Alan Strathern is a Research Fellow in History at Clare Hall, Cambridge.

• Introduction; Part I. The Temporal: 1. The Kingdom of Kotte; 2. Portuguese imperialism; 3. Portuguese relations with Kotte; 4. Bhuvanekabahu's sovereignty; Part II. The Spiritual: 5. The mission; 6. Missionary mentality; 7. The Buddhism of the Sinhalese; Part III. The Temporal and the Spiritual: 8. The religious obligations of kingship; 9. The consequences of royal conversion in Kotte and Sitavaka; 10. Christianity and Buddhism resurgent; Conclusion: some final thoughts on indigenism, identity and kingship; Appendix: regnal dates of rulers in Sri Lanka.

'Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka represents a powerful synthesis of primary sources, secondary literature on both early modern Portugal and Sri Lanka, and recent theoretical work on identity informed by incursions into the field of religious anthropology. … The enduring impression after reading this convincingly argued book is that it constitutes not only a coherent study in itself, but also a sort of preliminary exercise for future work with a wider scope and aiming at a more ambitious agenda. Kingship and Conversion goes well beyond its stated limits, and challenges its readers to reflect not only on the history of the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' in Sri Lanka, but on how 'exclusivist understandings of religious practice and identity' became established in early modern Asia and, broadly speaking, in the early modern world as a whole.' Journal of Early Modern History

Alan Strathern is a Research Fellow in History at Clare Hall, Cambridge.

• Introduction; Part I. The Temporal: 1. The Kingdom of Kotte; 2. Portuguese imperialism; 3. Portuguese relations with Kotte; 4. Bhuvanekabahu's sovereignty; Part II. The Spiritual: 5. The mission; 6. Missionary mentality; 7. The Buddhism of the Sinhalese; Part III. The Temporal and the Spiritual: 8. The religious obligations of kingship; 9. The consequences of royal conversion in Kotte and Sitavaka; 10. Christianity and Buddhism resurgent; Conclusion: some final thoughts on indigenism, identity and kingship; Appendix: regnal dates of rulers in Sri Lanka.

'Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka represents a powerful synthesis of primary sources, secondary literature on both early modern Portugal and Sri Lanka, and recent theoretical work on identity informed by incursions into the field of religious anthropology. … The enduring impression after reading this convincingly argued book is that it constitutes not only a coherent study in itself, but also a sort of preliminary exercise for future work with a wider scope and aiming at a more ambitious agenda. Kingship and Conversion goes well beyond its stated limits, and challenges its readers to reflect not only on the history of the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' in Sri Lanka, but on how 'exclusivist understandings of religious practice and identity' became established in early modern Asia and, broadly speaking, in the early modern world as a whole.' Journal of Early Modern History

Alan Strathern is a Research Fellow in History at Clare Hall, Cambridge.

• Introduction; Part I. The Temporal: 1. The Kingdom of Kotte; 2. Portuguese imperialism; 3. Portuguese relations with Kotte; 4. Bhuvanekabahu's sovereignty; Part II. The Spiritual: 5. The mission; 6. Missionary mentality; 7. The Buddhism of the Sinhalese; Part III. The Temporal and the Spiritual: 8. The religious obligations of kingship; 9. The consequences of royal conversion in Kotte and Sitavaka; 10. Christianity and Buddhism resurgent; Conclusion: some final thoughts on indigenism, identity and kingship; Appendix: regnal dates of rulers in Sri Lanka.

'Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka represents a powerful synthesis of primary sources, secondary literature on both early modern Portugal and Sri Lanka, and recent theoretical work on identity informed by incursions into the field of religious anthropology. … The enduring impression after reading this convincingly argued book is that it constitutes not only a coherent study in itself, but also a sort of preliminary exercise for future work with a wider scope and aiming at a more ambitious agenda. Kingship and Conversion goes well beyond its stated limits, and challenges its readers to reflect not only on the history of the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' in Sri Lanka, but on how 'exclusivist understandings of religious practice and identity' became established in early modern Asia and, broadly speaking, in the early modern world as a whole.' Journal of Early Modern History