CHAFIER X the AUTHORS REVIEW of the TIL^Ditiona L

311 CHAFIER X THE AUTHORS REVIEW OF THE TIL^DITIONa L ACCOUNTS In this section an attempt Is made to reinterpret the accoiints in of colonisation given the Pali Chronicles namely the Djpavamsa I • and the i^havarosa in the light of archaeological data. This becomes necessary because all the traditionsd historical views are invariably influenced by these Chronicles which talk about the coloniaation ot Sri Lanka by the Indo-^ryan language speak ing Sinhala settlers in the 6th century B.C. Before analysing these legends it is relevant to present some observations re garding the value and nature of these Chronicles, Law (1947 * 43) says of these sources that "the Chronicles of Ceylon were all written or compiled by the Elders whose pri mary interest naturally lay in the history of Buddhism and Buddhist foundations. Although the religious motive finding its expression in the edification of all things connected with Buddhism predominates over everything else, there is really an interplay throughout of two distinct motives, devotional and patriotic. The first of them may be construed as puritanic and sectarian and the second as national and racial. The Chroniclers who were mad with the ieda of the Indo-Aryan rule 31 did not foresee the difficulties to be met by the modern historian.He concludes that "the main theme of the Dlpa- vamsa is the conquest of Lanka both politically and culcurally. The Mahavamsa amplifies and supplements the Dioavamsa. This apparently shows as to how these works are really meant to serve an ideological function which the author of the Mahavamsa is frank enough to admit at the end of each chapter, the pur pose of his compilation being *'for the serene Joy and emotion of the pious". Hence extracting the historical facts from ^ * the ideological bxhuberence becomes our main task. The two main legends are those of relating to Vijaya and Pandukabhaya respectively* The classical model of this version of colonisation of Sri Lanka by the Indo-Aryan language speaking Sinhalese often assumes a complete or partial genocide by the invading North Indians on the existing population embodied in the Vijaya-Kuveni legend and the demographic replacement by the invaders. This model also envisages that at that time Sri Lanka was popul<ated by non-human beings like J the Yakkas only. Referring to the earlier setx:lements the Dlpavamsa (C h.IX t 31-36) and one tradition in the Mahavamsa (Ch. VII t 39-^5) attribute the founding of the villages to Vijaya's cofupa- nions in the regions of north and north-western Sri Lanka (F ig . 50). The other tradition of the Mahavamsa (Ch. IX i 9-12) 313 ir f ' attributes this to the brothers of Bhaddakaccana (the wife of Panduvasudeva who was the successor of Vijaya), However it should be noted here that it is only in this tra dition that south-eastern Sri Lanka is mentioned. On the whole the main theme of the Chronicles is the story of Anu- rad!iapura region. Scholars like Geiger (bechert 1960 i 4 9 ), Basham (1952 » 163-171), Paranavitane and Nicholas (Ray 1959) while accept ing that these stories are overlain with myths, legends and folk&ore are yet of the opinion that these contain a kernel of truth - Sri Lanka was colonised by the Indo-Aryan language speaking Sinhala settlers from North India during the two or three centuries before the 3rd century B.C. According to them this is confirmed by the linguistic afliliations of the Sinhalese language as well as the earliest Brahmi inscriptions in Prakrit dating back to the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. They also infer that these people had arrived by sea from north west as well as north eastern India in more than one wave. However one could see a confusion even among the scholars who accept the version given in the Pall Chronicles as an evidence for the early Aryan seti;lements. Thus Ellawella (1969 » 105) concludes that "it can be inlerred that there were several streams of immigration from different parts of India, spread over an extensive period of time ... But the full authenticity of this account is doubtful, for it is 314 confused by a number of traditions unsklllfully blended. It Is therefore, difficult to ascertain the types and the charac teristics of these settlements from the Chronicles", (Nicholas (19!?9 t 8) says that "it will probably never be resolved satisfactorily why the i^uth Indians did not resist the North Indian colonisation of 5ri Lanka or if they did, how that resistence was overcoffle. On the other hand Senaratne (1969) has dismissed this story by saying that there does not seem to be any evidence, either historical or archaeological, which could