CHAPTER II
ETHNIC GROUPS AND SETTLEMENTS
The beginnings of the History of Ceylon are situated
in the half-world of poetry, between myth and folklore.
Myths have played and still play a significant role in the
story Qjf a country. Sometimes they change, at other times older myths are revived and new ones are added to
the old stock as the social situation demonstrate it.
They can not be left out of the story of a country and it i is always necessary to know them and to look on them for
the light cast on the way the story of a country has
developed and the way in which the people have regarded
themselves. The Sinhalese people are no exception for
1 this phenomenon.'
I,t is not established on valid grounds when and how
the Sinhalese emerged as one ethnic people in that
country. Very little or no historical evidence exists
for the presence of Sinhalese before the 2nd century B.C.
The place of historical evidence has been taken by the
Vijaya legend, probably invented and later greatly admired
by the authors of the Chronic.e "Dipavamsa" literally "The
story of the Island", and later retold with greater
authority in the "Mahavamsa", literally "The story of
Great Dynasty", the source of the present-day early 28 history of Sri Lanka.
According to both Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa, Vijaya, the grandson of a Union between lion and Indian princess on being banished for misconduct by his father Sinhabahu,
(the lion armed) came with 700 men by ( vessels and landed on the west coast of Lanka, at a place called Tambapanni in 543 B.C. on the day Buddha died„or passed into Nirvana.
Vijaya's men were lured into a cave and captured by a demoness (Yaksha) queen named Kuveni and had son and daughter. Vijaya later told Kuveni that before being crowned" king of Lanka he should marry a human princess.
He, therefore, banished Kuveni and the children into
jungles, sent his ministers to the Tamil king Pandyan
(Pandus) who ruled the Madurai kingdom in South India;
and took the King's daughter as his wife? Kuveni was
later killed by the demons. In the jungles the children
married incestuously and had many children, from whom many 3 believe the Veddas of Sri Lanka arose. However, there is
no historical evidence whatsoever, for the arrival of
Vijaya and the related story. There is no available trace
of a place named Sinhapura or the Petty king Sinhabahu in 4 Bengal's history. But of m e inability to account
historically for the emergence of the Sinhalese even noted
historians follow the lead of the Vijaya legend.
Moreover on the basis of this legend, the present-day 29
Sinhalese claim that they are the first settlers and are of Aryan origin. As early as in 1902, Anagarika
Dharmapala, the foremost propagandist of the Buddhist reviewal wrote:
"Two thousand four hundred forty six years ago a colony of Aryans from the city of Sinhapura in Bengal sailed in a vessel in search of a fresh p a s t u r e s . . . T h e desce.idants of the Aryan col onists-were called Sinhala after their city Sinhapura which was founded by Sinhabahu, the lion-armed king. The lion ar^^ed descendants are the present day Sinhalese."^
The earliest implements so far discovered in Sri Lanka are those of quartz, of chest and of shell and said to I belong-to the palaeolithic age. There may not be much doubt to say that these were once used by human beings 6 and perhaps by the Veddas. The Veddas are a short, wavy haired, long headed race, with moderately long faces and long noses. Anthropologists who studied the Veddas generally believe that these people represent a continuous tradition of hunting, gathering and living in caves until in the course of the present century they 7 became farmers and settled i.; huts made by themselves.
