Portal:Sri Lanka

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Sri Lanka, historically known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian peninsula by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. It shares a maritime border with the Maldives in the southwest and India in the northwest.

Sri Lanka has a population of approximately 22 million and is home to many cultures, languages and ethnicities. The Sinhalese people form the majority of the population, followed by the Sri Lankan Tamils, who are the largest minority group and are concentrated in northern Sri Lanka; both groups have played an influential role in the island's history. Other long-established groups include the Moors, Indian Tamils, Burghers, Malays, Chinese, and Vedda.

Sri Lanka's documented history goes back 3,000 years, with evidence of prehistoric human settlements dating back 125,000 years. The earliest known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, known collectively as the Pāli canon, date to the fourth Buddhist council, which took place in 29 BCE. Also called the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, or the Granary of the East, Sri Lanka's geographic location and deep harbours have made it of great strategic importance, from the earliest days of the ancient Silk Road trade route to today's so-called maritime Silk Road. Because its location made it a major trading hub, it was already known to both East Asians and Europeans as long ago as the Anuradhapura period. During a period of great political crisis in the Kingdom of Kotte, the Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka and sought to control its maritime trade, with a part of Sri Lanka subsequently becoming a Portuguese possession. After the Sinhalese-Portuguese war, the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of Kandy took control of those areas. The Dutch possessions were then taken by the British, who later extended their control over the whole island, colonising it from 1815 to 1948. A national movement for political independence arose in the early 20th century, and in 1948, Ceylon became a dominion. It was succeeded by the republic of Sri Lanka in 1972. Sri Lanka's more recent history was marred by a 26-year civil war, which began in 1983 and ended in 2009, when the Sri Lanka Armed Forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. (Full article...)

The Sri Lanka men's national cricket team, (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා ජාතික ක්‍රිකට් කණ්ඩායම, romanized: Shri Lanka Jathika Crikat Kandayama; Tamil: இலங்கை தேசிய கிரிக்கெட் அணி) nicknamed The Lions, represents Sri Lanka in men's international cricket. It is a full Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test, One-Day International (ODI) and T20 International (T20I) status. The team first played international cricket (as Ceylon) in 1926–27 and became an associate member of the ICC in 1965. They were awarded the Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket-playing nation. The team is administered by Sri Lanka Cricket.

Sri Lanka's national cricket team achieved considerable success beginning in the 1990s, rising from underdog status to winning the Cricket World Cup in 1996, under the captaincy of Arjuna Ranatunga. Since then, the team has continued to be a force in international cricket. The Sri Lankan cricket team reached the finals of the 2007 and 2011 Cricket World Cups consecutively. They ended up being runners-up on both occasions. (Full article...)
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Arumuka Navalar (Tamil: ஆறுமுக நாவலர், romanized: Āṟumuka Nāvalar, lit.'Arumuka the Orator'; 18 December 1822 – 5 December 1879) was a Sri Lankan Shaivite Tamil language scholar and a religious reformer who was central in reviving native Hindu Tamil traditions in Sri Lanka and India.

Navalar's birth name was Nallur Arumuka Pillai. He was born in a Tamil literary family, and became one of the Jaffna Tamils notable for reviving, reforming and reasserting the Hindu Shaivism tradition during the colonial era. As an assistant working for Peter Percival – a Methodist Christian missionary, he helped translate the King James Bible into the Tamil language.he established Hindu schools and published a press in order to publish reading materials for Hindu children to educate them on Hindu religion and also practice and rituals of Hindu religion. With his knowledge of Christian theological premises, Navalar became influential in creating a period of intense religious rivalry with Christian missionaries, defending Tamils and their historic religious culture in India and Sri Lanka, preventing large-scale conversions to Christianity. (Full article...)

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Jaffna Public Library which burnt in 1981 is reopened in 2003.

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