Dr Roland Silva to deliver the 100th lecture of The National Trust – Sri Lanka

Dr Roland Silva will deliver the 100th lecture of The National Trust – Sri Lanka on October 26 at 6 p.m. at the HNB Auditorium, 22nd Floor, HNB Towers, 479 T.B. Jayah Mawatha, Colombo 10. The title of the lecture is “A socio-cultural and economic plan for Sri Lanka, drawing on the lessons of the past.”

Dr. Silva will look back as far as the 4th Century B.C. where we were a scattered nation with nearly 40,000 miniature reservoirs on the banks of each were 40 or 50 wattle and daub thatched houses. It was King Pandukabaya (4th century BC) who established a collective centre to barter the surplus agricultural produce from the dispersed mini-tanks and the adjoining villages.

Gradually townships grew round the barter centers with three cities in Anuradhapura, Kelaniya and Thissamaharamaya with regional boundaries carved out of the national waterways of the Mahaweli, Deduru Oya and Gin Ganga naming these provinces a Pihiti, Maya and Ruhuna.

Further information can be obtained from the Trust Office Tel 2682730 / 0778081214 at the Post Graduate Institute of Archaeology, 407, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 7.