Though the Sinhalese tradition draws connection between the Vijaya legend and theVeddas, it is believed by anthropologists that they perhaps belong to the same racial stock as the pre-Dravidians jungle tribes of South 8 India such as Todas, Irulas, and Kurumbas. The Veddas are inextricably linked to the Sinhalese but a vital question 30 emerges here. Is there any evidence of Vi jaya legend in the folk memory of the Veddas? The noted sociologists
Selingmanns have noted during their field work among the
Veddas the "The Vijaya-Kuveni legend was absolutely unknown to th^e Veddas although firmly establ ished among the Sinhalese" But a more recent scholar M W Suganthabala
De'Silva disagrees and states that the Veddas believe in
Vijaya legend. He recounts a narration given by Veddas in their language which is translated in English thus:
"We are the people called Veddas who descended from King Vijaya. When King Vijaya was living with the she-demon Kuveni, she begot children. When the King was sleeping the she- demon Kuveni attempted to devour him. At the moment the King was awakened and he struck her with the_sword. The she-demon died. Then the - boy and the girl of Kuveni quickly ran into the forest. When they were eating junglefruits, and- living in the forest they grew up. So the elder brothertook the younger sister as his wife. That is why it is said that the King and the Vedda do not consider kinship. We are the Veddas who are descended from these two. That is why it is said t^l^jat the royalty and the Ji/eddas are the same."
It is a fact that the Veddas are considered to be of high birth and their self estimation of super ordinate status accepted by the neighboring Sinhalese. 19th century observer of the Veddas, John Davy observed that:
"While the Sinhalese held and hold the Vedda race to be most honorable and had no reluctance to give their daughters to a Vedda and are ready and often eager to marry Vedda girls."H 31
The Veddas have existed side by side with the
Sinhalese for over two thousand years and in spite of their objective backwardness they take a pride of place in any study of Sri Lanka's History.
The Sinhalese
Next to the Veddas, the people of whose settlement in
Sri Lanka have some evidence are the Aryans. The original place from which the Aryans spread into different parts of
Asia and other parts may be difficult to locate. The
Aryans during the process of their wanderings entered
India, perhaps long before 1000 B.C. From the North-West of India and migrated eastward and southward mainly along the river routes. Historians of Sri Lanka express no doubt that the Aryans came from India, but they are not sure from which part of the country they camel^So far the study of Ancient India dialects and of Sinhalese has not sufficiently advanced for any definite conclusion to be reached as to which Indian dialect Sinhalese is closely allied to. The Aryan settlers probably came about 500
B.C. from the West and the East of India, by boats that travelled along the coast and went up the rivers to the interior of Ceylon. The earliest evidence of their sett!ements, are inscriptions in an Aryan dialect from which modern Sinhalese developed and these show that 32 before the beginning of Christian era they have occupied the Northern, south eastern and eastern parts of the 13 island. Few settled on the western and south-western coasts. The Aryans with their iron weapons, must have easily driven from these parts, the Veddas, who still used weapons of stone. There is no evidence of the Veddas having passed through a copper or bronze age, and they could not have been a match to the Aryans, who had already entered the iron age.^'*^
The Mahavamsa gives the names of a number of tribes that inhabited Ceylon, they are Sinhala (lion), Taracca
(hyena), Lambakanna (hare or goat), (one having long ears)
Balibhojaka (crow), Moriya (peacocR) and Kulinga (Pork tailed shrike). All these names perhaps show that the early tribes in Ceylon were people who took their clan names from totems or emblems of animals or birds which they worshipped. The Sinhala tribe probably formed the most influential clan, and gradually gave its name to the people as a whole and then to the Island.
Thus the major ethnic group in Sri Lanka is the
Sinhalese. They comprise 74% of the population according to the 1981 census figures. Even if we accept that the V Sinhalese are the descendants of early Aryan migrants, these migrants became considerably intermixed with the original proto-austra 1oid inhabitants of Sri Lanka and 33 absorbed many later migrants from both north and south
India. They are thus a biologically mixed group. The
Sinhalese identity as it gradually evolved became
centered around two factors - the Singhalese language and
the Buddhists in Sri Lanka - thus strengthening the
concept of a Sinhalese-Buddhist Identity.^^ I Even an ordinary Sinhala believes in his racial
purity and considers himself superior to any non-Sinhala
or non-Buddhist residing in Sri Lanka. In the word of
B.H. Farmer:
"Rather as the old Testament builds up the concept of Israel as a specially chosen people in a way that has had a profound influence on Jews ever since, so does the Mahavamsa builds up the concept of special destiny of the Sinhalese kings, the Sinhalese people, and the Island of Sri Lanka in relation to Buddhism: and the result has been equally profound."''
