There are 2 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Who is the indigenous Sri Lankan?
From: Raveen S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Ancient ports of call in Sri Lanka
From: Raveen S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 08:32:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Raveen S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Who is the indigenous Sri Lankan?
Who is the indigenous Sri Lankan?
One of the most contentious issues in the ethnic
conflict in Sri Lanka is the question of
indigenousness.
Which community is indigenous and which is not? Are
the Sinhalas the only indigenous people or the first
to arrive in the island?
In other words, are the Tamils outsiders or later
entrants?
Is Sri Lanka a multi-ethnic country or is it
essentially a Sinhala country with the other groups
being a mere historical add on?
When the conflict between the majority Sinhalas and
the minority Tamils became the central issue in
post-independence Sri Lankan politics, both sides used
"history" to buttress their respective cases.
Influenced by the colonial historiography of the 19th
and early 20th centuries, the Sinhalas declared that
they were indigenous to the island, and that the
Tamils were invaders from South India.
They said that the Sinhalas were Aryans from North
India and the Tamils were Dravidians from South India.
The Tamils, on the other hand, argued that they were
indigenous, with the North and the East as their
traditional homeland.
They also contended that they were part and parcel of
the ancient Tamil culture of South India and had
little or nothing to do with the Sinhalas who lived in
the rest of the island.
But renowned Sri Lankan historians and archeologists
like K Indrapala, Siran Deraniyagala, Leslie
Gunawardena and Sudarshan Seneviratne, contend that
Sri Lanka has been multi-ethnic and multi-cultural
from prehistoric times.
They add that both the Sinhalas and the Tamils are
from the same South Indian-Sri Lankan (SISL) gene
pool.
They reject the mass migration or invasion theory so
popular among colonial and post-colonial historians.
They say that people, cultures, languages, religions,
artifacts and technologies moved in small ways from
place to place over long periods of time.
And these movements have not always been in one
direction, as many seem to think.
Sure, there have been invasions, but invasions have
not been the dominant mode of movement, they say.
Trade, cultural, religious and political movements and
linkages have played a more important role in social
transformation than military conquests or mass
migration.
Sri Lankan and Indian historians like Romila Thapar
also reject the theory of the displacement or
annihilation of local populations by foreign ethnic
groups.
There has been "language replacement" but rarely ever
physical annihilation or replacement of populations,
they say.
In his seminal work, The Evolution of an Ethnic
Identity: The Tamils of Sri Lanka: C 300 BCE to C 1200
BCE (The South Asian Studies Centre, Sydney 2005, Prof
K Indrapala says the present-day territories of Sri
Lanka and South India comprised a single region in
which the pre-historic ancestors of the modern Sri
Lankans and South Indians roamed freely with the sea
dividing the two land masses acting as a unifier
rather than a divider.
The Tamils have been in the island of Sri Lanka since
long.
"The earliest inscriptions and the early Pali
chronicles attest to the presence of the Tamils
(Damedas/Damelas) in the EIA (Early Iron Age)," says
Indrapala.
"The Demedas in Sri Lanka in the centuries BCE (Before
Common Era or AD) need not, therefore, be considered
as outsiders." Indrapala says.
The Ila (or Hela or Sila as the ancient Sri Lankan
inhabitants were known) moved back and forth between
Sri Lanka and South India just as the Demeda or Demela
(Tamils) did.
"The idea of looking upon the Demedas as aliens was
surely not prevalent in the Early Historical Period
(EHP).
The earliest extant chronicle of the island, namely,
the Dipavamsa, does not refer to the Damila rulers of
Anuradhpura (Sena and Guttaka) in its list as
invaders. Nor does the Mahawamsa, the most important
ancient Sinhala chronicle.
The Mahawamsa describes Sena and Guttaka as 'sons of a
horse-freighter' (assanaavikaputta)."
Sena and Guttaka, who had conquered Anruradhpura and
ruled it for 22 years, were described in the Mahavamsa
as having ruled "justly" Indrapala points out.
Duttagamini-Elara conflict
The account of the armed conflict between the Sinhala
hero, Duttagamini, and the Tamil prince, Elara, in the
Mahawamsa, has formed the basis of 20th century
perception of the relations between the Sinhalas and
the Tamils in ancient Sri Lanka.
But Indrapala and other modern historians consider
this interpretation invalid.
They point out that the Mahawamsa had portrayed Elara
as a just ruler who was admired greatly by
Duttagamini.
The latter had noted that Elara was a protector of
Buddhism, and admired him for being just to friend and
foe alike.
Duttagamini even built a memorial for Elara and asked
Sinhala Buddhists to worship at it.
