Epigraphical Prakrit of the first century BCE; and that that distinct Sinhalese nik?yas emerged perhaps as late as the third century CE.  

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