The Sinhalese are broadly divided into low country
Sinhalese who comprise about 60% of the group, and the
Kandyan Sinhalese who comprise up the restJSjhis
distinction arose as a result of the prolonged Western-
Occupation of the South-west coast which exposed the low
country Sinhalese to Westernization and Modernization,^
while the Kandyans remained a more conservative group \/ defending indigenous tradition and culture.
Though Historians reduce the Vijaya legend as a myth without any historical evidences, [the influence of this in 34
the psyche of Sinhalese can not be forgotten. It should
be noted that tradition says that Vijaya supposed to have
landed in Sri Lanka at the exact time of the passing away
of the Buddha. This coincidence, though mythologically,
is taken with utmost reverence even today. Whether Vijaya
himself was a historical figure would remain a question
always. His very name signifies 'Victory' and might we 11
symbolize the successful migration of North Indians to Sri
Lanka. By the sixth century B.C. the Indo-Aryans had established themselves in the Indo-Gangatic plain in India
and had penetrated into some areas of Deccan, South of
Vindhya mountain range. Trading centers had developed and
trade and communication were flourishing both along the
river valleys and coastal areas. The Vijaya legend gives
a distinct indication that Aryans made their way along the
coast of Sri Lanka by about the fifth century B.C. The
Mahavamsa itself, in a way, provides evidence that
settlers arrived from the North-eastern part of India. It reports that Vijaya, towards the end of his reign sent message requesting his younger brother to come to Sri
Lanka to assume power but the latter who had already become king at Sinhapura was unwilling to come and sent I his youngest son Panduvasudeva instead. Panduvasudeva arrived safely and is said to have succeeded Vijaya as king but the significant fact in this account is that 35 PanduV asudeV a is said to have landed at Gokana, the
Trincomalee of the modern days. Some historians interpret this as a parallel migration from north-east
Ind i a.
Many e x p l a n a t i o n s are advanced for the term
'Sinhala*: As earlier mentioned early migrants were grouped into many classes with their symbols. It is suggested that in course of time the strongest of these class - The Sinhala or people of the lion appears to have gained dominance and in time the whole group of migrants became known as Sihalas or Sinhalas. The Mahavamsa records that Vijaya's second consort was a princess from
South India, the daughter of the Pandyan ruler of Madurai.
This Pandyan princess is reported to have brought a number of maidens as wives for Vijaya's followers. These stories seem to indicate that whatever was the origin of the Sinhala identity the people whom it eventually encompassed were not just settlers from north India along but also the product of some intermarriage with the earlier inhabitants of Sri Lanka and with migrants from
South India.
The Tasails: (The Sri Lankan Tamils)
The second most important ethnic group of Sri Lanka are the Tamils of Jaffna. One has to keep in mind that there is another group of Tamils known as Indian Tamils 35 who went to Sri Lanka to work in tea plantations. In this
chapter we will deal with the Sri Lankan or Jaffna TA-ils
who constitute 12.6% of the Island's population according
to 1981 census. The Tamils are in a majority in the
northern part of the Island, in and around Jaffna
Peninsula and in good number in the north east. The
Tamils claim and believe that they were the first settlers
to inhabit the Island and the Sinhalese came much later.
The Tamil name for Sri Lanka "Ealam", according to them,
is mentioned in the pre-christian era Tamil classics.
They speak the Tamil language and largely Hinduism is
their religion.
"An important fact of Tamil collective identity is that owing to centuries of an insular linguistic and cultural'way of life and a shared historical experience, the Sri Lankan Tamils possess and assert an identity distinct and separate from both the Tamils of South India andx/ the I ndi an Tami1s ." I 9
Just as Sinhalese language, Buddhist religion and culture
are sacred to the Sinhalas, so also the Tamil langjage,
the Hindu religion and a distinct culture are sacred tc
the Tami1s.
