Govigama
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Chronology

Timeline

From the chronicle accounts to the present, with what the sources actually establish kept separate from what they relate.

Entries marked this way are traditional or chronicle accounts. They are recorded here because they are part of how the past has been told, not because they are independently established.

Chronicle accounts

  1. 543 BCE ◇

    Arrival of Vijaya

    The Mahavamsa relates the landing of Prince Vijaya and the founding of the Sinhalese line. The chronicle was compiled around a thousand years later and historians read its opening sections as traditional narrative.

  2. 437 BCE ◇

    Anuradhapura founded

    Traditionally dated to the reign of Pandukabhaya, who the chronicles credit with laying out the city, its reservoirs and its quarters.

Anuradhapura

  1. 247 BCE

    Buddhism introduced

    The mission of Mahinda to King Devanampiya Tissa. The arrival of Buddhism is among the earliest events in the chronicles with independent archaeological support.

  2. 236 BCE

    The Bodhi sapling brought

    Sanghamitta brings a cutting of the Bodh Gaya tree to Anuradhapura. Its tending has been documented continuously since.

  3. 161–137 BCE

    Reign of Dutugemunu

    Ruwanwelisaya and the Mirisaveti stupa are raised. The Mahavamsa devotes more space to this reign than any other.

  4. 29–17 BCE

    The Pali Canon written down

    At Aluvihare in Matale, the Tipitaka is committed to writing on palm leaf for the first time, during a period of famine and war that threatened the oral transmission.

  5. 276–303 CE

    Reign of Mahasena

    Jetavanaramaya is built, along with sixteen major reservoirs including Minneriya. The reign also saw open conflict between the Mahavihara and Abhayagiri monasteries.

  6. 412 CE

    Faxian visits Anuradhapura

    The Chinese pilgrim spends two years on the island and leaves one of the few outside descriptions of the city while it was still functioning.

  7. 459–477 CE

    Dhatusena and Kala Wewa

    Kala Wewa is built and linked to Anuradhapura by the Yoda Ela, a canal running some 87 kilometres at a gradient of a few centimetres per kilometre.

  8. 477–495 CE

    Kashyapa builds Sigiriya

    The citadel, water gardens and rock paintings are made during an eighteen-year reign, after which the site reverts to monastic use.

  9. 993–1,017 CE

    Chola conquest

    Repeated invasions from South India culminate in Chola rule and the abandonment of Anuradhapura as capital after more than a millennium.

Polonnaruwa

  1. 1,070 CE

    Vijayabahu I restores Sinhalese rule

    Chola rule is ended and Polonnaruwa becomes the capital. The monastic ordination lineage, by then extinct on the island, is restored with monks brought from Burma.

  2. 1,153–1,186 CE

    Reign of Parakramabahu I

    The island is unified and the irrigation network rebuilt on a scale not attempted again before the modern period. Parakrama Samudra, Gal Vihara and the Polonnaruwa monuments date from this reign.

  3. 1,187–1,196 CE

    Reign of Nissanka Malla

    The inscriptions of this reign contain the earliest known use of the word Govigama. The fixed caste ranking often projected back onto earlier periods is not attested before this.

  4. 1,215–1,236 CE

    Invasion of Magha and the drift south-west

    Polonnaruwa is abandoned and the centre of population begins a long shift towards the wet zone of the south-west. The dry-zone irrigation civilisation contracts sharply.

Shifting capitals

  1. 1,341 CE

    Coastal settlement recorded

    Chronicle and inscriptional references to communities settling along the south-western coast. Migration into the island continued throughout this period and involved many groups.

  2. 1,412 CE

    Kotte established

    Parakramabahu VI makes Kotte his capital and briefly reunifies the island — the last ruler to do so before the colonial period.

Colonial rule

  1. 1,505 CE

    Portuguese arrival

    A Portuguese fleet reaches Colombo. Control of the cinnamon trade becomes the organising interest of European involvement for the next three centuries.

  2. 1,592 CE

    Kandy becomes the capital

    The Kandyan kingdom consolidates in the highlands and remains independent for a further 223 years.

  3. 1,658 CE

    Dutch replace the Portuguese

    The Dutch East India Company takes the maritime provinces and organises cinnamon production through compulsory service, binding the Salagama community to the work under quota and supervision.