substantiate this story, Mendis (1965 t 263-279) however concludes that the Vi^aya legend, according to the evidence available, cannot be taken as a historical account,and also is not the story of the first Aryan settlement as it actually took place. In his analysis he has admirably shown as to how besides the inspiration from the Jataka stories, the peopling of Tamil Nadu by the Dravidian speakers, (speaking a different language from that of the Sinhc.lese) with whom the early Sinhalese had a closer contact, would have also contributed to the belief that the Sinhalese had come from North India only. The legendary nature of this story of the first i^ryan settlements becomes obvious when one examines the legend more closely. Mendis who had exai&ined the origin and the growth of this legend is convinced that it is not even earlier 31b than the 1st century B.C. According to the Dipavamsa (Ch. IX i 5) the provocation for the Vi;Jaya story was the name Sihala and thus it says; "This was the island of Lanka called Sihala after the lion. Listen to this Chronicle of the origin of the island which I narrate" The Fiahavamsa (Ch. VII i 42) elaborates this and adds that the king i>ihi»bahu, since he had slain the lion was called Sihala and by reason of the ties between him and them, all those (^followers of \Ti;)aya were also called Sihala". The word Sihala is hardly mentioned in the Chronicles, We find a solitary reference to it in the Dipavamsa (Ch. IX : 5) in connection with the story of Vi;)aya and here too Sihala is referred to as the name of the island. In the Mahavamsa. this name occurs twice: once in Vijaya*s story (M.V, VII : 42) and next in the account of the king Vattagamini Abhaya (89- 77 B .C .) , where he is described as 'Mahakalasihala* *the black lion* only (M.V. XXXIII t 4 3 ). Thus in respect of these three instances, the first two occur within the Vijaya legend and the third is only a comparison of the king with a lion. But in the Pali Chronicles the most popular names to the island are Tambapanni (Tamrapami) and Lanka. Actually Sihala or Simhala became popular only in the later Pali and Sinhalese writings. £ven any of those earliest Brahnii inscriptions of Sri Lanka do not mention tl:iis name (Appendix I). 31G The earliest reference in Indian literature to Sri Lanka as Sihala (ijiuihala) is found in Cilappadikaram (Swaminctha Iyer 1920 i i>9» 80,91)» a Tamil epic and in the Diwavcidhana. the works of about the 3rd century A,D, Similarly it appears in the earliest Indian epigraphical sources also around this time (Mendis 19t»3)* Thus all the available evidence seems to confirm that Sihala (Simhala) in this form was not originally the name of the Island or the people and around 3rd century '•I A.Dj only the island derived it from some other old name Ilam about which we shall discuss later, 0 The above analysis also shows that there is no evidence to indicate that the first Aryan settlers gave the name Sihala (Simhala) to the island. Had they done so they would have been known by this ntjise from the earliest times. Hence the story which emerged five centuries after the first settlement is evidently unhistorical,. It is not likely to provide re liable evidence as to how, when, and why the original 'Aryan' settlers came to the island. This legend arose to account for the name Simhfc.la which was applied to the island then and was produced by one or more Buddhist Elders based on the knowledge of India and Sri Lanka they possessed at that time and limited by what they thought and believed with regard to human natiare and human activity. The landing of Vi§gya on the day of the Purinibbana of Buddha and the artificial nature of the legend, however, whows that the Vi;)aya myth should be seen not only as a fictional myth of origin but also 317 as a myth of legitimisatlon vls-a-vls Buddhism, the religion of the writers of this history, and parallels in many respects the Agastya and Par:^surama legends of bouth India and the Kaundinya legend of South-ii^st Asia. This apparently implies a cultural infiltration which had been wrongly attributed to a large scale migration of people. A thorough assimilation of cultural traditions by the local population need not imply and did not require a fullscale Indo-Aryan migration. The above conclusion becomet more and nrare eaqjlicit when one analyses the second cycle of legends known as the Pandu- kabhaya legends of the Kahavamsa (Chs, VIII,IX & X). The two independent legends are connected by a personality named Panduvesudeva who is introduced in the Chronicles as the brother’s son of Vijaya and the l&i>ter*s successor to the ttirone in £>ri Lanka.

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