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Evolution of the Indigenous Village Irrigation Systems of Sri Lanka

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Evolution of the Indigenous Village Irrigation Systems of Sri Lanka Evolution of the Indigenous Village Irrigation Systems of Sri Lanka Traditional Beliefs Based on came down from the original Vidya Jyothi Chronicles settlers - "it is a product of the Dr. C.R. Panabokke mind and not a re-creation of what commonly-held belief among actually took place." As Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian some historians and subsequently commented by Research and Training Institute . scholars in the past, was Perera (1960) 'the Mahavamsa A (HARTI) that the art of irrigated agriculture version is inlaid with myth and was brought to this country by the romance, but it is yet possible to early Aryan settlers who had extract from it a kernel of truth'. had developed on what we now migrated to Sri Lanka from various Two kernels of truth which could parts of continental India prior to be identified are : recognised as various types of the arrival of Vijaya around 500 B.C. young alluvial plains; while the This belief had been largely based (a) Kuveni spinning cotton; and irrigation systems in ancient Sri on various fragmentary references Lanka had, of necessity, to develop (b) the pool or rudimentary pond in the Pali Vamsa chronicles, chiefly on the old hard rock peneplain of beside which Kuveni was seated the Dipavamsa and Mahauamsa. the low country dry zone. whilst spinning; and I shall build Furthermore, the irrigation upon these two 'kernels' in the As commented by Geiger (1912), systems of the flat alluvial plains latter part of this text. the Dipawansa represents the very of Mesopotamia were 'run-of-the- first unaided attempt made at Doubts Raised by Discerning river type' where there was no need creating an epic from traditional Blinds for storage reservoirs, whereas for source materials available. "It irrigation in the hard rock presents a curious mixture of In his monumental volume titled, peneplain of Sri Lanka's dry zone, legends, myths and history, but it 'Ancient Ceylon', Henry Parker a storage reservoir was an essential contains a kernel of historical truth (1909) has distinguished between pre-requisite. buried in tradition and legends, (a) digging channels as was the most of which are of special value main requirement for irrigated in the reconstruction of history*. On the foregoing considerations, it agriculture in the flat alluvial plains is. highly doubtful that there was in the arid environments of ancient Mahanama, the author of the any kind of irrigation technology Mesopotamia 2,500 B.C. versus (b) Mahavamsa^ states very clearly that transfer that could have taken place construction of reservoirs that were his work was based on previous from the arid, mid-east irrigation so essential for irrigation in works written by Poranas which he systems to the 'wet -and- dry' peninsular India, as well as in the says of full of repetitions and monsoon tropics of the Indian basement rock terrain of Sri Lanka. Deccan and Sri Lanka's dry zone. contained unbalanced details and that his revised work is free from He further states that "there is Brohier (1975) questions the legend such faults. The historicity of the nothing to indicate that the first of Indo-Aryan colonisation of Mahavamsa has been adequately Gangetic settlers brought with Ceylon around the 6,h century B.C. proved on the strength of them any knowledge of the in the following terms, "how-be-it", contemporary Indian sources both construction of reservoirs, which as the concept of irrigation literary and epigraphic. Geiger a general rule, were neither development in the dry zone can (1927) had been able to bring required nor made in the districts hardly be accepted to have sparked together ample evidences from which where inhabited by their from just this legendary event of other sources to justify the faith ancestors." Parker (1909) also Vijaya and his followers - more which scholars placed on this states that 'credit for reservoir likely it connotes the arrival of chronicle. The commentary on the development and extension in the several small bands of migrants Mahavamsa is popularly known as island should go to the first Sinhala the Mahavamsa-Tika | Malalasekara, rulers and their responsible from peninsular India crossing over 1927). advisors*. to Ceylon in frail crafts in the pre- Christian era". This view point has The Vijayan legend as contained in It should also be borne in mind that been later supported by Seneviratne the Mahavamsa, according to G. C. the ancient irrigation systems of (2004) and will be discussed in a Mendis (1965), is not a story that Mesopotamia and the Indus valley subsequent section of this paper. Economic Review: April/ May 2010 Recent Studies on Settlement as a detailed account of the Iron turn provided an