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 the Veddas, 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 jungle fruits, and- living in the forest they grew up. So the elder brother took 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.