Sri Lanka a brief history based on the mahavamsa

G P S H DE SILVA

Author, de Silva is an Honours Graduate in History of the University of Ceylon, (1958), and in 1965, had become the first non-Britisher to be awarded the Academic Post-Graduate Diploma in Archives Administration, as an internal student of the University of London.

After graduation, he taught for one year at Dharmaraja College, Kandy, and in 1960 joined the then Department of Government Archives, now the Sri Lanka National Archives. He served at the Archives for 30 years, and became its Director in 1983, and took early retirement in 1990.

During his tenure at the Archives, he had worked closely with the International Council on Archives, (ICA) based in Paris, had been a member of its Executive Committee (1986-1990) and had sometime, been an ICA-UNESCO Consultant in Archives. After his retirement, the ICA, in 1992, had conferred on him the status of an Honorary Member of that body.

An active member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, since 1964, he was its President in 1990, edited several of its yearly Journals, and also its 150th anniversary volume, 1845-1995, along with Chris Uragoda.

Since 1964, he had contributor to the Daily News, Times of Ceylon and The Island, mainly on historical subjects, and also to a number of academic journals, both here and abroad. While at the Archives, he, in 1983, inaugurated the official Journal of the Archives titled 'Sri Lanka Archives'.

Among his publications are, History of Newspapers in Ceylon (Sri Lanka Unesco Commission publication), Nuwara Eliya, Govt. Press, for Ministry of Plan Implementation, 1978, A Statistical Analysis of Elections to the Legislatures of Sri Lanka 1931-1977, a Marga Institute publication, (1979), A Survey of Archives and Manuscripts relating to Sri Lanka and located in major London Repositories (ICA-UNESCO publication, 1980), Centenary History of the Singhalese Sports Club, (SSC publication, 1999), History of Coins and Currency in Sri Lanka, (A Central Bank publication (2000).

He is a widower since 1973; has two children, Harsha, an Economist and politician, and a daughter Nalika, a Paediatrician.

He lives, along with his daughter, at his residence, 43/91, Poorwarama Mawata, Colombo 5.