Tamils believe that, in the proto-historic period of
the Island (1000 - 100 B.C.) there existed two kingdoms,
one in the north called Naga Tivu in Tamil or Naga Dipa
and the other in the South-west in Kalaniya. It is believed that the Sri Lankan Yaksha king Ravanan conquered 37
both these. One of the great Greek as ^ t>"onomers and
geographer Ptolemy, writing perhaps in 2n''^ century A.D. 20 ^ , locates iNagadipa in the North. (PtoM^'^y s map is
attached at the end of the chapter). A^ccording to
Tamils mythologies and .beliefs, the Tamil'i^ India and
Sri Lanka 'are the lineal descendants of Naga and . : I Yaksha people. The original Nagas, called N^akar in Tamil
had the cobra (Nakam in Tamil) as their tot^'^"’* T^he Hindu
Tamils, till this day continue to worship cobra as a
subordinate deity in the Hindu Pantheon and ihere are many
temples for the Cobra deity all over NoK*'th Sri Lanka.
Equally! the Yaksha people were not demons worshippers of demons, as shown by the ^till prevalent ^practice among I the Hindd Tamils of perpetuating the demons, which perhaps
arose out of the demons. Harry Williams Ptolemy's
description of the Tamil Yaksha people: "Th'® of both men and women are very large, in which they wear earrings 21 ornamented with precious stones."
The wearing of earrings by both men women is custom still exists among the Tamils in villages o I North Sri Lanka. The poor, unable to pur^^^se gold ea rings, wear rolled Palmirah leaves instead! Thus the Sr
Lankan Tamils claim that the ancestors Of present da
Tamils were the original inhabitants of LanH^* To suppor this cl Jim, a quote from Harry William's Ceyl°*^> The Pear 38 of the East is cited:
"Nagadipa in the north of Sri Lanka was an actual kingdom known to historians, and the people who occupied it all were part of an immigrant tribe from South India - Tamil people called Nagars . "
Tamils cite examples of archaeological excavations at the Nagadipa area and references in th^ Sangam
Literature (1-4th century A.D.) to show the Nagar origins.
Tamils quote and claim that Ptolemy has also mentioned the existence of Nagar Kingdoms at the Coromandal coast, and the existence of towns like Nagarkoil, Nagarpattinam etc.
Thus the Tamils of today claim that they are the lineal descendants of the original inhabitants of the
island. Though they conclude that the area occupied by them is the one earlier known as Naga Dipa, the north eastern littoral as their exclusive homeland, the strong belief was that once upon a time the whole Island belonged to them. However, with the arrival of the Aryans, in reality the Sinhalas, there has been constant fights between the kings of the races. Among all these battles, the battle between the Sinhala king of Dutugemennu and the
Tamil king of Elara is the most notable one both for the t Sinhalas and the Tamils. ? 1 Though, according to The
Mahavamsa, Dutugemennu defeated Elara in the battle both the races opt to claim their racial superiority on each /, ,39 other by the virtues of their kings.
The Hahavamsa references to the Indian Mainland is as
a country adjacent to Ceylon. Various regions and their
rulers are mentioned, but nowhere is the impression left
of any difference between Island and mainland except as
areas as distant from one another. Indianitowns such as i I Rataliputra and Supparaka are referred to in the Chronicle
as parts of the one world to which Ceylon belonged. The
, I first reference to a group of people described as Damilas
(Tamils) is in connection with Sena and Guttika, the sons 24 of a freighter who brought horses hither. The Mahavamsa
records that they conquered the Sinhala king and reigned,
twenty two years justly. A similar comment is made on
the second Tamil ruler of the Sinhala kingdom, Elara: ,
"A Damila of noble descent Elara who came hither from the Chola country to seize on the kingdom, ruled when he had overpowered King Asela, forty four years, with even justice towards-triend and foe, on occasion of disputes at law."^
Having praised the justice of Elara, and attributed it and
his miraculous power to his abstention from wandering in
the path of evil in spite of hisfalse beliefs the
Chronicle asks the rhetorical question, "How should not
then an understanding man, established in pure belief, 26 renounce the guilt of walking in the path of evil." This
leads to the battle between Elara and Sinhala King
Dutugemunu in which Elara was killed. This is narrated las' qoSO 40 an epic to show that Sinhalese were the actual inhabitants of Sri Lanka.
