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Theravada Buddhism is the largest and official religion of Sri Lanka, practiced by 70.2% of the population as of 2012. [2] Practitioners of Sri Lankan Buddhism can be found amongst the majority Sinhalese population as well as among the minority ethnic groups.
Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka.. Sri Lanka is officially a Buddhist country, while Sri Lankans practice a variety of religions.As of the 2012 census, 70.2% of Sri Lankans were Buddhists, 12.6% were Hindus, 9.7% were Muslims (mainly Sunni), 7.4% were Christians (mostly Catholics).
The promotion of the study of the Pali Language, Buddhist Culture and Buddhist Philosophy in Sri Lanka and abroad, and the enhancement of those studies as befitting the modern world trends. (a) The training of the student monks and the lay male students to teach Buddhism and Pali Language in the Pirivenas, Schools and in similar institutions.
The Pali language is a composite language which draws on various Middle Indo-Aryan languages. [1] Much of the extant Pali literature is from Sri Lanka, which became the headquarters of Theravada for centuries. Most extant Pali literature was written and composed there, though some was also produced in outposts in South India. [2]
In Sri Lanka, the new Buddhist traditions of the Amarapura and Rāmañña Nikāyas developed their own meditation forms based on the Pali Suttas, the Visuddhimagga, and other manuals, while borān kammaṭṭhāna mostly disappeared by the end of the 19th century. [192]
The work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. The Visuddhimagga, and the other commentaries that Buddhaghosa compiled, codified and condensed the Sinhala commentarial tradition that had been preserved and expanded in Sri Lanka since the 3rd century BCE. [16]
According to Early Buddhism scholar Lars Fogelin, the Pali Canon of Sri Lanka is a modified Canon and "there is no good reason to assume that Sri Lankan Buddhism resembles Early Buddhism in the mainland, and there are numerous reasons to argue that it does not." [56] Dr. Peter Masefield M.P.T.S.
Sources outside of Sri Lanka and the Mahavamsa tradition do not mention Mahinda as Ashoka's son. [4] There is also an inconsistency with the year in which Ashoka sent Buddhist missionaries to Sri Lanka. According to the Mahavamsa, the missionaries arrived in 255 BCE, but according to Edict 13, it was five years earlier in 260 BCE. [23]