Press — The Mail (Britain)

"THE word ‘Paradise’ is bandied around endlessly by travellers: it’s used to describe every stretch of whitesand beach or rainforest they see. But while modern tourists might write ‘#paradise’ alongside each snap they post on Instagram, there’s a genuine case for Sri Lanka’s identification as Paradise on Earth, thanks to a series of literary references. In his 1891 book Palms And Pearls: Or Scenes In Ceylon, Alan Walters highlights a 14th Century Icelandic work which names Paradise as an island off India ‘studded with flowers’, which he believes to be Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972. The Hereford Mappa Mundi,...