1880 AD
Olcott and Buddhist networks in Sri Lanka
Religion · Buddhist traditions · Theravada and colonialism
Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Blavatsky arrive in Sri Lanka in 1880 and meet monastic and lay leaders. That year the Colombo branch of the Theosophical Society, known as the Buddhist Theosophical Society, is founded. BPS’s commemorative history documents this episode of organization under colonial rule.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
- Dating in the source document
- 1880
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- 2026-09-04
Reading the date: point event.
Sources
- Buddhist Publication Society — Colonel Olcott: His Service to Buddhism, p. 40 (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- Pending verification: the source could not be accessed
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.