a growth in Sri Lanka. Buddhism was 61.57% in 1881 in Sri Lanka. Buddhism has increased to 70.2% in Sri Lanka when it's 2012. In the mid 18th century the higher ordination of Buddhist monks known as Upasampada, which was defunct at the time, was revived with the help of Siamese Buddhist monks on the initiatives taken by Weliwita Sri Saranankara Thero during the reign of king Kirti Sri Rajasinha of Kandy. By the mid-19th century, Buddhist leaders such as Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera, Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala started a successful national Buddhist movement for the revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Hinduism Hindus make up 12.6% of Sri Lanka's population. The origins of the religion are linked to early Tamil immigration into the island since the Chola conquests in the 10th century or even earlier with the Saivite devotional movement that swept South India. Hinduism in Sri Lanka is largely identified with the Tamil population and is concentrated in the Northern, Eastern and Central Provinces. The population declined since the 1981 census on account of Sri Lankan Tamil emigration overseas and the repatriation of 'Indian' Tamils. A significant Hindu religious figure in Sri Lankan modern history is Satguru Siva Yogaswami of Jaffna. One of the mystics of the 20th century, Yogaswami was the official satguru and counseling sage of Lanka's several million Tamil Hindu population. The Ramakrishna Mission is somewhat active in the Amparai and Batticaloa districts while the Shaiva Siddhanta school of philosophy of Shaivism sect of Hinduism is prevalent in the North of Sri Lanka. Yogaswami belonged to the Shaiva Siddhanta and he was 161st head of the Nandinatha Sampradaya. The next person in the line of succession after Yogaswami was Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Islam By the 7th century, Arab traders had controlled much of the trade on the Indian Ocean, including that of Sri Lanka's. Many of these traders settled down in Sri Lanka, encouraging the spread of Islam. However, when the Portuguese arrived at Sri Lanka during the 16th century, many of the Arabs' Muslim descendants were persecuted, thus forcing them to migrate to the Central Highlands and to the east coast. In modern times, Muslims in Sri Lanka have the Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs Department, which was established in the 1980s to prevent the continual isolation of the Muslim community from the rest of Sri Lanka. Today, about