National Museum Library
The National Museum Library is a division of the Department of National Museum in Sri Lanka functioning as its library and archive for its collection of books and documents. Established on 1 January 1877 as the Colombo National Museum Library when the Colombo National Museum was established, it incorporated the Government Oriental Library that had been established in 1870. Since 1885, by law, a copy of every document printed in the country is required to be lodged with the museum library as it functioned as the oldest legal deposit in Sri Lanka. Collection At present the library accommodates over 12 million titles including the broad classifications of: *Arts and humanities: Archaeology, Ethnology, Anthropology, Oriental Languages and Literature; *Natural Sciences: Zoology, Entomology, Geology and Botany; Document types include: * Palm leaves inscribed in Sinhala, Pali, Sanskrit, Burmese, Telugu and Tamil characters. Subjects covered include Buddhism, Sinhala literature, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Colombo National Museum
The Colombo National Museum, also known as the Sri Lanka National Museum, is a museum in Colombo and the largest in Sri Lanka. Founded in 1877 and maintained by the Department of National Museums, it holds collections of significant importance to Sri Lanka, such as the regalia of the Kandyan monarchs, as well as many other exhibits relating the country's cultural and natural heritage. History The Colombo Museum, as it was initially called, was established on 1 January 1877. Its founder was Sir William Henry Gregory the British Governor of Ceylon. The Royal Asiatic Society was instrumental in bringing to the notice of Gregory on his appointment as governor in 1872 the need for a public museum, with some difficulty the approval of the legislative council was obtained within a year. The Government architect of the Public Works Department, James George Smither (1833–1910) was able to prepare the plans for a new structure in the Italian Architectural style. The constru ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Library Of Sri Lanka
National Library of Sri Lanka is a research and a reference library and the main library and information centre in Sri Lanka. It is located on Independence Avenue, Colombo. History The idea of a National Library for Sri Lanka initially emerged in the 1950s, with a number of prominent scholars and Commission reports urging the respective national governments to consider the establishment of a national library. These included the Choksy Commission report on government services in 1955, the Kandiah Commission reports in 1958, and the Brohier report in 1959. In 1974 British architect, Michael Brawne (1925-2003) was commissioned by UNESCO to assist the National Library Services Board in preparing a design for the national library. A site, adjoining the National Archives, on Independence Avenue, was identified and secured on 13 January 1976. Brawne worked closely with the Chief Architect, Panini Tennekoon, in the production of construction drawings for the library. The preliminar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Henry Arthur Blake
Sir Henry Arthur Blake (; 8January 184023February 1918) was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British colonial administrator and Governor of Hong Kong from 1898 to 1903. Early life, family and career Blake was born in Limerick, Ireland. He was the son of Peter Blake of Daly Castle, Corbally Castle (c. 1805 – bur. St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street, St. Ann's, Dublin, 19 November 1850), a Galway-born county Inspector of the Irish Constabulary, and wife (m. Mobarnan, County Tipperary) Jane Lane (Lanespark, County Tipperary, 5 March 1819 – ?), daughter of John Lane of Lanespark, County Tipperary, and paternal grandson of Peter Blake of Corbally Castle, County Galway (? – 1842, bur. Peter’s Well, County Galway) and wife (m. 14 May 1800) Mary Browne, daughter of The Hon. John Browne and wife Mary Cocks and paternal granddaughter of John Browne, 1st Earl of Altamont, and wife Anne Gore. He was included among the descendants the Blakes of Corbally Castle, Kilmoylan, C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solomon Dias Bandaranike
Sir Solomon Dias Abeywickrema Jayatilleke Senewiratna Rajakumaruna Kadukeralu Bandaranaike, ( Sinhala: සොලමන් ඩයස් අබේවික්රම ජයතිලක සෙනෙවිරත්න රාජකුමාරුණ කඩුකෙරළු බණ්ඩාරනායක; 22 May 1862 – 31 July 1946) was a Ceylonese colonial-era headmen. He was appointed as Head Mudaliyar and the aide-de-camp to the British Governor of Ceylon, therefore he was one of the most powerful personalities in British colonial Ceylon. Family History The origins of the Bandaranayaka family in Sri Lanka is claimed to be from the person known as Nilaperumal Pandaram who was from India and served he was high priest of the Temple of Nawagamuwa Pattini Devalaya. The family changed their name to the Sinhalese form of Bandaranaike and they adopt Portuguese name like Dias. They served the Portuguese rule and got social privileges and later on Dutch. Their golden era began as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hugh Nevill
Hugh L. Nevill (1847 – 1897) was a British civil servant, best known for his scholarship and studies of the culture of Sri Lanka. Biography Hugh Nevill was born on 19 June 1847, and came to Ceylon, as it was then called, at the age of seventeen as Private Secretary to the Chief Justice. Subsequently, he was a Writer in the Ceylon Civil Service, 1869; Commissioner of Requests, Colombo, 1879; District Judge, Matara, 1885; Fiscal for the Central Province, 1886; Assistant to the Government Agent, Trincomalee, 1891 and District Judge, Batticaloa from 1895 to 1897. He died at Hyères in France on 10 April 1897. Hugh Nevill had a younger brother named Geoffrey, who was a malacologist and a malacological author who worked in the Indian Museum, in Kolkata. Scholarly contributions Nevill was a pioneer student of the origin and development of Sinhala, the main language of Sri Lanka, and of the dialects of the Veddhas, Rodiyas, and Vanniyas. He was the founder and a major contributor of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Veterinary Science
Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutrition, and product development. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all animal species, both domesticated and wild, with a wide range of conditions that can affect different species. Veterinary medicine is widely practiced, both with and without professional supervision. Professional care is most often led by a veterinary physician (also known as a veterinarian, veterinary surgeon, or "vet"), but also by paraveterinary workers, such as veterinary nurses or technicians. This can be augmented by other paraprofessionals with specific specialties, such as animal physiotherapy or dentistry, and species-relevant roles such as farriers. Veterinary science helps human health through the monitoring and control of zoonotic disease (i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial objects in astrology, celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in Calendrical calculation, calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindu astrology, Hindus, Chinese astrology, Chinese, and the Maya civilization, Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others. Medicine has been practiced since prehistoric times, and for most of this time it was an art (an area of skill and knowledge), frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a medicine man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sinhala Language
Sinhala ( ; , ''siṁhala'', ), sometimes called Sinhalese (), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million people as of 2001. It is written using the Sinhala script, which is a Brahmic scripts, Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka. Along with Pali, it played a major role in the development of Theravada, Theravada Buddhist literature. The early form of the Sinhala language, is attested as early as the 3rd century BCE. The language of these inscriptions with long vowels and aspirated consonants is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi, a regional associate of the Middle Indian Prakrits that has been used during the time of the Buddha. The closest ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, a path of spiritual development that avoids both extreme asceticism and hedonism. It aims at liberation from clinging and craving to things which are impermanent (), incapable of satisfying ('), and without a lasting essence (), ending the cycle of death and rebirth (). A summary of this path is expressed in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind with observance of Buddhist ethics and meditation. Other widely observed practices include: monasticism; " taking refuge" in the Buddha, the , and the ; ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |