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by D. G. A. Perera

Most readers have ignored Dr. S. K. Vadivale's article on "Origins of the Sinhala race", which appeared in the Daily News of 23.09.2003, as it contains nothing of any historical value. However, at least some readers have taken it as a provocative insult to the large majority of people in this country.

One of them, who held many high posts in the Administrative Service before retirement, paid me a visit to make a personal request that I should write a reply. I did not think it necessary to do so at first because of the absurdity what is stated there.

Also, I am in no way connected to the writer of the original article that Dr. Vadivale refers to. But soon after that, I received a letter from another friend; a medical practitioner highly respected both here and abroad, with the same request. unfortunatley, the reply that I posted to this paper on 29.09.03 failed to get published. Since then several other readers who know me as a writer to various columns of this paper for decades, have expressed their dismay at the publication of Dr. Vadivale's article.

Therefore, I began to think that something in my first response might cause some embarrassment to the paper, which however had thought it fit in the first place, to publish the very provocatively racist article by Dr. Vadivale. Hence I am re-writing here the same reply, having dropped anything that may be construed as having caused embarrassment to any person or organisation.

Baseless myths

The removal of history as a subject from the school curriculum has led to a situation where several generations of people in Sri Lanka have grown up quite ignorant of the background of urgent problems they face today.

This has led to the propagation of baseless myths intended to replace the authentic historical record that has been carefully studied and evaluated by accredited scholars in the past. Racism was not the basis, or even the cause, of Sinhala-tamil conflicts before the 16th century. It was in the middle of that century that Sankili the usurper of power in Jaffna Peninsula initiated the first ever 'ethnic cleansing'. This was the massacre of the Sinhala people living there, as recorded by the historian Queyroz, and in the Yalpana Viapava Malai (YPM), written not so long after the event.

"After the massacre of the Christians, Sankili's insane fury longed for more victims and he fell upon the Buddhists of Jaffna who were all sinhalese. He expelled them beyond the limits of the country and destroyed their numerous places of worship. Most of them betook themselves to the Vannis and the Kandyan territories" (YVM p.33, also quoted in 'Ancient Jaffna 'by C. Rasanayagam p.382). In the passing, it may be noticed here that the Wanni territory "was beyond the limits" of the Jaffna, which was a sub-kingdom of Kotte until 1551, when Don Juan Dharmapala was converted to Roman Catholicism and the capital at Kotte was abandoned.

To quote the historian H. W. Codrington, "The colonisation of Jaffna by the Tamils cannot be of extreme antiquity. Such place names as exist, and they are not a few, are not pre-medieval and the Vaipavamalai, though unreliable as a serious history records the presence of the Sinhalese in the peninsula in the 16th century" (ALTRC p.53f.) Similarly, Fr. S. G. Perera says that before the sixteenth century Jaffna peninsula was peopled by Buddhist Sinhalese, as shown by the recently discovered remains of viharas and dagabas and by the large number of Tamilicised Sinhalese place names (History of Ceylon for Schools 1505-1796 p.2).

Tamil immigrants

Hence, before their massacre and expulsion mentioned earlier, the Sinhala people in Jaffna lived together with Tamil immigrants in harmony. This is because the Buddha was the first great leader in history to assert quite emphatically that all humanity belongs to one species, (though Dr. Vadivale thinks that he belongs to some superior species). The UNESCO publication on Buddhism and the Race Question (p.30) makes this clear: "according to the Buddha, there are no distinguishing characteristics of genus and species among men, unlike in the case of grasses, trees moths, beasts, birds etc.

As charmers says: 'Herein, Gotama was in accord with the conclusions of modern biologists'," Sena and Guttika were the first outsiders (not Tamils themselves) to usurp the Sri Lankan throne and reign for 22 years. Elala came afterwards and reigned for 44 years. But in recording history they were not looked down upon on racist grounds. In fact the Mahavamsa and the Dipavamsa say that they "justly ruled" the country (rajjam dhammena karayum), although they were not Buddhist. Again this shows that even from very ancient times the Sinahala people have not been racist in outlook and that they have been fair even to their enemies, (or as Geiger has put it), to 'the mortal foes of the aryan race'.

