Colonel Henry Steel Olcott was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer, Freemason and the co-founder and first president of the Theosophical Society.
The "Sri Lanka Matha" is the national anthem of Sri Lanka. "Sri Lanka Matha" was composed by Ananda Samarakoon and was originally titled "Namo Namo Matha".
Richmond College is a primary and secondary school in Galle, Sri Lanka which was established as Galle High School in 1876. The founder of school was the Wesleyan Missionary George Bough. The first principal of the school was Rev Samuel Langdon. In 1882, it was renamed Richmond College. Richmond College is the first Wesleyan Methodist school to be established in Asia. The former school of Richmond College known as the 'Galle School' dates back to July 1814.
Egodahage George Wilfred Alwis Samarakoon known as Ananda Samarakoon was a Sri Lankan (Sinhalese) composer and musician. He composed the Sri Lankan national anthem "Namo Namo Matha" and is considered the father of artistic Sinhala music and founder of the modern Sri Lankan Sinhala Geeta Sahitya. He committed suicide in 1962.
Ananda College is a prestigious Buddhist school in Maradana, Colombo. It was established as the English Buddhist School by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott in 1886. In the present day, it provides primary and secondary education on a campus of 15 acres (61,000 m2).
CMS Sri Jayawardenepura College is a government school in Kotte, Sri Lanka.
Theosophical teachings have borrowed some concepts and terms from Buddhism. Some theosophists like Helena Blavatsky, Helena Roerich and Henry Steel Olcott also became Buddhists. Henry Steel Olcott helped shape the design of the Buddhist flag. Tibetan Buddhism was popularised in the West at first mainly by Theosophists including Evans-Wentz and Alexandra David-Neel.
Dharmaraja College, founded in 1887, is a boys' school in Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is a Buddhist school with around 300+ teaching staff and over 4,000+ students. The school has many notable alumni including the first President of Sri Lanka William Gopallawa, A. E. Goonesinha, T.B Kehelgamuwa, Chamara Kapugedera, Sudarshana Pathirana and others.
Patrick de Silva Kularatne was a Sri Lankan educationist and politician. He was a Member of the State Council of Ceylon (1942-1947) and Member of Parliament (1960-1965). He served as Principal of Ananda College and Dharmaraja College and established Nalanda College Colombo, Ananda Balika Vidyalaya, Moratuwa Vidyalaya and Dharmapala Vidyalaya. As a member of the executive committee on Education, he played an instrumental role in the realisation of free education from kindergarten to university.
Dr. Cristopher William Wijekoon Kannangara was a Sri Lankan Lawyer and a politician. He rose up the ranks of Sri Lanka's movement for independence in the early part of the 20th century. As a lawyer he defended the detainees that were imprisoned during the Riots of 1915, many of whom were the emerging leaders of the independence movement. In 1931, he became the President of Ceylon National Congress, the forerunner to the United National Party. Later, he became the first Minister of Education in the State Council of Ceylon, and was instrumental in introducing extensive reforms to the country's education system that opened up education to children from all levels of society.
The Henry Steel Olcott Memorial Cricket Tournament is conducted annually among the past cricketers of eight premier Buddhist schools in Sri Lanka in honour of Col. Olcott, the founder of Buddhist education in Sri Lanka. The organising function in each year is rotated among each the participating Old Boy Associations
David J. Kalupahana (1936–2014) was a Buddhist scholar from Sri Lanka. He was a student of the late K.N. Jayatilleke, who was a student of Wittgenstein. He wrote mainly about epistemology, theory of language, and compared later Buddhist philosophical texts against the earliest texts and tried to present interpretations that were both historically contextualised and also compatible with the earliest texts, and in doing so, he encouraged Theravada Buddhists and scholars to reevaluate the legitimacy of later, Mahayana texts and consider them more sympathetically.
Musaeus College is a Buddhist private girls' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The school is named after its founding principal, Marie Musaeus Higgins from Wismar, Germany, who served as the school's principal from 1891 to 1926. Musaeus College provides primary and secondary education to more than 6,500 girls from ages 3 to 18, and is managed by a board of trustees. The school's motto is "Follow the Light".
Agampodi Torontal Paulus de Zoysa, popularly as A. P. de Zoysa, was a Sri Lankan social reformer, pre-colonial era politician and a Buddhist scholar.
The Richmond–Mahinda Cricket Encounter, popularly referred to as the Lovers' Quarrel, is an annual cricket big match played between the first XI cricket teams of Richmond College and Mahinda College in Galle, Sri Lanka. It is one of the longest cricket match series in Sri Lanka, having been played for over 119 years. It is played at the Galle International Stadium. Lovers' Quarrel began in 1905, under the two principals Rev. James Horne Darrel of Richmond College and Sir. Frank Lee Woodward of Mahinda College.
Wilmot Arthur de Silva was a Ceylonese veterinary surgeon, politician and philanthropist. He was the Minister of Health (1936–1942) in the second State Council of Ceylon and a former President of the Ceylon National Congress.
Upananda College Galle, Walahanduwa is a government Buddhist school in Galle Southern Provence, Sri Lanka. The college was established by Hon. Bataduwe Rathanajothi Thero as a second happiness of Upananda College pinnaduwa village in akmeemana, Galle on 16 January 1910. It has Grade 1 to 13 both Primary school and secondary school.
Henry Woodward Amarasuriya was a Ceylonese plantation owner, politician, educationist and philanthropist. He was the Cabinet Minister for Trade and Commerce in the cabinet of D. S. Senanayake. A former member of the Ceylon state council, H. W. Amarasuriya was a founding member and the first general secretary of the United National Party. He also held the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in the first parliament of Ceylon. A member of the first Education Executive Committee of the state council and a former general manager of the Buddhist schools, he did a great service to improve the education in Ceylon.
Edmund Rowland Jayathilake Gooneratne, Gate Mudaliyar, JP, was a Ceylonese British colonial-era administrator and a literary figure. He was also a scholar, intellectual, social worker, planter and a Buddhist revivalist. A resident of Atapattu Walawwa in Galle, E. R. Gooneratne served as the Atapattu Mudaliyar of Galle and as the Mudaliyar of the Governor’s Gate Later he was appointed as the acting Maha Mudaliyar. E. R. Gooneratne was the most influential native official of Southern Ceylon during the British colonial rule in the country.
Frank Lee Woodward (1871–1952) was an English educationist, Pali scholar, author and theosophist. Woodward studied and researched on Theravada Buddhism and wrote numerous work based on them. He is admired among the Pali scholars for compiling the vast concordance of Pali canon by translating eighteen of the forty-two volumes of the Pali texts into English. He also served as the principal of Buddhist school Mahinda College, Galle in Ceylon for 16 years from 1903 to 1919. Woodward lived his latter stage of life in Rowella, Tasmania, mainly spending his time on studies and translation work.
