POSTCARD N.113 - SRI LANKA

Postcard sent on the 04th September; received on the 22nd September 2023

Postcard image: Temple of the tooh relic, Kandy (17th-18th centuries A.D.)  
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Postcards are indeed a bygone habit these days. I do remember the times we would go into any main town and there would always be a kiosk selling newspapers, cigarettes, chewing gums and candy, and, of course, postcards....

Not anymore. Much as "video killed the radio star", email killed the postcard and the letter... I'm sure that if it was today, the  Box Tops hit would be called "The email" and the chorus would go "My baby, just wrote me an email..."

That being said, I would not be surprised if postcards would make their comeback, fuelled by nostalgia first and then by discovery. Nostalgia for those like me who still remember writing them at least while on holidays to friends and relatives or prospective sweethearts, and discovery for the young people who   "discover" the enchantment of analogical existence and suddenly crave for vinyl records, video tape recording, analogue photography, lego blocks, and so on, as marks of  socio-intellectual differentiation and modernity....

The fact is that I do love to receive a postcard. And there are those who do like it much more than me. Sometimes I peruse Postcrossing statistics and it is not uncommon to find people who have sent and thus received thousands of postcards. Now if we translate this into economic terms, is means that they have injected thousands of their currency units into the system just by putting a stamp onto a 10x15 piece of card with a photograph.

Economies never let go of business opportunities, so maybe Postcard sending will reach its critical mass point again in the future... who knows?

Meanwhile, it is always a joy to receive a classic, tourist postcard, illustrated with a view of a local landmark, such as this one. Thank you so much, Ravindra. Truly appreciated.

Postcards are also sources of knowledge. I did not know of the existence of  temple  consecrated to the safeguarding of a tooth of Buddha, and of the legend associated to it which says that the keepers of the tooth are those that are entitled to rule the country. 

The legend, the relic and the temple are of such prominence that UNESCO, in 1988, declared the complex, in fact the whole Sacred City of Kandy, a World Heritage Site, based on evaluation criteria IV and V:

(iv)

to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history.

(v)

to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change.

As for stamps, Ravindra used the following (left to right):

- "The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) was founded in 1911 as the Empire Parliamentary Association, which later became the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in 1948", states a document on  CPA's website.

Its 58th conference took place in Sri Lanka in 2012 and to mark the occasion Sri Lanka Post issued, on 11SEP2012, a 5 Rupee stamp featuring an image of the Parliament Building, with the parliament ceremonial Mace the logo of the conference in the foreground.

-

As Armas e os barões assinalados 

Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana

Por mares nunca dantes navegados

Passaram inda além da Taprobana
... 

The feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host,⁠

⁠from occidental Lusitanian strand,

⁠who o'er the waters ne'er by seaman crost,

⁠farèd beyond the Taprobáne-land
... 
(source: The Lusiads (tr. Burton)/Canto I - Wikisource, the free online library)

Tapobrana... the distant land beyond which the Portuguese fared as narrated in the first stanza of our National Epic, The Lusiads, by Luís de Camões ... Tapobrana...the kingdom of Ceylon.

A former British colony, Ceylon became independent in 1948 and changed its designation to Sri Lanka in 1972.

The 75th anniversary of  independence was  celebrated by Sri Lanka Post with the 50 Rupee stamp on the cover, issued on 02FEB2023, which features the slogan "A step towards the centenary 1948-2048" alongside a miniature image of the Independence Hall, a monument in Colombo, completed in 1953, which celebrates the independence of the country from British Rule.

- 2019 was proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, calling on the attention of the world to a vast heritage, of which part is in danger of disappearance either by reverse assimilation of by erosion of speakers.

Of note here is the fact that amongst these languages (although not strictly an indigenous language, I believe,  since it is the product of the interaction and inter-development of a bridge idiom between existing different idioms)  one could possibly count Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole, which to this day is still spoken by a very small number of Sri Lankans.

Highlighting the UN General Assembly decision, Sri Lanka Post issued a 15 Rupee stamp on 06OCT2019, illustrated with the logo chosen to represent the International Year of the Indigenous Languages.

The stamps are cancelled with a postmark from The headquarters of the Post Office at Colombo, the economic capital of Sri Lanka.