The Historical Development of Buddhism in Sri Lanka: Origins, Growth, and Transformation

This paper examines the long history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka across three broad phases that may be described as origins, growth, and transformation. It asks how a tradition carried to the island in the third century before the common era took institutional root, how it matured into a distinctive scholastic and monastic culture, and how it was repeatedly reshaped by political change, colonial intrusion, and the pressures of modernity. The study treats the Pali chronicles, principally the Dīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa, not as transparent records but as theologically motivated narratives whose claims must be read alongside epigraphic and archaeological evidence and the findings of modern historiography. It argues that the persistence of Sri Lankan Buddhism owes much to the early fusion of saṅgha and kingship, to the commitment of the island's monks to the preservation and exegesis of the Pali canon, and to a recurring capacity for institutional renewal in moments of apparent collapse. At the same time the paper resists any picture of an unbroken or static "pure" tradition, showing instead that Theravāda identity on the island was forged through internal contestation among monastic fraternities, through exchange with South India and Southeast Asia, and through confrontation with colonial knowledge and missionary religion. The modern revival, far from being a simple restoration, fashioned a reformed and partly lay Buddhism that continues to shape the religious and political life of contemporary Sri Lanka.