"The idea that the Demela were foreign intruders and
the Hela fought to liberate their people is
nonsensical," Indrapala concludes.
Cultural and political symbiosis
Sinhala and Tamils kings of Sri Lanka and South India
cooperated in peace and war.
It was not uncommon for a Sinhala king of Anuradhapura
to seek the help of a Tamil prince in South India in
war or to gain a throne.
Sinhala kings routinely recruited Tamil mercenaries
from South India. Many of these settled down in the
island.
Likewise, Sinhala princes aligned with Tamil Nadu
rulers in their internecine wars.
In the reign of the Sinhala king Sena II (853-887) a
Sinhala army sided with the Pallavas and defeated the
Pandya king.
The Sinhala king placed his favourite Pandya prince on
the throne in Madurai.
Later, after the ascendancy of the Cholas, the Sinhala
kings sided with the Pandyas to contain the aggressive
Cholas.
In times of peace, the Sinhalas of Sri Lanka and the
South Indian Tamils cooperated in a variety of
activities including the building of the irrigation
tanks in Anuradhapura and Trincomalee.
Leslie Gunawardane has written extensively on SISL
cooperation in irrigation works.
Tamil soldiers helped construct irrigation tanks in
Anuradhapura and Trincomalee areas.
Tamil merchants in Sri Lanka contributed their mite to
the building of these facilities.
Earlier, Megalithic folk from South India had brought
to Sri Lanka the domesticated rice plant and taught
Sri Lankans the use of iron.
Unifying role of Sanskritisation
Sri Lankans and the people of South India were able to
communicate with each other and cooperate because of
the use of Prakrit, a language used by the traders of
South Asia in ancient times.
Prakrits were Sanskritic languages spoken by the
common man in North India in ancient times.
The spread of Prakrit in both South India and Sri
Lanka had brought about major cultural changes in both
places.
The spread of the Tamil language, and Buddhist, Jaina
and Saivite religions were other contributory factors.
However, there was a basic continuity in the
population as such. There was a "biological continuum"
right through history, Indrapala says.
What took place was cultural transformation but not
physical transformation.
"The two ethnic communities, Sinhalese and Sri Lankan
Tamils, are ultimately descended from the Mesolithic
people who occupied almost all parts of the island in
prehistoric times," he says.
Sanskritsation, which is the adoption of North Indian
Sanskritic linguistic, religious, cultural and social
traits, has been a unifier both in South India and Sri
Lanka.
True, Sanskritisation, though Prakrit, had affected
the Sinhalas very much and the Tamils not so much.
But both were significantly affected giving rise to
critical commonalities.
According to Indrapala, the harbingers of
Sanskritisation were the Brahmins and Kshatriyas, who
came to the ports of long distance trade on the coasts
of South India and Sri Lanka.
At first, these immigrants had clashed with the local
elite. But later, they established their dominance
through reconciliation, intermarriage, cultural
co-option and other non-confrontational means.
The pattern was: the local ruler would adopt
Sanskritic names, trace his dynasty's links to a North
Indian ancestor; make Brahmins his spiritual and
political advisors; and give them gifts of land.
"The legends relating to Agastya, Parasurama,
Kaundinya, Vijaya, Arjuna, the Pandyas, Cholas and the
Pallavas show aspects of this pattern with minor
variations," Indrapala observes.
In Sri Lanka, the Buddhist rulers of Anuradhapura
unwittingly aided the Hindu/Tamil Saivite movement
through the patronage of the Brahmins.
Buddhist kings had begun to look after Brahmins and
setting up Brahmin villages called Brahmadeyas. They
renovated temples.
However, the impact of Prakrit was not uniform either
in South India or in Sri Lanka.
Andhra, Karnataka and North Tamil Nadu showed a
greater impact than Southern Tamil Nadu and North Sri
Lanka. The earliest inscriptions help prove this
point.
One reason for this was that Tamil was a developed
language in the second half of the first millennium
Before the Common Era (BCE), as the Sangam literature
reveals.
This had enabled Tamil to resist Prakritic influences
to a significant extent.
Buddhism (both the Mahayana and the Theravada
varieties) were also unifiers.
In the period before aggressive Chola Saivism, when
Buddhism was a major religion in South India,
including Tamil Nadu, many Tamil Buddhist monks, with
knowledge of Prakrit and Pali, were closely
interacting with Sri Lankan monks and contributing to
the corpus of Buddhist literature.
In one of the major pirivenas or Buddhist universities
in Hikkaduwa, knowledge of Tamil was considered
essential.
Emergence of Sinhala and Tamil identities
As regards the emergence of the Sinhala and the Tamil
identities, Indrapala says that these took shape over
a long time.
