By Darshanie Ratnawalli –
Cognitive problems and knowledge deficiencies of S. Pathmanathan, Professor Emeritus of History? Yes. First, a caveat. Although there is a school of thought that Sri Lanka shows a lack of discernment in the making of her professors emeritus (“X was made a professor emeritus after just one publication” remarked a senior academic grimly), they clearly do not mean S. Pathmanathan. In his chosen area (the middle or the medieval period of SL history), Professor Pathmanathan has enough publications (most of them downloadable here) and his peers mention him respectfully enough. “I stress that Pathmanathan, in his Kingdom Of Jaffna, does not indulge in such outrageous statements. In fact, note the paraphrase of his carefully circumscribed statements in fn.59 above”- (Michael Roberts: 2004).
There is an Other Side though. I first learnt of it from K.S. Sivakumaran in “History of Lankan Thamilians revisited”. It contains a translation of statements from a Tamil newspaper article by Pathmanathan on Brahmi lithic inscriptions of Sri Lanka. Although the translator’s language does not inspire confidence, I will assume that it’s a faithful translation because the statements are bald, simple, without nuance and the least likely to have suffered in translation unless the translator made them up from scratch (unlikely).
“In Lanka the Brahmi inscriptions are written in Prakrit language…Paranavitana tried to convince that these inscriptions were written in Sinhala language…In Lankan Brahmi inscriptions Thamil Brahmi letters are found in many places. Arya Abeysingha and Saddamangala Karunaratne have explained this feature showing examples. But Paranavithana hides these findings. He has completely ignored the Thamil Brahmi letters. Three letters were differently written in Thamil Brahmi and Ashoka Brahmi. These two kinds were in existence in Lanka until the demise of Brahmi script.
The formation of letters of two different languages –Thamil and Prakrit- were found in the inscriptions from the beginning and its end. This shows that the inscriptions were written in both languages.”
The ignorance in this is so mindboggling that at first I did not know how to tackle it. Then I knew. Contrast. Place an educated statement (R. Champakalakshmi in “A magnum opus on Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions”) next to it.
“…there is clear evidence of mutual influence between the Tamil-Brahmi and the Simhala-Brahmi, although the latter is used for Simhala-Prakrit, a Middle-Indo-Aryan language, and the former for Tamil, a Dravidian language. Simhala-Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi show certain orthographic similarities and peculiarities. It is interesting that recent Sri Lankan archaeological and epigraphical studies have also recognised this interaction and influence.”
The formation of letters of two different languages were certainly not found in the stone Brahmi records (For these are the subject of Pathmanathan’s statements) of Sri Lanka at anytime. They were not bilingual records. There are in Old Sinhalese[i] (300 BC-300/400 AD) and later in Proto Sinhalese. The term “Old Sinhalese” is used because the language found in them is the oldest example of the Sinhalese language from which the evolution of the present language can be traced. It’s a name that can be used irrespective of language family. If the language known now as “Sinhala” is renamed “Swahili” tomorrow, the language in the early Brahmi lithic records would be old Swahili. Old Sinhalese is written in these records in a script, which Mahadevan calls Sinhala- Brahmi (2003:117) and Paranavitana called Ceylon Brahmi. Saddhamangala Karunaratne (1960/1984:39) expressed it best;
“It’s generally accepted that the language of the Brahmi inscriptions of Ceylon is an Aryan form of speech and is the precursor of Modern Sinhalese…To distinguish it from Sinhalese proper, we propose to name it Sinhalese Prakrit, using the term, Prakrit in its widest sense. If objections are raised against the term Prakrit, then it may also be argued that the script is not Brahmi but Old Sinhalese. In this dissertation, Prakrit and Brahmi are used to distinguish the broad division into two strata in point of time of the same language and script, which has continued for 22 centuries from the earliest recorded times. The end of the 7th c. A.D. is the point at which the division is made.”
There were points of similarity between Sinhala Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi or to paraphrase Pathmanathan, between the letter formations of old Sinhala and old Tamil. There were also differences that made them distinctive and made it possible to single out certain features as signature Tamil Brahmi and certain other features as signature Sinhala Brahmi. The alveolar nasal ṉ was such a signature feature that instantly identified Tamil Brahmi, differentiating it from both Asokan Brahmi and Sinhala Brahmi. The following paragraph (Osmund Bopearachchi: 2001) would illustrate;
“This coin is of utmost importance in that it presents us a personal name in a clear Tamil nominative form with an aksara ṉa, representing an alveolar nasal, which is not found in Ceylonese Brahmirock inscriptions, but which is well-known from South Indian inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi, and now also from two of our coins... I. Mahadevan, the foremost authority on Tamil Brahmi, in a recent article, accepting our initial reading added: “The authors have correctly identified the Tamil alveolar nasal n here and point out that “in Tamil texts, this character terminates proper names”.”[ii]
No less was Sinhala Brahmi distinctive. You could pick out Sinhala Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi separately from a lineup.
“…P. Jeyakumar has asserted that “undeniably cultural elements from Sri Lanka must have spread to Tamilakam” and presented evidence from potsherd graffiti showing influences of Sri Lankan Brahmi and Sinhalese-Prakrit…In his monumental work on Tamil epigraphy, Iravatham Mahadevan has drawn attention to several instances of Sri Lankan influence in the Brahmi inscriptions of Tamil Nadu. Mahadevan is of the view that, among the inscribed potsherds found in Tamil Nadu, ‘A small but significant group of pottery inscriptions is in the Sinhala-Prakrit language written in the Early Sinhala-Brahmi script (ca. 2nd century BC to 1st century AD). These inscriptions were discovered at Arikamedu, Alangulam, Kodumanal and Poompuhar (Kaveripattinam)… Mahadevan has also published a couple of interesting articles on this subject (‘An Old Sinhalese Inscription from Arikamedu’,…‘Old Sinhalese Inscriptions from Indian Ports- New Evidence for India-Sri Lanka Contacts’…) A remarkable graffito in Prakrit from the ancient port of Kaveripattinam has been read as a Sinhalese-Brahmi inscription by S. Iracavelu.”- (Indrapala, 2005:337)
What shape did the signature of Sinhala Brahmi take?
“Linguistic features like the genitive suffixes sa and ha; shortening of long vowels; de-aspiration of aspirates and unique change of ja to jha found in the seven inscribed potsherds collected at Arikamedu, Alangkulam and Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu are known to Sri Lankan Prakrit only (Mahadevan 1995:55-65).”- (Rajan: 2009). The extensive preference for the palatial “ś” (sha) over the dental “s” should also be added to this list.
Which brings us to the similarities between the two scripts and the interesting accusation brought by Pathmanathan that Saddhamangala Karunaratne revealed something and then Paranavtana hid it (or Paranavitana hid something and then Karunaratne revealed it? it’s not clear from the translation). But we will assume it’s the latter because what’s the point of hiding what someone has already revealed? Even the latter accusation is a technical impossibility because Karunaratne’s (revealing) publication, which Pathmanathan obviously has in mind (Karunaratne: 1984-EZ vol VII), came before Paranavitana’s (concealing) publication (IC 1:1970). Karunaratne: 1984 was simply his PhD thesis of 1960 published as it was, without any updates whatsoever. Anyway all that is esoteric Watson. Here is what Karurunaratne (1984/60:16) “revealed” about the ‘ma yanna’.
“The commonest form of “ma” found in the earliest inscriptions of Ceylon, is …(drawing of the tubular ma)….Since then several inscriptions have been found in South India with the identical “ma” and the graffiti from Arikamadu, also in South India, have added to the list.”
