An Investigative Study on the classification of Sinhala literature as Maha Sampradaya and Chula Sampradaya

Abstract

Culture is a concept that is made up of the whole collection of human attitudes, thoughts, manners, and human relations. All aspects of individual socialisation and human acquisition as a social being are representations of culture. Accordingly, literature is also an indicator that reflects the artistic face of culture. It is understood that culture is a positive medium for the dissemination of a certain literary stream and that it is not an easy task that can be studied in one go. Therefore, gaining a thorough understanding of the culture provides a great foundation for the study of the evolution of Sinhala literature. Culture is the totality of knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and other capacities that man appreciates and matures. Accordingly, literature and culture are two factors that are closely related. A great contribution is provided by those cultural value systems to the formation of each literary stream. The basic purpose of this research is to understand the meaning of culture and identify the background of culture in literature. Among the objectives of this research are to examine how the culture is interpreted through the works of the great tradition by identifying the great tradition that is formed from popular literature and the characteristics of those works, and to inquire how the village culture of this country is represented through the works of the 'Chula' tradition that is formed in association with folk culture and folklore. It becomes clear that there is no mistake in introducing literature as an indicator of culture when examining how Sri Lankan Sinhala literature has been shaped by the respective time frame and social culture in broadcasting and how these cultural elements are reflected in literature. The scholarly literary stream favored by sophisticated society can be recognized as the Maha Sampradaya, and the Chula Sampradaya is the literary stream nurtured through the rural lifestyle associated with the Sri Lankan village culture. The way in which Sri Lankan Sinhalese culture is reflected in each tradition has been studied here.