  4. 1,753 CE

    Higher ordination restored

    Monks from Siam re-establish the ordination lineage at Kandy under Weliwita Saranankara, founding what becomes the Siyam Nikaya. Ordination is open to all.

  5. 1,764 CE

    Ordination restricted to Govigama

    A faction within the Siyam Nikaya restricts higher ordination to candidates of Govigama birth, cutting the maritime communities off from a valid lineage. The restriction has never been formally lifted.

  6. 1,796 CE

    British take the maritime provinces

    Control passes from the Dutch to the British East India Company, and in 1802 Ceylon becomes a Crown Colony.

  7. 1,800–1,810 CE

    The Amarapura Nikaya founded

    Salagama, Karava and Durava laymen finance expeditions to Burma to obtain ordination directly. By 1810 there are enough ordained monks to confer higher ordination in Sri Lanka — the first monastic lineage created by lay action rather than royal patronage.

  8. 1,815 CE

    Fall of the Kandyan kingdom

    The Kandyan Convention transfers sovereignty to the British Crown, with the chiefs retaining office and the state undertaking to protect Buddhism. The whole island is under one administration for the first time since 1215.

  9. 1,817–1,818 CE

    Uva–Wellassa rebellion

    A rising against British rule led by Keppetipola, suppressed with exceptional severity — crops destroyed, villages burned, the male population of parts of Uva devastated.

  10. 1,832 CE

    Rajakariya abolished

    The Colebrooke–Cameron reforms end compulsory service tenure. Abolition on paper and change on the ground were not the same: customary obligation and unequal landholding persisted long afterwards.

  11. 1,848 CE

    Matale rebellion

    A largely peasant revolt against new taxes, suppressed under martial law within weeks. The severity of the response led to a parliamentary inquiry in London.

  12. 1,864 CE

    The Ramanna Nikaya founded

    Ambagahawatte Saranankara establishes a third fraternity, again in response to caste restriction and to lapses in monastic discipline.

  13. 1,873 CE

    The Panadura debate

    A public disputation between Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera and Christian missionaries, widely regarded as a turning point in the Buddhist revival and in the confidence of Buddhist public argument.

  14. 1,911 CE

    Caste last recorded in the census

    After this year the census stops recording caste. Every population figure for any Sri Lankan community since is inference rather than measurement.

  15. 1,915 CE

    The 1915 riots and internments

    Communal violence is followed by mass arrests under martial law, including of temperance leaders later shown to be blameless. The episode radicalised much of the emerging Ceylonese leadership.

  16. 1,931 CE

    Universal adult franchise

    The Donoughmore constitution extends the vote to all adults — the first territory in Asia, and among the first anywhere outside Europe and the settler colonies, to do so.

Independent Sri Lanka

  1. 1,948 CE

    Independence

    Ceylon becomes independent on 4 February with D.S. Senanayake as Prime Minister. The Citizenship Act of the same year disenfranchised most Indian Tamil plantation workers.

  2. 1,956 CE

    The Sinhala Only Act

    Sinhala is made the sole official language. It answered a real grievance about the dominance of English among a small elite, and simultaneously excluded Tamil speakers from public life in a way that shaped the following decades.

  3. 1,960 CE

    The world's first woman prime minister

    Sirimavo Bandaranaike takes office in July, the first woman anywhere to become head of government through election.

  4. 1,972 CE

    The republic

    A new constitution makes Ceylon the Republic of Sri Lanka and severs the last constitutional links to the Crown.

  5. 1,978 CE

    The executive presidency

    A second republican constitution replaces the Westminster system with an executive presidency and opens the economy after decades of import substitution.

  6. 1,983–2,009 CE

    The civil war

    Anti-Tamil violence in July 1983 marks the start of twenty-six years of armed conflict, ending with the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.

  7. 2,004 CE

    The Indian Ocean tsunami

    The tsunami of 26 December kills more than 30,000 people on the island and displaces around half a million.

  8. 2,022 CE

    Economic crisis and protests

    Sri Lanka defaults on its sovereign debt in April. Sustained public protests lead to the resignation of the president in July.