This is how Paranavitana (IC: 1970: xix-xx) “hid” it;
“Two types of the letter ma occur in the inscriptions of Section I. The type of ma which is common in Asokan inscriptions is formed of a circle on which is placed a semicircle opening upwards. Examples of this type of ma from Inscriptions numbered 835, 236, 1023, 269 and 623 are given, respectively, in Columns…But the type of ma which is normal in our inscriptions is a u-shaped tubular form in the middle of which is a cross-bar extending from one vertical to the other. Morphologically, this tubular ma (also referred to as cup-shaped), is easily seen to be the earlier of the two forms of ma….This type of ma, which is common in Ceylon Brahmi, occurs also in the few records in that script found in the Tamil-nad. But it is not unknown to North Indian Brahmi, being found in Inscriptions no. 187 and 361 at Sanchi. The intermediate form, differing but little from the tubular type occurs in No. 201 from the same site.”
The same “hide-reveal” pattern can be found in the respective descriptions of Karunaratne (84:16) and Paranavitana (70: xviii) for the letter “i yanna[iii]”. That is, signs of hiding would only be visible to those (to paraphrase P. G Wodehouse) dropped on their heads as babies. Such early accidents would also prevent folk from comprehending that when features are shared between two entities they stop being signature to either.
*The writer can be found at http://ratnawalli.blogspot.co.uk/and rathnawalli@gmail.com
[i] This is one of the most abnormal aspects of Sri Lankan Academia. A significant number of academics lack the most rudimentary knowledge about linguistics and consequently go public with entrancing displays of ignorance. In 1981, A. Veluppillai remarked; “The present writer has to confess that he could not understand why Paranavitana rushed to the conclusion that the language of the inscription was Old Sinhalese. Prakrit was the language of inscriptions throughout South Asia except in Tamilnadu, for the first few centuries before and after Christ. The language of Sri Lanka inscriptions up to the fourth century A.D. had been termed Sinhalese Prakrit. The Sinhalese Prakrit, even in the earliest records did not reflect the Prakrit of any particular North Indian region. Linguistic features of Prakrit of Western and Eastern India and Deccan had been noticed in these records. Paranavitana’s comment on the language of the Gold Plate should be viewed from this point of view.” A sincere confession from A. Veluppillai should have read; “The present writer has to confess that he could not understand why Paranavitana called the language of this inscription Old Sinhalese because the present writer is not sufficiently well read and perceptive. This prevents him from understanding that a) Paranavitana is not the only Indic linguist in the world and other linguists call this language Old Sinhala too b) Old Sinhala and Sinhalese Prakrit are synonyms and complementary terminology signifying two aspects of the same entity (‘Old Sinhala’ indicating that it’s the linguistic precursor of modern Sinhalese and Sinhalese Prakrit signifying the familial affinities of the language). My readers who do not want things too complex can get a basic handle on Sri Lankan inscriptional linguistics by reading the third chapter(which I have uploaded here) of Richard Salomon’s “Indian Epigraphy, A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages”. Read 3.1.4.2.2 (Sinhalese Prakrit) under 3.1.4.2 (Inscriptions in other MIA dialects) and 3.4.7 (Sinhalese) under 3.4 (The New Indo-Aryan Languages). If you want to go deeper, read James W. Gair in “Studies in South Asian Linguistics. Sinhala and Other South Asian Languages”. The PDF I have uploaded has three good articles; “Sinhala, An Indo Aryan Isolate”, “How Dravidianized was Sinhala Phonology? Some Conclusions and Cautions” and “Some Aspects of the Jaffna Tamil Verbal System”
[ii] There are examples from Tamil Nadu where the Old Sinhalese ownership-suffix “sa” is affixed to Tamil names ending in an alveolar nasal ṉa. These excerpts from “Visaki and Kuviran- Historical Implications of Names in the Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions” by Y. Subbarayalu will illustrate; “In no. 170 of the above table, whose latter half only is available, the genitive case marker sa is added to the name “..taṉ”, which with “aṉ” ending must definitely be a Tamil name like Ataṉ or a Tamilized Prakrit name like Visakaṉ…Another similar instance is found in a cave inscription (Mahadevan 2003:no. 24, p.351), which gives the word Utayaṉa-sa, “of Utayaṉ”… the occurrence of the genitive suffix “śa” in many as five names and of the genitive suffix “ha” in two of the pottery inscriptions is another significant piece of correspondence between the two areas. The two genitive suffixes are peculiar to Sri Lankan Prakrit (Paranavitana 1970, p.xl). The use of the palatal sibilant “ś” in the place of the dental sibilant “s” normally found in other Prakrits is a special feature of Sri Lankan Prakrit. Though the Prakrit influence from Sri Lanka is clearly perceptible, Sri Lanka is not the only source. In fact, the impact of North Indian Prakrits is found more influential than that of Sri Lankan one…”
[iii] Karunaratne (1984/60:16);
“The “i” form ..(graphic of the Brahmi letter, two dots on either side of a vertical line) found in the earliest Ceylonese inscriptions is quite different from the standard Mauryan form which was …(graphic 3 dots).The identical form has been found in the early Brahmi inscriptions of South India and in the graffiti of Arikamedu, also in South India.”
