AISLS HOLDS COLOMBO WORKSHOP ON THE SIDAT SANGARA

On 14 July 2014, AISLS held a full day workshop in Colombo on the Sidat Sangara, a medieval Sri Lankan scholastic work written as a guide for the composition of Sinhala poetry. This text had a long-standing influence on Sinhala literature, and it was also the focus of lively literary and cultural debates in the twentieth century.  The timing of the workshop was prompted by the recent publication of a new authoritative English translation of the text, produced by James W. Gair, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, and the late Professor W.S. Karunatillake of the University of Kelaniya; the publication of their translation by the American Oriental Society was the result of exemplary scholarly cooperation between an American scholar and a Sri Lankan scholar over the course of decades. Workshop sessions included both responses to the translation and the presentation of new original research on the Sidat Sangara and its connections to comparable texts in Sanskrit, Pali, and Tamil  Twenty-two persons, including three Americans, attended the workshop. Sri Lankan participants came from five different universities — Colombo, Jaffna, Kelaniya, Peradeniya and Ruhunu.  There was additional international participation with a presenter from Singapore University of Technology and Design. The workshop was also noteworthy for having a range participants ranging from junior university faculty to very senior and retired scholars.