The Indian historian A. L. Basham says that the first dravidians began to appear in South Indian history only about 150 AD when Rudradaman, who left behind the first ever Sanskrit inscription to be found so far, was ruling in Rajasthan and the Sindh ('The Wonder that was India' p.63). When Dr. Vadivale says that the Sinhala people spoke only Tamil before the 8th century, he must be reminded that early Tamil literature contains nothing to indicate that Sri Lanka was a region in which Tamil was spoken. In fact the boundaries of Tamil Land given in authoritative Tamil works records the fact that Cape Comorin was its southern limit, thus excluding the whole of Sri Lanka (UCHC p.95).

That many other unfounded stories about the origins of the Tamils are current, is due to the absence of what may be called a sense of history in the Indian subcontinent until quite recently. Even the name of the greatest monarch in all human history, who also happened to be an Indian, was totally forgotten by the Indians by beginning of the 19th century. The name of Emperor Asoka could never have been identified from the epithet 'Devanapiya Piyadasi' that he had used in his inscriptions, if the ancient Sinhala historians had not recorded in the mahavamsa that both those names belonged to the same Indian ruler, way back in the 5th century.

Literary works

By about the 1st century Buddhist monks who came with traders in their caravans had brought the art of writing to South India. The first Tamil literary works like the Tirukkural were related to Buddhism, not the Hinduism that came there later. Of the inhabitants of Chola, Pandya and Kerala at that time, Basham has this to say:

"We find these kingdoms in a state of almost continual warfare. Their kings and many lesser chieftains who are also mentioned, seem to have been more bloodthirsty than those of the North, and the literature contains hints of massacres and other atrocities such as are rarely heard of in sanskrit literature; one passage even suggests cannibal feasts after battle. The ancient Tamil, by no means perfectly Aryanized, was a man of very different stamp from his gentle and thoughtful descendant".

If this had been the case with south India by the 2nd century BC when Hinduism had not taken a firm root there, it would be hard to believe that Tamils had five "Iswarams of Siva" in Sri Lanka before the 5th Century BC as Dr. Vadivale avers. In any case, Saivism came to the fore in Hindu worship, much later, while Hinduism itself had not reached south India at that time. The worship of Brahma and Vishnu preceded that stage and Siva is hardly mentioned before ancestors of the Sinhala people arrived here in the 5th century BC. That is why Vishnu, and not Siva, came to be proclaimed as the guardian of the Buddhist religion in Sri Lanka from the earliest times.

Dr. Vadivale's view is proved to be a false assertion by what Tamils themselves have put down in writing about three centuries ago. The Yalpana Vaipava Malai mentioned earlier, was the result of an attempt (about 1735 AC) to write a history for establishing a claim for Tamils in the Jaffna Peninsula. There also, the history of this island begins with the coming of Prince Vijaya. "In those days Lanka was a great wilderness, inhabited only by the Vedar and wild animals. There were no human beings it" (YVM p.2). Therefore when Dr. Vadivale says that there were Tamils living in Sri Lanka before the arrival of Vijaya, he would also have to admit that Tamils were not human beings!

The animals infesting in the Jaffna peninsula, before Vijaya arrived at Keerilmale Pond to establish his kingdom of Tambapanni (according to the Jaffna tradition preserved in the YVM), were the Nagas.

That is why the ancient name for Jaffna Peninsula was 'Nagadipa'. In both Sinhala and Tamil, the word Naga means "elephant". Emerson Tennent bears witness to the invasion of the Jaffna Peninsula, even in the 18th century, by vast herds of elephants form the Vanni District, during the season that fruits of the Palmyra palms, which they relished, begin to ripen. This, he also says, is how the narrow crossing of the Jaffna Lagoon came to be called "Elephant Pass" ('Ceylon' by Sir Emerson Tennent p.968). So, if Dr. Vadivale thinks that the Tamils were the Nagas, he would again be in the unenviable position of also having to assert that they were only four-footed animals!