Paranavitana(IC-1970 :xviii); “The symbol for the initial i, which is not uncommon in our documents, is a vertical stroke with two dots on either side of it, and not three dots arranged to form a triangle as in Asokan Brahmi. This type of i also occurs in the few Brahmi inscriptions discovered in caves in the Pandya country, and has been read as i as well as ī. The symbol formed by a vertical stroke with two dots on either side of it occurs in a Mathurā inscription of close of the first century A.C., with the value of ī .The modern Sinhalese, as well as the Tamil letter for ī, is obviously evolved from this symbol, and it is possible that it was originally meant to represent the ī sound, but was read as i in Old Sinhalese which had no long vowels.”
Nanda / September 8, 2013
Oh! Girly, your own cavity smells a lot than the caveat of an X. Is that an umbilical deficiency that you always carry in your traits?
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Dude / September 8, 2013
This Babe suffers from cognitive disorder clearly!
Get real Babe, the PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY…
all your potty and petty interpretations and reinterpretations are nothing but pathetic attempts to read the past though your ethno-centric Sinhala Buddhist nationalist present.
Read some new historiography and shut up! Stop prating please!
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Kautilya / September 9, 2013
Here is the usual attitude of Hindu orthodoxy where women are put in place.
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Iqbal / September 9, 2013
It was the Buddha who was sexist in his doubts as to whether to have women in the Sangha not to mention the recurrent sexism in the Buddhist canon, including the Jataka stories.
This woman knows no history but yet proceeds to write on things she should remain silent. She is a Sinhalese Buddhist fanatic with the proverbial but outdated Mahavamsa mentality!
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Mrs. Kuveni Braveheart / September 11, 2013
BUDDHA HAS HIS SHORTCOMMINGS (600 BC), MOHOMAD (600 AD) IS FAR WORSE.
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Vibhushana / September 8, 2013
Among Sinhala hoaxes the lion story does take the cake. Without the lion story where does things stand? When the lion story is taken out only logical inference is Sinhala culture is THE indegenous culture evovled over time in the island.
Along comes the Gon Demala with “Tamil Samgam”, “Tamil Brahmi”, “Kumari Landam” and “Tamil Eelam”. These are all hoaxes. I find facinating how the sudden story changes to “ancient Tamils were Buddhists” when the Gon Demala find himself naked with another pokie. When the demals is confronted with Tamilised place name the story changes to “ancient Tamils used Sanksrit” as well,
There is no argument. Even the gon demala professors are lying through teeth. Aaparently is has something to so with lack of self-esteem. There is no value in trying to correct things because facts is not what they are after.
The habitual faulures are almost certainly becuase of over rating Tamil history and achievements. I think they know they are being disengeious. Imagine though suddenly if they accept the hoax. The last 60 years blood soaked journey looking a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka would become a humiliation isn’t it?
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Native Vedda / September 8, 2013
Vibhushana
“When the lion story is taken out only logical inference is Sinhala culture”
What is Sinhala culture?
