Portuguese Missionary in 16th and 17th Century Ceylon. The Spiritual Conquest

A second paradox of Sri Lankan history is that some of those who profess a nationalistic view of the island’s past tend, even in recent years, to rely rather heavily on Portuguese sources, mostly through the filter of English translations. As a result, much of what one can read about the Luso-Lankan encounter from a Sinhalese nationalist point of view today still relies as extensively on Portuguese materials as the most conservative historical narratives from the Catholic side. At first glance, one is thus tempted to dismiss Gaston Perera’s work, extensively based on Queiroz’s Temporal and Spiritual Conquest and on the missionary letters published by Vito Perniola in The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, as an anachronistic reflection of such entrenched positions.