The Moors or Tamil Muslims. i
The third largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka is the
Moor community of Muslims who consist 7.6% of the total , 27 I population, according to 1981 census. The Moors are
Muslims in their religion. Tamil is the mother tongue of nearly all the Moors but they do not seek their colle^ctive identity in language or culture, but only in their religion, Islam. They possess religious unity but lack a 28 common ethno-cultural unity. A predominantly treading community, from early times they have been dispersed all over the island and do not have a defined territory in( the island as their home land. In spite of the diff*erences about the ethnology of the Moors of Sri Lanka, Moors hold on their claim that they are the descendants of the Arabs.
The question of the arrival of Arabs itself is a subject not fully definite. ^0§ 0
"The first mention of Arabs in Ceylon appears to be in the Mahavamsa account of the reign of the king Pandukabhaya, where it is stated that this king set apa^t land for the 'Yonas' at' Anuradhapura."
There are enough evidences to show that Arabs were in Sri
Lanka even during Pre-Islamic days. Arabs had come to
Sri Lanka as the result of the decline of Roman trade or they were driven out by prophet* Mohammed for /displaying 41 cowardice in battle of Ohad or the House of Hashim landed there after being driven out by the tyranny of the Caliph 30 in 8th century A.D. These Arabs were joined by other
Arabs professing the faith of Islam as well as Indian
Muslims from Malabar Coast. But the question many could
not answer is their adoption of Tamil as their mother
tongue^. When the Arab traders set foot in the island -of
Sri Lanka, the society comprised Of Tamils and Sinhalese.
The Sinhalese basically were not interested in trade and
produced little that was in demand outside.31 Arabs did
not 'Show any territorial ambitions or even did not show
much interest about spreading of Islam. Most Arabs who
came to Sri Lanka, seem not to have brought their wives or
families. With the passage of time, the Arabs learnt to
speak Tamil and married women, by reason of their living
in the coastal areas among Tamil speaking people and
converted them to Islam. 32 However, this statement is not
based on any historical authentic facts but an
inference drawn from the fact that as P R Ramachandra Rao
says, ilthe greatest influence on the Muslims was Tamil;
the lan'guage of south Indian community, who had migrated
to Sri Lanka much before the arrival of the Arabs on the
island and it was the Tamil community that they
confronted most in the Indo-Sri Lanka trading operations
as Tamil was an important language of South-Asian 42 commerce ."33
The off springs of the Arabs - Tamil mixture grew up speaking Tamil and adopted customs, manners and habits of mothers as Vasundara Mohan describes:
"Although, the Muslims of Sri Lanka who later migrated to predominantly Sinhala speaking areas and learnt to speak Sinhala, most of them have come to absorb more of Tamil culture, which is reflected in the presence of such Hindu customs as tying of 'Thali' or 'Mangalsutra' at the time of marriage, the existence of a 'dowry system' and the preval^^ce of superstitious beliefs among muslims ."
The greatest influence on the Muslim, thus has been the
Tamil language which a majority of them have adopted as
their home language. Tamil is widely used in the daily
life of Moors and many children even now study only in
Tamil medium school. The Tamil spoken by them has a
sprinkling of Arabic words. However, the identity with
the other Tamils of Sri Lanka particularly the Tamils of
Jaffna ends there. The Tamil Muslims of Sri Lanka, Moors,
have not claimed any cultural, traditional, ethical,^
religious or otherwise, affinity with the other Tamils.