A culture that is based on pick and mix as the contemporary political machination demands. There is no such thing as Sinhala Culture. Unless you forget it you will be going in circles.
“Tamil Samgam”, “Tamil Brahmi”,
What holes do you find in those in inverted comas?
I too have issues with those Tamil Sangam and Tamil Brahmi. Let us share it.
Vijaya myth and his ancestor’s practices of parricide, incest and bestiality are removed what else do you have as Sinhala culture?
What exactly mean by “Kumari Landam”? There are alternative suggestion available to scientifically explain Lemurian continent.
Remember science and Tamil/Sinhalese don’t mix.
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Kikli Kleerdi / September 8, 2013
Kumari = Wench
Landam = Land(Hindi) [as pronounced in ‘Lon’don]
Kumari Landam:
The valuable ([land]possession) of a Wench.
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Native Vedda / September 8, 2013
Kikli Kleerdi
Wench – Consort with prostitutes.
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Dr.Rajasingham Narendran / September 8, 2013
The word is ‘ Kumari Kandam’ and means ‘ a young and vivacious continent’.
Dr. Rajasingham Narendran
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Anpu / September 8, 2013
More on Kumari Kandam – “It may be timely to pose the question of as from when did Tamil civilisation exist. The tsunami of December 26, 2004 vividly demonstrated the destructive force of tidal waves and what havoc the attendant deluges could cause. It was, however, not unknown to the ancient Tamils who occupied southern India from that time. Their traditions refer to extensive lands submerged in the remote past that had once existed in the Indian Ocean, south of Kanya Kumari or Cape Comorin. They had indeed a word for such happenings. They called it kadatkol – meaning the sea devouring the land.
The name of the lost lands is Kumari Kandam. At the time of those inundations, they were home to a high Tamil civilisation that hosted the First and Second Tamil Sangams or Acadamies of Advanced Learning. The Tamil language and literature as well as the philosophy and culture were cultivated and fostered through such Sangams. The works of these two Sangams were lost when the cities in which they were created were submerged by such inundations. Though the tradition of these Tamil Sangams and the deluges which destroyed them lived on, there was no historical evidence forthcoming to back them until very recently.
” http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=256
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Dr.Rajasingham Narendran / September 9, 2013
The Kingdom of Kelaniya was also much larger than the present area called Kelaniya. Legend has it that most of the old Kelaniya Kingdom was devoured by the sea. It was obviously part of the Kumari Kandan.
Dr. Rajasingham Narndran
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Pun jab / September 9, 2013
Vivaciously, Kickly cleared.
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Anpu / September 8, 2013
What is the real history?
“Hugh Neville was an English civil servant who worked in Sri Lanka in various capacities between 1869 and 1886. He collected all the manuscripts available among the people of Sri Lanka in Sinhalese and Tamil during his period, a total of 2227 works. Of this, the works that are identified as Sinhala verse (poetical ) literature was separated and listed by Hugh Neville. The list and the abstracts and part translations have been listed and printed by P E P Deraniyagala who was the Director of National Museums of Ceylon. into three volumes as Sinhala Verse in 1954.
Of the 822 works listed only about 32 could be called Sinhala Buddhist literature. The remaining 790 works belong to what should be categorised as Sinhala Hindu literature. This gives an indication as to what was the religious persuasion of the Sinhala people during this period as late as middle of the 19th century. ( The entire list is available and can be posted through the email).
” http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2009/07/towards-peaceful-equitable-and.html
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Anpu / September 8, 2013
“There are kovils from ancient days in Kandy, testifying to a high concentration of Hindus in the Central part of Lanka. The temple for Nath (Siva), according to H.W. Codrington, is over 600 years old. The other temples, being for Murukan, Vishnu and Goddess Pattini, Robert Knox was of the view that Maha Fsala Perahera in Kandy was celebrated from ancient times exclusively in honour of the Hindu deities. The Tooth Relic was taken in the Perahera for the first time during the reign of King Kirthi Sri Raja Singha at the request of the Siamese Monk Upali, to give a Buddhist touch to the festival. That practice was later stopped. These days only the empty casket is mounted on the elephant.” http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lkawgw/sinhalarace.htm
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Jiljona / September 8, 2013
The Perahara was called Kusala Perahara in the olden days. The Thai Upali robbed of our beloved tooth and kept in place a fake one, still Upali keeps on making tooth decaying confectionery (Delta Toffee)ruining the Geegith of our healthy children.
