The launch, which will be held at 5.15pm on August 26 at the Lakshman Kadiragamar institute, Col 07 will welcome Dr. Ajith Fernando as guest of honour.

The introduction will be by Prof. Premakumar de Silva with the keynote and response by Dr. A.T. Ariyarathna and Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri. respectively.

Speaking to ’Sri Lanka Mirror’ on his new publication, Dr. Rāghavan said as follows :

Sinhala Buddhism, which is often studied from a sociological or anthropological standpoint, is examined by this book from a political perspective.

Dr. Rāghavan is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Buddhist Studies - Wolfson College University of Oxford and a visiting professor at St Paul University Ottawa- Canada. He turned to academic research after extensive fieldwork in peacebuilding in Sri Lanka during its thirty years of civil war. His multilingual expertise, bi-ethnic background and lifelong studies of Sinhala Buddhist society have provided a rare position for an in-depth and unique analysis of the Sinhalas, the war and especially the historical role of the Maha Sangha-Buddhist Monks. Rāghavan won the first Asian award for Political Studies from the James Madison Trust in 2005. He won the British Government Overseas Research Scholars Award in 2008 and the Swiss Federal Government Scholarship for Minority Studies in 2011. His current research includes the role of religions in post-conflict democratization, critical religion analysis of Buddhism and textual deconstruction of the Mahavamsa.