George Turnour’s edition of the Mahavansa
In the year 1826 an Englishman, the Hon. George Turnour (1799–1843), sat in his office in the Kachcheri buildings at Ratnapura in the Saffragam Province of Ceylon. Those were the days of Empire, full-blooded and confident. The Colonial Service, in particular, was attracting men of culture and high feeling, for whom the betterment of mankind in general, and not personal prosperity, was the principal objective.
George Turnour was one of these men, and history has shown him scant recognition, for his contribution to a fuller knowledge of the past must be considered unique.
The documents which lay on the desk before him that morning were not connected with his routine duties as Government Agent of the Province. They afforded the key, if a scholar could be found to decipher them, to such fabulous historic riches that the mere sight of them filled Turnour with excitement. He resolved to dedicate his own life to the task of solving the problem.
