Sri Lanka is a vibrating, colourful and multiethnic society with a long and intriguing history. A history closely knit together with the spreading of Buddhism into the world.

In 200BC the emperor Ashokas son Mahinda brought Buddhism to Sri Lanka . Here the religion grew strong while it slowly lost its influence in India . The people of Sri Lanka hence saw it as their duty to preserve the teachings of Buddha. From that time until 1000 AD Sri Lanka experienced a strong economical growth.

Around 1000AD Sri Lanka was invaded by the Chola kingdom who established a Tamil province in the north. In 1070 the Singhalese managed to defeat the Cholas and in 1100 the country was united. Thereafter the country began to experience difficulties, civil war broke out and large areas of cultivation were left unattended, and the Singhalese eventually moved south. The “last Singhalese kingdom” was established in Kandy in 1480 and it lasted until the 18 th century.

1505 the Portuguese arrived to its shores where they took control of the spice trade. Still today many people can count their ancestry back to the Portuguese era and names as “de Silva” is among the most common in many areas. In 1658 the Dutch throw the Portuguese out. They constructed new plantation and several fortifications along the cost.

In 1802 the British made Sri Lanka a crown colony and part of their growing empire and by 1818 they controlled the entire country. The Brits replaced many rice fields with rubber and tea plantations and they built (or maybe more correctly, the Sri Lankans built, forced by the British) roads, bridges, ports, churches, schools, government and other official buildings. The British also imported Tamils from India en mass to work at the tea plantations.

In 1919 the Ceylon National Congress was established as a national movement with the aim to strengthening the people’s awareness of its own history and its Buddhist rots. After the end of the Second World War the people more and more demanded independence and as an aftermath to the Indian revolution, led by Gandhi , Sri Lanka declared its independence on the 4 th of February 1948.