When tiie Arabs, perhaps the ancestors of the Moors of
present-day, arrived in Sri Lanka, centuries ago for
commercial purposes they confronted the Tamils who were
there for similar purposes. The Sinhalese being not
inter-ested in trade, the Arabs considered the Tamils as
their rivals. Further, for their survival in the 43 commercial field and also for a peaceful living and unfettered practice of their religion in the island, the
Muslims, had to win the patronage of the Sinhalese kings.
They stood by the Sinhalese kings in times of trouble, not with the Tamil kings. In turn, the Sinhalese kings took care of ithe Muslims' interests and also relied upon them I 35 in crucial moments of history.
Thus the Moors have acquired a non-Islamic language . I as their mother tongue and have adopted a variety of
Hindu and Sinhalese cultures, they still posses a Moorish culture of their own, which is in no way identical with culture of Jaffna Tamils. Moreover, the dream of the goal I "Ealam" is not an issue for the moors as they have fully 1 assimilatedI themselves with the conditions in Sri Lanka. Tamil is the mother tongue but they do not seek their collective identity in language or culture but in their religion, Islam. Moors possess a religious unity but lack a common ethno-cultural unity and therefore, do not make a distinct ethnic entity.
"Indian" Tamils
The so-called Indian Tamils, who constitute 5.6% of population are the main descendants of the workers imported from the Tamil areas of south India by the
British planters with the assistance of the colonial governinent from the 1 840s as cheap labor for scale of 44 coffee and later tea plantations in the hill country
areas.
Although in the coffee era they came mainly as migrant workers for seasonal coffee plucking, with the establishment of tea plantations which required intensive labori they dame as immigrant workers and settled in the island,. Tamils were brought from India as a rebuff to
Sinhalese peasantry which refused to work in plantations.^
These people were brought in batches by a leader known to them as "Kangany" who then became their labor contractor and supervisor. They were paid a pittanance for a wage and housed in, barrack like ghettos within the estates.
Nearly all of them were poor and illiterate and often I belonged to lower caste groups accustomed to social inferiority, discrimination and oppression. Once in Sri
Lanka, they had no contact with the world outside the estate and lived wholly alienated from the surrounding Sinhalese villages. They were totally separated from them by ethnicity, language, culture and 37 religion. To the Sinhalese, they were a. slaving Tamil I community and the Sri Lankan Tamils regarded them with condescension. Their enslaved and miserable plight lowered the esteem of Tamils in particular, and India and
Indians in general in the eyes of Sinhalese people. A 1 though/, tlieir enterprise and toil opened up the forests. " / - 1:
^ V ' hills and valleys of Central Sri Lanka for (?^f*ee tea, rubber and cocoa, and their cheap labor laid the foundations of the Island's prosperity based on those i exports, in human terms they remained a classic agricultural proletariate and as a class little better off 38 then bonded ^laves.
The Northern Tamils or Jaffna Tamils have not accepted the Indian Tamils in any of their scheme of things. In' fact, they had very little contact aaong themselves. The Jaffna Tamils looked down on the Indian
Tamils on caste, and class and did hot claim any ethnic ' I Driginity with them. The Indian Tamils among themselves,
Jo not express their collective identity in terms of language, culture and religion. It is their identity as a working class always in the forefront. From the 1930's
:hey came to be organized into trade unions, often allied
:o the left-wing political parties. During the process of
:he formation of the constitution the Indian Tamils always
Mgured and all of them even voted in 1935 colonial state
:ouncil, and in 1947 for the first parliament to which 39 )ower was tr*ansferred on independence. But soon srter independence the government of D,S. Senanayake enacted the
)eylon citizenship act of 1948, which made the Indian lamils non-citizens. In the following year, by the
:eylon an|eridment act they were disfranchised and they 46 became voteless also stateless, for articles 5 and 8 of
the Indian constitution defined citizenship in terms which
excluded persons of Indian origin settled outside India.