It was not until 1200 Common Era (CE) (another term
for AD) that the two communities emerged as distinct
ones identified with distinct territories - the Tamils
identified with the North and the East, and the
Sinhalas with the rest of the island, he says.
The Sinhala identity emerged by the assimilation of
various tribal, linguistic and ethnic communities
about five to six centuries Before the Common Era
(BCE).
By then, long distance trade had brought Prakrit
speaking people from North and peninsula India.
By the third century BCE, Buddhist and Jaina monks had
come with Buddhism and Pali. These again rode on the
backs of traders.
Prakrit became the language of the Sri Lankan elite.
And the elite were residing in the urban areas, which
were the centres of long distance maritime trade. The
elite derived their power and status from such trade.
Gradually, the rest of the community, the hoi polloi,
and other linguistic groups, accepted Prakrit.
It soon became the lingua franca in a situation where
there were many languages and a common language was
needed for better communication.
The Sinhala language, which developed over time, was a
mixture of several local languages and Prakrit.
The Tamils of Sri Lanka emerged as a second ethnic
group in an evolution parallel to that of the
Sinhalas, says Indrapala.
The Tamil identity also emerged as a result of the
assimilation of many local linguistic and ethnic
groups.
It also owed a great deal to cultural, linguistic and
economic influences from Tamil Nadu in South India.
The geographic proximity of the North and East of Sri
Lanka to South India had resulted in South India
having a greater influence in the Sri Lankan North
East than in the South.
"It would appear that the Tamil-speaking traders
formed the elite in northern Sri Lanka and their
dominance began the process of replacing the local
language or languages by Tamil," he says.
With powerful kingdoms emerging in Tamil Nadu, the Sri
Lankan Tamils kept getting cultural, linguistic and
political reinforcements from across the Palk Strait
from time to time.
This helped the Tamils of the North and East resist
assimilation by the Sinhalas in the South, Indrapala
says.
"The proximity of northern Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu and
the frequent rise of dominant political entities
there, reinforced the local Tamil-speaking population
in considerable numbers, thus working against the
total assimilation of the Tamils into the majority
Sinhalese population," he explains.
"The Tamils who lived in the southern parts of the
island were assimilated into the Sinhalese population.
This is a process that has continued until modern
times," he adds. In a parallel movement, the Sinhala
speakers living in the North and East, were
assimilated by the dominant Tamil ethnic group.
(PK Balachandran is Special Correspondent of Hindustan
Times in Sri Lanka)
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 09:22:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Raveen S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Ancient ports of call in Sri Lanka
Ancient ports of call in Sri Lanka - by Rohan
Jayetilleke (WWW Virtual Library - Sri Lanka)
Sri Lanka being situated in the middle of the Indian
Ocean and to the extreme south of the Indian
Peninsula, Sri Lanka was the only favourite port of
call for revictualling and water for the mariners
sea-borne from West to east and Vice-versa. The fleets
of Chinese junks carrying silk and ceramic ware to
trading stations on the East African coast, and the
Arabian Vessels transporting spices of the East Indies
to European markets had to call at the ports of Sri
Lanka necessarily as a half way port in the long and
arduous sea travel in sailing vessels.
Although the foreign traders who lay anchor at these
Sri Lanka ports hardly recorded these ports, there is
a wealth of references in Pali chronicles and Sinhala
literature and additionally inscriptions enable us to
piece together the international recognition of these
ports during these early times.
Jambukola and Mahatittha are two ports mentioned
frequently in the Mahavamsa, in its resume of the
history of the island. However it is not possible to
be certain as to when these ports became operational
but, it could be assumed without fear of contradiction
that these ports were in existence even during the
time of aryan colonization of the island, which points
to the fact Aryans were only one race of people to
arrive in Sri Lanka and they were never the founding
fathers of Sri Lanka, as Sri Lankan's history is
datable beyond the Aryan immigrants., from India. Thus
Sri Lankans are not totally of Indian descendants and
Aryan immigrants only provided a cross-cultural impact
on Sri Lanka, which already had an advanced
civilization.
The Jataka stories which are pre-Buddhistic and later
the figure of the Buddha was introduced to them to
make them Buddhistic, contain a number of references
of voyages by North Indian merchants to Sri Lanka. The
account in the Valahass Jataka refer to one of the
ports situated on the North Western coast of Sri
Lanka.
Port of Jambukola
Jambukola, identified as the present day
Kankesanturai, served as the port to North India, more
especially to the port of Tamralpiti in Bengal, which
was also a port from where Sri Lanka could be reached.