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Silva / September 8, 2013
Vibhushana
I was following your exchanges with Suresh in the other thread. You came and challenged like a Sinhaya with pora talk, I was feeling happy but instead of continuing, you left behind your amude and ran away (escaped). Shame on you man! You let us down very badly.
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Botswana / September 8, 2013
It’s called Tribuvana the Chameleon.
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Fathima Fukushima / September 8, 2013
It is NOT Sinhala creation. It was written by an Indian names Valmiki in a book called Ramayana. That is where this nonsense story emerged.
Still boat people 3,000 years ago are not that bad compared to Hari Jana (Tamils) arriving in the 18th century.
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Kundi Devi / September 8, 2013
A thug by profession, Valmiki the son of Somari was a highwayman, his original name was Rat-no-car. On his summon of a call his water fetching docile wife obediently whisks in a brisk while her obedient bucket with the aid of it’s harnessed rope tucks to the mechanism wheel of the pulley of the well in waiting until she returns in a swish.
How could we hate our beloved ply-head hero Ravana while Ramayana was a tale written by a thug. O! those foolish North Indians.
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Val Mee / September 9, 2013
O Kundi Devi, your own idiot sons the ‘Punch-pandas’ killed your best and beloved son Karna, curse the perpetrators from your underbelly O mother of the best and merciful one ‘Karna’.
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Native Vedda / September 8, 2013
Fathima Fukushima
“Still boat people 3,000 years ago are not that bad compared to Hari Jana (Tamils) arriving in the 18th century.”
Kallathonies of 18th century had completely mutated themselves into hard line Sinhala/Buddhist chauvinists who in a vein attempt to hide their original identity re branded themselves with newly acquired Portuguese/Dutch names.
One wonders whether they used Bronco branding techniques to re brand themselves or other less painful methods.
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Magot-Brain / September 10, 2013
YOU MEAN LIKE THE LAST ‘SINHALA’ KINGS.
Some Europeans too do not like us coming to ‘their’ US, NZ, etc.
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Playing-Vedda / September 10, 2013
Yes, that leadership is given by the Don Henrick (now Rajapakse) family of Hamban(boat)tota(port).
Malay mixed, Percy Mahendran Jilmarts.
Before that Nilaperumals (Bandaranayake)
Long time before, Vijaya kallathonis rebrand from Hinduism to newly acquired Buddhism.
Some locals too gave up native religion for some Indian one.
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Yamamaoto / September 8, 2013
O radiated Pukaseema, Tamils didn’t have the letter ‘H’ 3000 years ago. So, likely the word ‘Hari-Jan’ would have been written as ‘Kari-Jan’ like the North & Eastern Tamils of Lanka still pronouncing the letter ‘H’ into ‘K’.
Meanwhile, wasn’t this ‘Hari-Jan’ word a very recent interpolation by the Northerners for ‘the Untouchables’.
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Tennabadu / September 9, 2013
Yea, the Easterners pronounce ‘House-Boy’ into ‘Cows-boy’ that we may mistakenly correct it to “Cow-boys”. Interestingly, they still get hold in to the originality of Tamil Language steadfastly by omitting the ‘H’ in their discourses than the Tamilnadu civics. Afterall, the letter in modern Tamil ‘H’&’S’ is only used for writing/pronouncing nouns and alien loanwords in Tamil like Hari, Haasyam, Snekam, Swasam, Sparisam etc.
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Takabe / September 9, 2013
Now, Pukasina it’s your turn, perform a ‘Hari-Kari’.
