Colonialism and religion: colonial knowledge productions on Sri Pada as 'Adam's Peak'

Premakumara De Silva

doi:10.4038/sljss.v37i1-2.7376

Abstract

This paper is directed to discuss the ‘effective’aspect of colonial knowledge in the discursive constructions of one of the popular pilgrimage sites, Sri Pada in Sri Lanka. What explored here is how different authoritative discourses emerge about Sri Pada from the different colonial powers: Portuguese (1505-1687), Dutch (1687-1896) and British (1896-1948). Authoritative discourse on the ‘colonised’ was largely produced through the agents of the colonial governments, military personnel, Christian missionaries, philologists and administrators. In this regard, Sri Pada, or Adam's Peak1 as it was called by colonial powers, was not exceptional. These forms of knowledge production change with changes in the practices of colonialism. In this respect, this paper investigates what gets identified and counted by colonial authorized knowledge as ‘Adam’s Peak’. Such an investigation is not new to anthropology and the human sciences in general. A large body of knowledge has been produced in the last two decades to unpack ‘a particular construction of colonial knowledge’ (Pels, 1997). However, a limitation in such an analysis can be seen, because most of the ‘decolonising projects’ in South Asia (India and Sri Lanka) have located their fields of work and expertise in the 19th and 20th centuries to unpack ‘British colonial knowledge production’ and they have paid scanty attention to ‘pre-British knowledge production’; for example, as far as India and Sri Lanka are concerned, the Portuguese and the Dutch ‘colonial knowledge productions’. A reasonably comprehensive understanding of culture, religion and history of the various sub-continental regions in the early 18th century and before is a prerequisite for the understanding of the transformations which the British instituted.

Highlights

INTRODUCTION“Colonial knowledge was frequently based on misunderstandings that led to an uneasy relationship between knowledge and power
This paper is directed to discuss the ‘effective’aspect of colonial knowledge in the discursive constructions of one of the popular pilgrimage sites, Sri Pada in Sri Lanka
The research explores how different authoritative discourses emerge about Sri Pada from three different colonial powers

Summary

INTRODUCTION

“Colonial knowledge was frequently based on misunderstandings that led to an uneasy relationship between knowledge and power. Colonialism and religion: colonial knowledge productions on Sri Pada as ‘Adam’s Peak’ 21 de Queyroz’s (1930), as well as in Ribeyro’s (1948) early 17th century colonial accounts, is to homogeneously categorise pilgrims as ‘heathens’, and the relic that they venerated as a work of ‘heathenish hypocrite’ This is to give the impression that non-Christian beliefs and popular practices are based on ‘false’ assumptions. Most of the military officers who participated in this exploration project later published their accounts as part of the texts that they wrote themselves on ‘colonised subject’ These ‘colonial military literature’ can be used to demonstrate the early British colonial knowledge productions on Sri Pada; more precisely ‘Adam’s Peak’

15 One incident which happened during this negotiation is worth mentioning here

25 He also wrote another book titled Christianity in Ceylon London

Conclusion