The question of stateless Tamils remained as an irritant
between the government^ of India and Sri Lanka for many
years but was sfettled by Srimavo Shastri Pact in 1964.
The condition of Indian Tamils well described by C.R. de
Silva Thus:
"The Indian Tamils in the plantations have been the most depressed of the minorities in Sri Lanka. The standards of health and education are distinctly lower in the plantations than in the rest of the country. The Indian Tamils faced with harassment, eviction from plantations and even starvation in the mid 1970's. They were consistently discriminated against in the garnet of land under the land reform legislation of the 1970's. They|were attacked by the Sinhalese in many areas in the riots of August 1977. However, their leadership has acted with great patience and moderation. This was partly due to the low economic status and the poor educational background of the community. It was also partly because they were conscious of being recent immigrant community living in a Sinhalese majority area. Whatever the cause might have been, the result has been that while a rift between the Indian Tamils and the Sinhalese has existed in general terms, the actual confrontation occurred more often between the Sri Lank a, n Tamils and the Sinhalese."
Tha Burgers and gjalays
The Burgers are a small ethnic minority constitute
0.3% of the population. They are the relic of the
Portuguese and Dutch occupation of the Island. With the 47
British conquest, they adopted English as their language and are divided between catholics and those belonging to the Dutch reformed church. They speak Portuguese,
Sinhalese and Tamil. Although small in number, the
Burgers are not homogeneous. They are divisions between those of pure European descent, registered by the Dutch
Burger Union and the rest. After the independence many of them have emigrated to the west mainly to Australia. . I The Malays also constitute 0.356 of the island's population and nearly all of them live in two areas.
Malays are Muslims but are distinct from other Muslims in that they speak Malay language. They have a separate collective consciousness and asserted separate identity frjom' other Muslims of the Island.
Caste Among the Tamils
Tamil society, from the earliest of times, was caste based, but not on the l i n e s o f the familiar fourfold divisions of Hindu caste system. Caste stratification among the Sri Lankan Tamils has a variation of its own.
The highest caste is not the priestly Brahmins but the
Vellalas who form about 75% of Jaffna Tamils. Caste and
Class boundaries among Tamils coincide, and the Tamil 4 'Bourgeois' and the political elites are the Vellalas.
The Karaiyars are the next in size and importance. There i are then several lower castes, descending in order of 48 importance of the services required by the Vellalas in the traditional society and affected with increasing degrees of population in the eye of the VellaTas. The lowliest are the 'untouchable' Pariah the scavengers.
Totally romanticized, though not proved by any ' i evidences of history, based on myth0l|0gy. Fantasy, and racial destiny are presented to the common man with religious flavour added to this. D E Wijayawardene, in his book. The Revolt in the Temple, writes about the early settlers of Sri Lanka:
Most of these people were Sinhalese’ in heart and mind before they left their motherland. They brought with them, with in, them rather, the ripened fruit of centuries of civilizatio,., literature and art, poetry and music, and Aryan culture was bodily transported | to create and enrich the Virgin civilization of Sri Lanka."
Legend and superstition were put forward as historical fact which went unchallenged by the Sinhala even during the 1950s, rather these were used to promote the interests of Sinhalese:
"Thus did it happen that, on the very day the Lord died at Kusinara, Viajaya of the solar race and his band of seven hundred followers of Sinhapura, in pursuance of the design of the master and of the gods, landed in Ceylon and so helped to find in Lanka what thereafter came to be known as the Sinhala race. The birth of Sinhalese race would thus, seem to have been not a mere chances, not an accidental occurrence, b u f a predestined event of high importance and purpose. The nation seemed destined, as it were from its rise, primarily to parry aloft for fifty centuries the torch that was lit by the greatworld-mentors, twenty five centuries ago."
