Parker (1982, 18) explains the pains taken by the locals for this august festival. Davy (1983, 126) also mentions that this (Sinhala and Hindu New Year) is one of the four great national festivals. This might have avoided both Sinhalese and Tamils having two separate festivals in successive months. It is a assumed that the Nayakkar Kings of Southern India who ruled during the later part of the Kandyan Kingdom shifted the festival to April to fall in line with the Tamil New Year called Pudu Warsham. Robert Knox writes that during the time of his residing in Kandy New Year was a major festival of the Sinhalese and it was celebrate in March with royal patronage. Robert Knox (1981) who resided in Kandy as a prisoner of the Sinhala King too mentioned his experiences of the Sinhala and Hindu New Year as celebrated by the locals. Further it continues “April is also a month of festivals in Sri Lanka: the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, Milad- un- Nabi, and Easter. “ By the end of this month (March) several flowering trees are in bloom and many tropical fruits are abundance yet “April is the warmest month of the year’ says Handbook for the Ceylon Traveler. Science then, even though there were many successive administrative changes, it has been considered a government announced holiday. In 1885 the British Colonial rulers have announced this as a holiday.

The Sinhala and Hindu New Year has been one of the annual and seasonal events but the exact beginning of it is buried in the history.

Sinhala new year 2020