Culture of Sri Lanka
Encyclopedia
History of Sri Lanka
The History of Sri Lanka begins around 30,000 years ago when the island was first inhabited. Chronicles, including the Mahawansa, the Dipavamsa, the Culavamsa and the Rajaveliya, record events from the beginnings of the Sinhalese monarchy in the 6th century BC; through the arrival of European...
, diversity, and religious beliefs. The country has a rich artistic tradition, embracing the fine arts, including music, dance, and visual arts. Sri Lankan lifestyle is reflected in the its cuisine, festivals, and sports. South Indian
South Indian culture
South Indian culture refers to the culture of the South Indian states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. South Indian culture though with its visible differences forms an important part of the Indian culture. The South Indian Culture is essentially the celebration of the eternal...
influences are visible in many aspects. There is also some influences from colonization by the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, the Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Sri Lankan culture is best known abroad for its cricket, cuisine, and cultural exports, like tea. Sri Lankan culture is diverse, as it varies from region to region.
History
Throughout the past centuries Sri LankaSri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
has been going through a dramatic make over. A vast majority of the Sri Lankan community were only influenced by their own traditional food and nothing more. But, due to economical growth and intense competition in developed countries, companies have taken themselves overseas to developing nation.
Architecture
Arts and crafts
Many forms of Sri Lankan arts and crafts take inspiration from the Island's long and lasting Buddhist culture which in turn has absorbed and adopted countless regional and local traditions. In most instances Sri Lankan art originates from religious beliefs, and are represented in many forms such as painting, sculpture and architecture. One of the most notable aspects of Sri Lankan Art are cave and temple painting such as the frescoes found in SigiriyaSigiriya
Sigiriya is a large stone and ancient rock fortress and palace ruin in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures...
and religious paintings found in temples in Dambulla
Dambulla
The city of Dambulla is situated in the Matale District in the Central Province of Sri Lanka, situated 148 km north-east of Colombo and 72 km north of Kandy....
and Temple of the Tooth
Temple of the Tooth
Sri Dalada Maligawa or The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is a Buddhist temple in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is located in the royal palace complex which houses the Relic of the tooth of Buddha. Since ancient times, the relic has played an important role in local politics because it is...
Relic in Kandy
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
. Other popular forms of art have been influenced by both natives as well as outside settlers. For example, traditional wooden handicrafts and clay pottery are found around the hill country while Portuguese-inspired lacework and Indonesian inspired Batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
has become notable.
Music
The two single biggest influences on Sri Lankan music are from Buddhism and Portuguese colonizers. Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka after the Buddha's visit in 300 BC, while the Portuguese arrived in the 15th century, bringing with them cantiga ballads, ukuleles and guitars, along with African slaves, who further diversified the musical roots of the island. These slaves were called kaffrinha, and their dance music was called bailaBaila
Baila is a form of dance music popular on the island of Sri Lanka. The genre originated centuries ago among the 'kaffir' or Afro-Sinhalese communities and was later amalgamated with European instruments and eastern and western rhythms, especially rhythms found in Spain and northern European folk...
. Traditional Sri Lankan music includes the hypnotic Kandyan drums - drumming was and is very much a part and parcel of music in both Buddhist and Hindu temples in Sri Lanka.
Cuisine of Sri Lanka
Much of Sri Lanka's cuisine consists of boiled or steamed rice served with curry. Another well-known rice dish is Kiribath, meaning "milk rice." Curries in Sri Lanka are not just limited to meat- or fish-based dishes, there are also vegetable and even fruit curries. A typical Sri Lankan meal consists of a "main curry" (fish, chicken, or mutton), as well as several other curries made with vegetable and lentils. Side-dishes include pickles, chutneys and "sambols" which can sometimes be fiery hot. The most famous of these is the coconut sambol, made of ground coconut mixed with chillies, dried Maldivian fish and lime juice. This is ground to a paste and eaten with rice, as it gives zest to the meal and is believed to increase appetite.
In addition to sambols, Sri Lankans eat "mallung", chopped leaves mixed with grated coconut and red onions. Coconut milk is found in most Sri Lankan dishes to give the cuisine its unique flavor.
As noted above many of Sri Lanka's urban areas are host to American fast food corporations and many of the younger generation have started to take a liking to this new style of cuisine although it is rejected by many, particularly the more traditional elder members of the community.
