Activities

I. Maintenance of the Library with a unique collection of rare books and manuscripts of approximately 8000 volumes and a collection of 117 titles of journals mostly belonging to the 19th and 20th centuries.

II. Publication of an unbroken series of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1845 to date.

III. Issuing of a Newsletter.

IV. Organising a Series of Monthly Lectures.

V. Sponsoring publication of books falling within the purview of objectives of the Society.

VI. Sale of Publications.

VII. Administration of Membership consisting of 03 Honorary, 450 Resident Life, 46 Resident Ordinary, 3 non-resident Ordinary and 6 institutional members.

VIII. On-going project of translation of the Pali Buddhist Commentaries into Sinhalese. Under this programme five commentaries have already being translated into Sinhalese and published.

IX. Studies in Toponymy of Sri Lanka are being conducted by a separate sub-committee of the Society.

X. An exhibition and a publication on the history of the written word has been completed by a separate sub-committee of the Society.

XI. On-going project on 500 years of ‘Portuguese Encounter’ – The objectives of the Sub-committee are to study and explore the interactions with the Portuguese from the perspective of the colonized and explore theoretical issues like the emergence of the global system and the relevance of World System analysis in the light of the current Shift to Asia. The study/work on the Portuguese Encounter is comprised of overlapping networks. The principal Network is that of around 30 core researchers (with up to 150 outside this core).

XII. Organising study groups