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Abstract

This paper has a fairly circumscribed project. It is a critical one. My concern is not directly with the matter of national identity or nationalism, but with a reflection on the narrative of modern Buddhist history in Sri Lanka, one that, to be sure, informs nationalism. Nor do I aim to introduce new and compelling evidence for 'what really happened' to Buddhism in the 19th century, but rather to inquire into some aspects of the way that story has generally been told, the rhetorical economy through which it has been constructed and to suggest—at least in outline—why and through what concepts it ought to be recast. Indeed, the task here is only to try to produce something of a revised conceptual terrain in which a different sort of history of the relation between Buddhism and modernity in Sri Lanka might usefully be written.

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Religion in Colonial Civil Society

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