Dr. Vadivale tries to say that Fr. Gnanapraksar supports his claims. But here is a quotation from Fr. Gnanapraksar, (where unlike Dr. Vadivale, we quote chapter and verse) to prove that he thought otherwise. "Mr. Horsburgh's article on 'Sinhalese Place Names in the Jaffna Peninsula' places beyond doubt the fact of 'a Sinhalese occupation of the Jaffna Peninsula antecedent to the Tamil Period'." (Fr. S. Gnanapraksar O.M.I., Ceylon Antiquary Vol.II Part III January 1917 page 167).

Another authority who wrote a book to establish a stake for the Tamils in the Jaffna Peninsula was Mudaliyar C. Rasanayagam. But he too had to admit that Sinhala people occupied Jaffna Peninsula before the Tamils began to arrive there as an itinerant people after the 13th century.

Here are some of the reasons that Rasanayagam presents so authoritatively, to substantiate that fact:

"That Jaffna was occupied by the Sinhalese earlier than by Tamils is seen not only in the place names of Jaffna, but also in some of the habits and customs of the people. The system of branding cattle with the communal brand, by which not only the caste but also the family of the owner could be traced, was peculiarly Sinhalese. The fact that the Kovias, Tanakaras and Nalavars were originally Sinhalese can be seen from the peculiar dress of their women who wear the inner end of their cloth over the shoulders (Kandyan Osariya style) in a manner quite strange to the genuine Tamils" (Ancient Jaffna pp. 383, 384).

Thus, it is difficult to believe that Dr. Vadivale is unaware of these facts that his own fellow-Tamils say, against the wild views he has put forward in his article.

Even when the Portuguese arrived here in the 16th century, Jaffna was managed by a sub-king (there were 14 others in other parts of the island,) who paid tribute to the Sinhala King (or 'Emperor') in Kotte, according to Queyroz. The tribute was in elephants, and Queyroz has recorded the fact that these elephants were shipped to Kotte from Qaes de Elephas ('the Quay of Elephants'), which later came to be called 'Kayts' by the Dutch, Hence, the fact remains that Sinhala Kings had a claim to Jaffna Peninsula as one of their territories. This was true from the time of Vijaya's first kingdom in the 5th century BC, right up to the middle of the 16th century, while The King of Kandy bore the title "Emperor of Jaffnapatam" right up to 1815 AC.

The Rama and Ravana story is another episode that Dr. Vadivale has evoked for his baseless theory. He ascribes the Ramayana to 420 BC when it is well known that according to the best scholars, its author Valmiki could not have lived before the 2nd century BC, judging by the style of Sanskrit used in the earliest parts of that document. Valmiki also claims to have personally associated Rama and his wife Sita.

This would mean Ravana had to be a King of Lanka during the same historical period. But recorded history does not support such a possibility. Again, Basham the historian has called this bluff. He has shown that the Ramayana is a work of fiction by Valmiki, who drew his plot and characters from the Dasaratha, Jataka and the Valahassa Jataka of the Buddhists. The fact is made more obvious by Valmiki's warning, "Beware of the Buddha, for he is an atheist". It is no surprise that Basham has come to the conclusion that: "The story of Rama's adventures in exile has no historical basis whatever, even if we rationalise his monkey allies into aboriginal tribesman with monkey totems" ('The Wonder that was India' p.415).

It is not necessary to go into the fictions that 'Dr.' Vadivale has attributed without giving any precise references, to scholars like S.F. de Silva, C.E. Godakumbura, Senerat Paranavitana etc. However, both Godakumbura and Paranavitana have identified the first recorded instances of Sinhala poetry as dating back to inscriptions of the 1st century BC ('Sinhalese Literature' p. 137 and JRASC XXXVL of 1945). How little Dr. Vadivale knows of history, is made clear by his statements like the following.

"When there was no Sinhala language in Lanka or any other part of the world before the 8th century AD, it is thuggery to claim that there were Sinhala people in Lanka prior to the 8th century AD".

Even if he believes in such nonsensical stuff despite all evidence to the contrary, it is hardly the time to publicise it. For we have now come to a critical juncture in the "peace process" between the Government and the LTTE, and all are eagerly waiting to see what happens next.

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