Religion in Sri Lanka: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity on One Island

Sri Lanka is officially a Buddhist country and the influence of Theravada Buddhism on the culture, the calendar, the architecture, and the daily rhythms of the majority population is profound and visible everywhere. The poya holiday on the full moon of each month, the saffron-robed monks on every street, the temple at the centre of every village, the offerings of lotus flowers and incense that happen at dawn across the island: these are not tourist sights. They are the ordinary texture of Sri Lankan life.

Hinduism is the religion of the Tamil population in the north, east, and hill country and the kovils, the Hindu temples with their elaborately painted gopuram towers, are among the most visually extraordinary structures on the island. The Nallur temple in Jaffna, the Munneswaram temple near Chilaw on the west coast, and the countless smaller neighbourhood kovils in Tamil communities everywhere are active places of serious worship, not museums.

Islam has been part of Sri Lankan life since Arab traders arrived on the coast in the eighth century CE. The Sri Lankan Muslim community, called Moors locally, is concentrated on the west and east coasts and in the commercial life of the cities. The mosques of the east coast towns, the Arabic calligraphy painted on shopfronts, the particular foods of the Muslim community, are all part of the same island.

Christianity, brought by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, is the fourth major tradition and its influence is strongest in the west coast fishing communities and in parts of Colombo and Jaffna. The Dutch Reformed church in Galle Fort, the Catholic cathedral in Colombo, the small whitewashed churches in fishing villages from Negombo to Chilaw: these are all part of a tradition with four centuries of local history. Nainativu island in the Jaffna lagoon has both a Buddhist stupa and a Hindu shrine on the same small piece of land. This is not unusual in Sri Lanka. It is simply how the island has always been.