CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

PUNSARA AMARASINGHE CYIL 15 ȍ2024Ȏ entanglement in colonial history. Unlike the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was given to the British as a gift, the Tara Devi’s statue was not a part of a donation made by the Sinhalese monarch. On the contrary, circumstances led to the acquisition of Tara Devi’s statue remain hidden in the mists of time and the current narratives suggest that British discovered it in the East Coast of Sri Lanka during 1812–1820. The East Coast encompassing coastal areas such as Trincomalee and Batticaloa were under the Colonial rule for a considerable time. In particular, the monopoly held by the Kandyan kingdom as the last independent principality in the island began to wane in the late 18 th century before the rise of Dutch power. The treaty that came into effect between the King Rajasinghe II and the Dutch Naval Commander Adam Westwold, who represented the Dutch East India Company in 1638 secured the interests of two parties for the common goal of crushing the Portuguese presence in Sri Lanka and within the gamut of this treaty the Kingdom of Kandy enjoyed a considerable territorial power, which included a larger portion from the East Coast. 23 The worst nightmare that befell the Kandyan kingdom was its massive military defeat before the Dutch forces in 1765, which completely confined Kandy’s sovereignty as the treaty emerged after the war between King Keerthi Sri Rajasinghe and the Dutch compelled the latter to admit Dutch authority over the major ports around the island that included the East Coast. Until the British conquered the coastal areas in Sri Lanka in 1796, the rule of the Eastern Coast was in the hands of the Dutch East India Company and the treaty of Amiens signed between the British and Dutch sealed the fate of Sri Lanka as Batavia Republic agreed to relinquish its claim over the coastal areas of the island, which resulted in transforming the status of Ceylon into a crown colony. The overarching features related to Tara Devi’s discovery and its aftermath incidents had taken place during colonial domination of the British over Ceylon. From the early writings attributed to Hugo Grotius, one can find the indulgence offered by the Dutch jurist in admitting the sovereign status of the Asian principalities by giving a firm explanation. In Chapter II of Mare Liberum Grotius refers to those parts of the East Indies in which the Dutch–Portuguese conflict developed most acutely, i.e. Ceylon, Java and the Moluccas (which is not an exhaustive enumeration), and says that these coun- tries always have had their own Kings ( suos reges ), their own government ( suam republicam ), their own laws ( suas leges ) and their own legal systems ( sua jura ). 24 From his point of view, Grotius drew a conclusion that Europeans did not completely have the sovereignty in the Asian territories ( titulus dominii ), which elevated the status of Asian rulers into independent rulers capable of entering into Diplomatic and treaty relations with the European nations. But, this conception was short lived with the emergence of Europe’s superiority over Asia, which paved the path for the formation of dozens of unequal treaties and such treaties enabled the Western powers to occupy the objects from the governed territories. By way of the legality, the issues arising from Tara Devi’s acquisition remain at twilight and the British claim for accommodating her in the London museum seems to be based on a stringent outlook as it was taken away from the island during the early years of the British administration, but at the same time a nuanced picture on Tara Devi can be unveiled by exploring the content of the Kandyan Convention in 1815, the treaty that came into effect

23 POWELL, G., The Kandyan Wars: The British Army in Ceylon , London: Leeo Cooper Publishers, 1973, p. 67. 24 HOLK, V., Grotius Reader: A Reader for Students of International Law , Leiden: Grotius Center, 1973, p. 12.

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