Introductory to the miracle of Asia😎

 

The palms clasped together and a gentle bow of the head accompanies "Ayubowan"  ( May you be blessed with long life) . Sri Lanka’s gentle gesture of welcome and respect. It is the age-old greeting of our people, and the chances are you will be greeted this way, wherever you happen to travel throughout the island.

What may strike you most about Sri Lanka is its amazing diversity of scenery. It is possible to pass brilliant green paddy fields, sun-bronzed beaches, ruined cities, small lively villages, near desert regions, sanctuaries for wildlife in tropical jungles, and hill country tea plantations literally within hours of each other.

Ancient Sanskrit literature refer

to Sri Lanka as ‘Sinhaladvipa’ – Island of the Sinhalese. The people called by that name have inhabited this Island from earliest historical times. Traditions recorded in the historical choronicles of Sri Lanka trace the origin of the Sinhalese to an exiled North Indian prince, Vijaya, and his retinue, who settled down in the island and established the Sinhalese kingdom in the 6th c. B.C.

However, the earliest recorded civilization dates back to 380 BC, when Anuradhapura (205 km from Colombo) was established as the first Capital City. Following the advent of Budhism in the 3rd Century BC, a civilzation rich in Indo-Aryan culture took root. It produced the great cities with their “dagabas” which compare, and even exceed in size, the pyramids of Egypt, palaces and pleasure gardens, rich art and architecture and the giganitc irrigation works, many of which are still in use today..With invasions from neighbouring South India, the base of power shifted to Polonnaruwa (101 km South East of Anuradhapura) and other cities such as Dambadeniya, Kurunegala, Kotte and Kandy. In the 16th Century the island had its first recorded encounter with the traders and colonisers of the West, with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505. What followed was a period of nearly five hundred years during which the island came under the control and influence of the Portuguese, Dutch and British.

While the Portuguese and Dutch ruled over the maritime regions for a rough 150 years each, the British established complete control over the island with the fall of the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815. They too ruled for 150 years before the country regained independence in 1948. The impact of many cultures over the centuries, from South Indian to the Moorish and that of the western colonisers, have resulted in the country’s culture being enriched by a rich diversity, much of which is in evidence today. The island’s economy, has traditionally been based on agriculture, with rice as the main food crop. Spices such as cin namon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and pepper have been age old exports, as were gems and even peacocks and elephants. With western commercial influence, rice gave way to cash crops, until the British made tea the base of the economy.

The new thrust in the economy is on export led industry. Agriculture is now being revived.