Spatializing Nationalism and Religion: The Production of Sinhala-Buddhist Imagination and the Centrality of Anuradhapura.

This article examines the transformation of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka's most ancient Buddhist city, into the central sacred space of Sinhala-Buddhist identity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It highlights the role of local Buddhist revival leaders, notably Anagarika Dharmapala and Walisinhe Harischandra, who contested British colonial archaeological practices and the dominance of the Up-Country (Kandyan) Buddhist order by asserting Anuradhapura as a living religious center exclusive to Sinhala-Buddhists. Their movement intertwined with the rise of the Low-Country elite and sought to cleanse the sacred city of non-Buddhist activities and colonial administrative presence, thereby displacing Kandy's spiritual primacy and reshaping the spatial and cultural landscape of colonial Ceylon. The revivalists negotiated with colonial authorities using Western frameworks while promoting a nationalist Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness centered on Anuradhapura, which became a symbolic and practical focal point of Buddhist revival and ethnic identity.