Anuradhapura is a major city in Sri Lanka. It is the capital city of North Central Province, Sri Lanka and the capital of Anuradhapura District. Anuradhapura is one of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka, famous for its well-preserved ruins of an ancient Sinhala civilization. It was the third capital of the kingdom of Rajarata, following the kingdoms of Tambapanni and Upatissa Nuwara.
Robert Knox was an English sea captain in the service of the British East India Company. He was the son of another sea captain, also named Robert Knox.
The caste systems in Sri Lanka are social stratification systems found among the ethnic groups of the island since ancient times. However the Caste System in Sri Lanka is futile in the sense that due to Sri Lanka being a Buddhist majority country and Buddhism does not accept the Caste System and the Buddha himself denounced the Caste System which was present in mainland India. The models are similar to those found in Continental India, but are less extensive and important for various reasons, although the caste systems still play an important and at least symbolic role in religion and politics. Sri Lanka is often considered to be a casteless or caste-blind society by Indians.
Rodi or Rodiya are reported to be an untouchable social group or caste amongst the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. Their status was very similar to all the Untouchable castes of India with segregated communities, ritualised begging, economically weak people.
Govigama is a Sinhalese caste found in Sri Lanka. They form approximately half of the Sinhalesee population and are traditionally involved in agriculture. The term Govigama became popular during the last period of the Sinhalese Kingdom of Kandy. Its members have dominated and influenced national politics and Sinhalese Buddhism.
Philips Baelde or Father Philippus Baldaeus, was a Dutch minister. He went to Jaffna during the Dutch period in Ceylon with an invading Dutch force. As the second European after Abraham Rogerius he documented the life, language and culture of Tamil people, living in the north of the island. It is a great historical record, and it was immediately published in Dutch and German. English translation was published by Ceylon Government Railway (1960).
Dutch Ceylon was a governorate established in present-day Sri Lanka by the Dutch East India Company. Although the Dutch managed to capture most of the coastal areas in Sri Lanka they were never able to control the Kandyan Kingdom located in the interior of the island. Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 until 1796.
Ceylon was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between 1796 and 4 February 1948. Initially, the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka.
The Kingdom of Kandy was a monarchy on the island of Sri Lanka, located in the central and eastern portion of the island. It was founded in the late 15th century and endured until the early 19th century.
Kalmunai is the largest city of Ampara District. It is also the largest city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. It had a total population of 106,780 as of 2011. It is one of the few Muslim-majority municipalities in the country. When Muslims in Colombo were expelled by Portuguese in the 17th century, they fled to Kandy and sought refuge with King Rajasinha II, who resettled these refugees in Kalmunai and Kattankudy (4,000). Kalmunai was the site of the royal farm, as a result of this settlement, it became a Muslim-majority area.
Walauwa or walawwa is the name given to a feudal/colonial manor house in Sri Lanka of a native headmen. It also refers to the feudal social systems that existed during the colonial era.
Social class in Sri Lanka is often described as casteless, though caste is still found on the island in both a symbolic and a practical sense. Caste is also used in an analogous sense to refer to the new social class divisions that have appeared in recent decades. The combination of ethnic nationalist movements that saw caste as an island-wide dividing tool, strong emphasis on providing access to education and healthcare regardless of background, and historic lack of discrimination among the colonial civil service played a factor in eradicating the caste system in most sectors of the island's society. Although the Buddhist culture actively fought against all forms of class discrimination, many Buddhist organizations used caste as a method to extract surplus from temple property.
The British Ceylon period is the history of Sri Lanka between 1815 and 1948. It follows the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom into the hands of the British Empire. It ended over 2300 years of Sinhalese monarchy rule on the island. The British rule on the island lasted until 1948 when the country regained independence.
Portuguese Ceylon is the name given to the territory on Ceylon, modern-day Sri-Lanka, controlled by the Portuguese Empire between 1597 and 1658.
The Mahâ Dissâvas was a Great Officer in the Amātya Mandalaya, or Sinhalese Council of State, in the Sinhalese Kingdoms of premodern Sri Lanka. Like many of the existing high offices at the time it had combined legislative and judicial powers and functioned primarily equivalent to that of a Provincial governor. The office of Dissava was retained under the successive European colonial powers, namely the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch East India Company and the British Empire. A Dissava was the governor a province known as a Disavanies. With his province, the Dissava held both executive and judicial authority.
Ceylon. An Account of the Island, Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions is a two-volume book from 1859 by James Emerson Tennent.
Rajamanthri Walauwa or manor house of Rajamanthri is situated in Karandagolla, Hanguranketha, Sri Lanka. Rajamanthri Walauwa is an eight-room, 200-year-old mansion built by the last Chief Minister of the Kingdom of Kandy in 1804. It was fully restored in 1944. In 1970, Prince Gamini Rajamanthri and in 1972, Prince Samantha Rajamanthri, Julius Rajamanthri's two sons became the new inhabitants of the Rajamanthri Walauwa. To this day, the manor house is managed by Prince Julius' sons.
Constantino de Sá de Noronha was the 6th and 8th Governor of Portuguese Ceylon. De Noronha was first appointed in 1618 under Philip II of Portugal, he was Governor until 1622 and then in 1623 until 1630. He was killed during the Battle of Randeniwela in a last stand after refusing to abandon his troops. Several accounts, though varying in accuracy, describe the moment of his death in detail.
Louis Edmund Blaze, JP, OBE, BA (Calcutta), was a Sri Lankan educationist and the founder and principal of Kingswood College, Kandy (1891–1923).
"Their manner of Fishing". Engravings from the 1681 (English) and 1692 (Dutch) editions of An Historical Relation
Depiction of an execution by elephant
Sri Lankaportal 