TKALAriKA i:i T:jE SKiTEENTiS & SEVENTEENTH CEflTURIES
PORTUGUESE TERRITORY
ULLAITIVU
TRINCOMALEE
BATTICALOA
COLOMB s R I L A i: :: 50
HOTES AMD REFERENCES
1. E. F, C. Ludowyk, The Story of Ceylon, pp. 31-32. j 2. Ananda W.P. Guruge, Mahavamsa: The Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka, Lake House, Colombo, pp. 531-533. (See Appendix).
3. K..N. 0. Dharmadasa, The Vanishing Aborigines, International Center for' Ethnic studies, Colombo, p. 152. , I
4. C. R. de Silva, Sri Lanka: A History, p. 20.
5. Anagarika Dharmapala, History' of Ancient Civilizati on , 1902, pp. 101.
6. G. C. Mendis, Early History of Ceylon, p. 11.
7. K. N. 0. Dharmadasa, op.cit., p. 22. i
8. Parker H. Anc i ent Cey1 on , Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1964, p. 63.
9. C. G. Seliugmann and Brenda Z Selingmann, The Veddas, Cambridge University Press, 1911, p. l28.
10. M. W. Suganthabala De Silva, Vedda Language: Text and Lex i con , Kitzinger & Co, 1972, pp . 50-51.
11. John Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon, London, Longman Hurst & Co., 1821, pp. 114.
12. 6. C. Mendis, op.cit., p. 13.
13. Ibid., p. 14.
14. K. N. 0. Dharmadasa, op.cit., p. 85. I 15. G.C. Mendis, op.cit., P. 15.
16. Radhika Coomaraswamy, "Sri Lankan Buddhist Philosophy of History", Center for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, (unpublished paper) p. 7.
17. B. H. Farmer, Ceylon: A Divided Nation, London 1963, p . 8. ; ' /, 18. Department of Census & Statistics report, 1981, Government Archives, Colombo. 51
19. Satchi Ponnambalam, Tamil Liberation Struggle, p. 32.
20. Harry Williams, Ceylon: The Pearl of the East. Hale, London, 1958. p. 56.
21. Ibid., p. 61 .
22. Ibid., p. 70.
23. E. F. C. Ludowyk, op.cit., p. 63.
24. Ananda Guruge, The Mahavamsa, pp. 607-608.
25. Ibid., p. 608.
26. Ibid., p. 608.
27. Department of Census and Statistics report, 1981.
28. Satchi Ponnambalam, op.cit., p. 36
29. Perera, B. J.Ancient Ceylon's Trade with the Empires of Eastern & Western Worlds", Ceylon Hist. Journal Vol. 1951-52. , p. 305.
30. Vasundara Mohan, Muslims of Sri Lanka, Alekh Publishers, Jaipur, p. 5.
31. DeSilva C. R. The Portuguese in Ceylon, 1617-1638, H.W. Hawe & Co., Colombo, p. 15.
32. Vasundara Mohan, op.cit., p. 6.
33. Ramachandra Rao, P. R. India and Ceylon - A Study, Bombay, Orient Longmans, p. 39.
34. Vasundhara Mohan, op.cit., p. 37.
35. Jayah, T. B. "Muslims of Ceylon", Pakistan Quarterly, Vol. I, 1951. p. 6.
36. Satchi Ponnambalam, op.cit., p. 34.
37. Ibid ., p. 35 .
38. Ibid., p. 35 .
39. Lai it Kumar, India and Sri Lanka: Seremavo-Shastri Pact, Chetana Publications, New Delhi, p. 15. 5Z
40. C. R. De Silva, Sinhala-Tami 1 Ethnic Rivalry & the New Constitution", University of Paradeniya, Sri Lanka. (Unpublished paper).
41. Satchi Ponnambalam, op.cit., p. 30-31.
42. D. C. Wi0aywardene, The Revolt in the Temple, 1953, p. 31.
43. Ibid., p. 32.