Spices
Sri Lanka has long been renowned for its spices. In the 15th and 16th centuries, traders from all over the world who came to Sri Lanka brought their native cuisines to the island, resulting in a rich diversity of cooking styles and techniques. Lamprais—rice boiled in stock with a special curry, accompanied by "frikkadels" (meatballs), all of which is then wrapped in a banana leaf and baked—is a Dutch-influenced Sri Lankan dish. Dutch and Portuguese sweets also continue to be popular. British influences include roast beef and roast chicken. Also, the influence of the Indian cooking methods and food have played a major role in what Sri Lankans eat.Sri Lankans use spices liberally in their dishes and typically do not follow an exact recipe: thus, every cook's curry will taste slightly different. Furthermore, people from different regions of the island (for instance, hill-country dwellers versus coastal dwellers) traditionally cook in different ways. Sri Lankan cuisine is known to be among the world's spiciest, due to the high use of different varieties chillies referred to as amu miris, kochchi miris, and maalu miris (capsicum)and in Tamil Milakaai, among others. It is generally accepted for tourists to request that the food is cooked with a lower chillie content to cater for the more sensitive Western pallette. Food cooked for public occasions typically uses less chillie than food cooked in the home, the latter where the food is cooked with the chillie content preferable to the occupants.
Tea culture
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
in the world, Sri Lankans drink a lot of tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
. Many Sri Lankans drink at least three cups a day. Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
is also one of the best tea-producing countries in the World
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
and the Royal Family
Royal family
A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
has been known to drink Ceylon tea. Tea is served whenever a guest comes to a house, it is served at festivals and gatherings or just for breakfast.
New Year
The Sinhala and Tamil new yearSinhala and Tamil new year
The timing of the Sinhala New Year coincides with the new year celebrations of many traditional calendars of South and Southeast Asia. The festival has close semblance to the Thai New year, Bengali New Year, and Oriya New Year festival in India....
("Aluth Avurudhu" in Sinhala, "Puthiyathandu" in Tamil) is a very large cultural event on the island. The festival falls in April (also known as the month of Bak) when the sun moves from the Meena Rashiya (House of Pisces) to the Mesha Rashiya (House of Aries). Unusually, both the end of one year and the beginning of the next occur not at midnight but at separate times determined by astrologers with a period of some hours between (the "nona gathe" or neutral period) being a time where one is expected to refrain from all types of work and instead engage solely in relaxing religious activities and traditional games. During the New Year festivities both children and adults will often don traditional outfits. But the clothes must be washed and very clean because it should be southam (pure).
There are many other celebrations, like Christmas.
Religion in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka's culture also revolves around religion. The Buddhist community of Sri Lanka observe Poya Days, which are also important days of prayers to the Hindus, once per month according to the Lunar calendarLunar calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. A common purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar. A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to...
. The Hindus and Muslims also observe their own holidays. Sri Lankans are very religious because the history of the island has been involved with religion numerous times. There are many Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka and many mosques, Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
temples and churches all across the island. The religious preference of an area could be determined by the number of religious institutions in the area. The North and the East of the island has many Hindu temples and mosques because a large Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
and Muslim
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
population resides in those areas. Many churches could be found along the southern coast line because many living in those areas are Roman Catholic or Protestant. The interior of the island is mostly the Buddhist population and there are many Buddhists residing in all parts of the island because they are the largest religious group in Sri Lanka.
Sports
Sports plays a very big part in Sri Lankan culture because the society was quite rich in educated people, therefore the people had found playing a sport is an important thing in a life. Sri Lanka's main sport is CricketCricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
. But after the age of Englishmen's Cricket being the popular sport event in Sri Lanka. Every child in Sri Lanka knows how to play cricket, and there are many cricket fields scattered across the island for children and adults to play the sport. The biggest pastime of the Sri Lankan population, after cricket, is watching the Sri Lankan National Team playing cricket. It is common for businesses to shut down when very big matches are televised. This was the case in 1996 when the Sri Lankan team beat Australia in the finals to win the Cricket World Cup
Cricket World Cup
The ICC Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of men's One Day International cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council , with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament which is held every four years...
. The whole country shut down as though there were a curfew imposed upon the whole island.
Cricket
Cricket is one of the main sports played in the country, After the 1996 World Cup1996 Cricket World Cup
The 1996 Cricket World Cup, also called the Wills World Cup after its official sponsors, was the sixth edition of the tournament organized by the International Cricket Council . It was the second World Cup to be hosted by Pakistan and India, and for the first time by Sri Lanka...
triumph of the Sri Lankan cricket team
Sri Lankan cricket team
The Sri Lankan cricket team is the national cricket team of Sri Lanka. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation...
, the sport became the most watched event in the country. But in recent years the politicians and the businessman getting into the sport has raised many concerns.
Tourism
See also
- Sri Lankan people
- Sri Lankan literatureSri Lankan literatureSri Lankan literature is the literary tradition of Sri Lanka. The largest part of Sri Lankan literature was written in the Sinhala language, but there is a considerable amount of works in other languages used in Sri Lanka over the millennia .Up to the present, short stories are a very important...
- Henry Parker (author)Henry Parker (author)Henry Parker was a British engineer in colonial Ceylon during the Victorian era. He was attached to the Irrigation Department from 1873 to 1904. During his work as engineer he developed an admiration for the skills displayed by the ancient Sinhalese at the time of the construction of their...
, British engineer who studied and compiled the oral traditionOral traditionOral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
of Sri Lanka