efficient tool for Archaeology in Sri Lanka and Age in Peninsular India. A special man to clear jungle with the use of India note should be made of his fire and iron axes, according to statement that "Kurakkan (Eluecine Randhawa (1982). Thanks to the new vistas of cnracana) is a tetraploid of African knowledge generated in recent provenance, and that its presence It is now recognised that the Early years by Siran Deraniyagala (1992, in India as early as 2000 B.C. is Iron Age (EIA) culture of Sri Lanka 1997), we are now in a more reliable interesting as well as intriguing". had been an intrusive culture from position to be able to reconstruct Peninsular India, according to the sequential development of Taken in conjunction with Seneviratne (2004), and it human settlement and associated Velayuthan's 'Agro-Ecological represents "sporadic movements of agricultural development from Regions of India (1999)', and 'Agro- small communities from the early Early Iron Age 'circa' lf5QQ - 500 Ecologial Regions of Sri Lanka Iron Age techno-cultural complex of B^C. (proto-historic) through to the (1996)' it is now possible to identify Peninsular and Deccan India into Early Historic 'circa' 500 B.C. and comparable Agro-Ecological Regions Sri Lanka". the subsequent Middle Historic 300 (AER) across which a commonality A.D.- 1,200 A.D. periods. of agro-technology and iirigatioh^ It has been further elaborated by technology transfer could havfev Seneviratne (2004) that there is no Similarly, Rukshan Jayawardena selectively taken place.. The Agro- evidence of a mass invasion of (1997) has been able': to reconstruct Ecological Regions Numbers 6, 7 imagined Dravidian or Aryan 'races'; with a high degree of; reliability, the and 8 located within the Deccan rather what had taken place was 'an growth of irrigated agriculture plateau of India are comparable intrusion of small communities during the early historic period in with the AER's DL 1, DL 2 and DL 5 bringing along with them Sri Lanka; and he concludes that in Sri Lanka. ^c ring logical and other cultural the technique of building small elements that integrated tanks and simpler sluices {ksla The State of Rain-fed Agriculture themselves with the pre-existing sorowwq) preceded the in Pre-Vijayan Sri Lanka and stone-using communities. This is construction of large tanks and Transition to the Small Village more in accordance with Brohier's more sophisticated sluices Tank (1975) perception which connotes (Bisokotuwa Sorowwa). the 'crossing over to the island of The period 1000 B.C. to 500 B.C. is very small bands of migrants in frail One should also take note of a considered as the Pre-Vijayan crafts'! significant feature of Sri Lanka's period in this paper. It also historical trajectory, which corresponds to the Early Iron Age It is also now established that it according to Senaka Bandaranayake (EIA), the earliest manifestation of was this culture that introduced (2000), is considered a "relatively which in Sri Lanka has been domesticated crops such as the late and extremely rapid radiocarbon dated as between 1000 various types of millet together with transition from the Stone Age B.C and 800 B.C. by Deraniyagala animal domestication, namely, the 'hunter-gatherer' to an advanced (1997). humped bull and horse to this and literate agrarian civilisation". country. Millet is a group name for This transformation which seems This Pre-Vijayan period in Sri Lanka a number of cereals known as to have taken place during the first was, on the whole, characterised by coarse grains which are grown millennium B.C. is, according to various forms of rain-fcri agriculture under rain-fed conditions on dry Siriweera (2004), a kind of that were themselves at different lands, and are of short duration, historical leap that by-passes many stages of development and which three to three and a half months of the complex stages of social and occurred together with other forms from seeding to harvest and, technological development that are of rudimentary 'slash-and-burn' as therefore, fit in very well to the dry found in the proto-historic cultures well as various types of 'fire-stick' zone's rain-fed maha cultivation of the Indus valley or in the farming as practised by some of the season. Kurakkan which is known developed regions in the Indian Australian aboriginals. Supporting as 'ragi ' in India, is the most Deccan. evidence for the prevalence of these widespread of the millets in the various forms of early rain-fed Indian sub-continent extending all agriculture cctuld be had from Of special relevance and value to the way to Nepal and Assam. Randhawa's (1982) description of this study has been the first of the the state of agriculture in later four volumes of "A History of By the 6lh century B.C. the Iron Age \^dic(1000B.C.to600 B.C.) period Agriculture in India " by Randhawa was well established across most of India.
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