Cultural signs of the Portuguese and the Dutch regimes in Sri Lanka - a comparative study

Abstract

The coastal areas of Sri Lanka were under the direct influence of the Europeans, Portuguese and Dutch for more than 250 years. These two parties were different in various ways from Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims who were living in the country for a long period of time in Sri Lanka. They were much interested in gaining what they wanted by making their influences in the said areas during the said period. In this circumstance, their cultural influences had made several impacts on the history of Sri Lanka in political, economic and social terms. However, it is true that many of them have interconnected and deeply rooted with the lives of the people of Sri Lanka which cannot be changed or removed from them. The above Europeans, the Portuguese and the Dutch had the identity of Europeans between the two and the purposes of their visit to Sri Lanka were also the same, but their activities and cultural signs were different from each other except a few. The objective of the research is to study the similarities and the differences of cultural signs followed in Sri Lanka between the Portuguese and the Dutch. The sub objective of the research is to identify the policies that these two Europeans adopted individually and their favorable and adverse impacts. The information and data for this comparative and critically reviewed research which is carried out in the historical approach were obtained for primary and secondary source of data. While the reports and documents during the Portuguese and the Dutch period were treated as primary data, the essays articles and news items which were published on the topics in the books, magazines, newspapers that were published in the later period were treated as secondary data. The hypothesis of the research is that there are many more differences in their cultural signs and activities of these two parties than similarities and it seems that there is no evidence for any research done on the topic.