Anuradhapuran Ambassador to Tang China, circa 650 AD

 


This man with great drip was an ambassador from Anuradhapura to Liang China, from 650 AD. That would put him to be from middle Anuradhapura, under Moriya dynasty (dynasty started by Dhatusena then Kashyapa, between two Lambakarana periods). In the Sino-Lankan relationships wiki page, it is captioned Liang dynasty but that is probably wrong, because the source (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraits_of_Periodical_Offering) was made during Tang period, but the description is confusing tho.

In out A/L History book, Aggabodhi IV (667 - 683 AD) was said to send envoys to China, he was also a Moriya king and tallies with Tang China period.. its cool that. The King Mahasena - Faxian period would've been 300 years before this time. Literally a Chinese monk, who came to study at Abhayagiri Vihara, which means it had something to offer that was very worthwhile, and people here were able to create institutions at the time, with all the problems they had, which is something we could learn and apply into our own contemporary context.

The Ming-Kotte War wiki states "The Yongle Emperor requested from the Ministry of Rites to recommend someone to serve as the new king of Kotte. As documented in Chinese records, Parakramabahu VI was elected by the Sinhalese present at the Ming court, nominated by the Ming emperor, and installed with the backing of Zheng and his fleet". If this is true, then that would've mean there were Sinhalese who had been in Ming court somehow, and that's interesting.

This is just one aspect of Sri Lankan diplomacy in the past. It just comes to show just how globalised the world was always been, and applying any lessons Sri Lankans of the past did diplomacy in their context, what worked and didn't, could be applied to our contexts.

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