It was from Jambukola that the envoys of King
Devanampiyatissa set sail the Court of Emperor Asoka
of India. (Mahavamsa ch. 19. v23). Jambukola and
Anuradhapura were connected by a highway and King
Devanampiyatissa had the road prepared ( I bid ch 19 v
25) After the reign of King Devanampiyatissa,
Jambukola diminished in importance and Mannar
(Mahatitthe) which was only distance-wise to
Anuradhapura, was half of it came into prominence.
However, references are made in Mahavamsa to Jambukola
as the port for religious intercourse from time to
time. The Sacred sapling of Sri Maha Bodhia of Gaya
(India) arrived in the charge of Theri Sanghamitta
through Jambukola, and King Devanampiyatissa marked
this event by building the Jambukola Vihara on the
banks of this port (Ed.W.Stede; Sumangalavilasini.
Part 1., PTS. Edition p.695).
Port of Mahatittha
Mahatittha port, in present day Mannar area, is first
mentioned in connection with the landing of Vijaya's
second wife and undoubtedly this port was known to
mariners and merchants of India even in the pre-Aryan
era. The existence of the Hindu shrine Tiruketisvaram,
is a clear indication that Indian Hindus did carry on
trade connections with Sri Lanka through this port and
the existence of pearl fisheries too contributed it to
become a port of great commercial activity both for
the natives and the foreigners.
Today Mahatittha is a buried city. In the pre 1980
period when travel to Mannar or for public servants
from the south to work in the government
establishments there were a possibility, the site of
the port was a vast mound of piled up ruins, spread
over nearly 300 acres and coins and beads laid bear
after a shower. One of its main roads excavated many
decades ago was almost 40 feet wide. (Archaeological
Survey of Ceylon Annual Report, 1907, p 28. It is a
pit during the colonial era excavations were done and
these surveys have not been continued in the post
independence period of Sri Lanka and any
recommencement of surveys and excavations are now
thwarted by the war situation of the area.
The fragments of Roman pottery, coins and other
artifacts suggest conclusively that Mahatittha was a
great port in the early centuries of the Christian
era. In the Sangam Literature of the Tamils there are
refereneses to this port as one of the greatest of the
sea board of Sri Lanka and India. (C. Rasanayagam,
Ancient Jaffna, p.14ff) It was through Mahatittha that
all South Indian invaders invaded Sri Lanka, and the
large community of Tamil traders in business at
Mahatittha helped them in their military pursuits.
Mahatittha was not confined for intercourse with South
India alone. There are authentic records of voyages
from North India too. The Sacred Tooth Relic that was
brought by the Kalinga Prince Danta and princess
Hemamali to Sri Lanka in the fourth century AD, it was
landed at this port. The Pali work Dathavamsa fails to
call this port as Mahatittha, but refers it to as
Lankapattana (Dhatavamsa, Edited by Widurajothi Thero,
Kalutara 1939,0.37). Interestingly the 12th century
work Daladavamsa describes this port in most
disparaging languages, probably of the fact it was a
stronghold of the Tamil invaders and the gateway to
Sri Lanka for overrunning Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa
kingdoms and also the presence of the Hindu temple
therein.
The origin of Tiruketisvaram temple is shrouded in the
mists of history, there was still another Hindu temple
Rararaja Isarattu Mahadeva named after the Chola
conqueror of Sri Lanka of the 11th century AD. (Annual
Report on the Epigraphy, South India, No. 616 of 1912)
The predominance of Hindu culture, which could be
traced to the reign of King Pandukhabaya. The name of
Mahatittha was later changed by the Hindu community
living there as Rajs-raja-puram (Annual Report on
Epigraphy, South India No. 616 of 1912). This is not
an uncommon happening as there is a place outside of
Melbourne, Australia, called in Sinhala 'Mayiyokka
Handiya' (Maniock Junction, renamed by some of the
early Sinhala settlers who went as indentured labour,
500 in number to work in sugar cane fields of then
Australia, from the port of Galle in 1882.
A Chola inscription refers to still another temple
called Tiruviramisvaram Udaiyar at this port. (Ibid.,
No.618) Mahatittha was held in veneration both by the
Sinhalese and Tamils and slaughter of cattle there was
disallowed as a unpardonable crime. (E.Z.Vol III,
p.133) the reference in the Saddharmalankaraya of a
trader of this port proceeding inland for trading,
indicates that there was free and fair access to all
communities to this port as well as for other parts of
the island on trade and commerce missions. (Ed.
Gnanavimala: Saddhammalankaraya, Colombo, 1948.
p.675).
King Parakramabahu in the 12th century assembled an
armada of battle ships at Mahatittha to invade Pandya
Kingdom
http://mahavansa.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_mahavansa_archive.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/varalaaRu/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
