The 175th Anniversary Celebrations – Memorial Lecture Series of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka
A Memorial Lecture Series on the life and works of selected distinguished scholars who have served the Society were initiated in 2020 by the RASSL. This is a part of the 175th Anniversary Celebrations of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka (Est. 1845), which was adopted as a resolution at the Annual General Meeting held on 30th March 2019. These lectures were organized by a sub-committee comprising Dr Wijerathne Bohingamuwa, Mr. Dhanesh Wisumperuma and Mr Mudhitha Karunamuni, appointed by the 175th Anniversary Celebrations Committee of the Council.
The lecture series commenced in February 2020 and were originally planned to be held physically at the RASSL/ Mahaweli Centre Auditorium. The COVID-19 Pandemic, however, forced the Society to have them online. The topics of the lectures and ideas expressed in these lectures are those of the speakers. Although this online repository of lecture recordings is made available to the public, written permission should be obtained from speakers and the RASSL sub-committee before using them as a Memorial Lecture Series Volume will be published by the RASSL.
1. මහාචාර්ය ඩී. ඊ. හෙට්ටිආරච්චි: ජාතික හා ශාස්ත්‍රීය සම්ප්‍රදානය
ශ්‍රී ලංකා රාජකීය ආසියාතික සංගමයේ 175 වන සංවත්සරය නිමිත්තෙන් සැලසුම් කොට ඇති ශාස්ත්‍රීය දේශන මාලාවේ පළමු වැන්න “මහාචාර්ය දයානන්ද ඒකනාථ හෙට්ටිආරච්චි: ජාතික හා ශාස්ත්‍රීය සම්ප්‍රදානය” යන මැයෙන් ශ්‍රී ජයවර්ධනපුර විශ්වවිද්‍යාලයෙහි සිංහල හා ජනසන්නිවේදන අධ්‍යයනාංශයෙහි ජ්‍යේෂ්ඨ මහාචාර්ය රත්නසිරි අරංගල මහතා විසින් දේශනය 2020 පෙබරවාරි මස 24 වන සඳුදා දින ප.ව. 5.00ට කොළඹ 7, ආනන්ද කුමාරස්වාමි මාවතේ මහවැලි කේන්ද්‍රයේ ශ්‍රවණාගාරයේ දී පවත්වනු ලැබු දේශනය.
3. Memorial Lecture on Pandit Dr. G.C. Mendis
The relevance of source criticism in relation to the “Ancient history of Sri Lanka”: A critical reading of G.C. Mendis’s Mahawamsa criticism
Delivered by
Prof. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri
Head, Department of History, University of Colombo
4. Memorial Lecture on Pandit Dr. Paul Pieris
Delivered by
Susantha Goonatilake PhD (Exeter)
5. Memorial Lecture on Pandit Dr. Nandadeva Wijesekara
6. Memorial Lecture on Dr R.L. Brohier
7. Memorial lecture on Dr. Charles E Godakumbura by Dr. Senarath Dissanayake
8. Memorial lecture on Prof M.B. Ariyapala by Prof. Kusuma Karunarathna