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Nalanda College, Colombo

boys' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ3529297 ↗
Source-derived summary

Nalanda College (Sinhala: නාලන්දා විද්‍යාලය) is a Buddhist school in Sri Lanka that provides primary and secondary education for boys. The school was founded by Buddhist educator Patrick de Silva Kularatne as an offshoot of Ananda College, Colombo, and was officially registered as a separate institution on 1 November 1925.

History

In 1922, a section of Ananda College was relocated to Campbell Place, Colombo, following a proposal from Kularatne. L. H. Mettananda was appointed principal of the institution, which became known as the Ananda branch. W. E. Fernando served as headmaster, and Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thero became its first Buddhist teacher.

In 1922, the Governor of Ceylon laid the school's foundation stone. In 1924, Kularatne spent Rs. 5,500 to purchase 0.10 ha (0.25 acres) of land near the Campbell Place playground and built sixteen classrooms for the new school, including three for laboratory use and two containing the principal and staff offices. A total of 330 students from Ananda were transferred under the care of Mettananda in 1924.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Nalanda College, Colombo” as boys' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1925, 1922, 1924—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1925-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Nalanda, College and Colombo can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as boys' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3529297. Authority coordinates are 6.922, 79.875. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 1922 and 1924.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Nalanda College, Colombo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Nalanda College, Colombo primary sources, Nalanda College, Colombo archive and Nalanda research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Nalanda College, Colombo”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Nalanda College, Colombo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.