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Anagarika Somapala / September 9, 2013
Lanka was the name given to our island by the Indians and it appeared for the very first time only in the Ramayana.
Since North Indians hated Ravana they named his Island in a derogatory term ‘Langa’ (India’s loin cloth). In their manuscripts, with due respect to the Indian undergarment/loincloth the ‘Langot’ (it should be considered the geophysical position of Lanka is located in the scrotal position of India and looks like India’s loin cloth). While being sheepish to perceive of the disparaging name endowed on them, rather the ‘Sinhalese’ people felt manumitted from the ‘Sinhala’ label and were overjoyed to enjoy their new identity ‘Langa’ within their proud bosom ever after.
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Lanka liar / September 8, 2013
It is not Lion story it is LIEon story which is correct. Your language is truly Sri lankan. A true son of Mother Lanka
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bbs dayan / September 8, 2013
You are such a racist mired in Aryan myth of the Sinhala as people with a white bottom! Go try you kalu faces in north india and see whether they will accept you as a long lost brother! No amount of hindi films will white wash you kalu behinds!
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Anagarika Somapala / September 9, 2013
The Singalese are Dravidians who came from South India (Tamil Nadu, Andara and Kerela) from time to time during the early period and settled in the South of Sri Lanka. The arrival of Buddhism from North India changed their religion, language and culture and made them Singalese.
A marijuana smoking Buddhist monk wrote a story book (fiction) called Mahavamsa and in that he said, the Singalese are Aryans and therefore these fools falsely believe that they are from North India.
If you speak to any North Indian and tell them that the Singalese believe that their forefathers came from North India, they will laugh from both ends.
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Anagarika Somapala / September 9, 2013
Vibhushana sounds like a typical Sinhala Modaya. Someone please give him a bucket full of Kavum.
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Silva / September 8, 2013
Walli,
You started with a gala, then fed jam to Sittampalam, and now Pathmanathan. This time what are you going to feed him? May be he likes milk.
Why write all these rubbish and waste our time. You seem to be a student in the above subject. Let the experts in the field challenge each other. None of those learnerd professors are going to read your rubbish or respond to your silly and stupid arguments. They will only laugh at your childish challenges. Do not waste your time is researching some thing that happened thousands of years ago, how ever much we try to speculate, it is only assumptions, we cannot come to definite conclusions like in natural science, we will never know for sure what exactly happened at that time.
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Buffalo Marine / September 8, 2013
Jambola fed her with Lemon Juice, now her udder would have been curdled, Oh, poor Pathmanathan now only gets MeeKiris.
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Jim softy / September 8, 2013
It looks Rathnawalli is publishing parts of her thesis in order to get constructive criticism.
All the Baboons here show their frustration, hatred, anger and abuse against women.
Just give her constructive comments instead of showing how pathetic you people are.
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Native Vedda / September 8, 2013
Jim softy
“Just give her constructive comments instead of showing how pathetic you people are.”
They seem to be following the trend set by you.
Why should the commentators less tough on the author just because she is a women?
When did the last time you show your respect to a woman author?
Being a Sinhala/Buddhist does not grand you the right to exercise double standard.
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Silva / September 8, 2013
Jim kollo,
publishing parts of her thesis???
constructive criticism???
Sounds too technical. Why don’t you start and we will follow you.
If you are right, feeding jam to old professors is also part of it?
But I like her feeding Jam, milk, etc and getting fed (juice, etc)from these old professors.
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Native Vedda / September 8, 2013
Silva
I know your best intentions.
However she is only a child and please treat her as such.
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Silva / September 8, 2013
You are too clever to be a Veddha.
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Kautilya / September 9, 2013
here we see that women have to be pushed to the level of kids in the Hindu ethos that the native veddha has grown up.
When it is impossible to defend Pathmanathan, it is easier to attack the writer – just as they did with Sittramppalam. If it had been possible to defend Pathmanathan, we would have had” erudite sounding” stuff coming out of some of these bloggers. When I once pointed out that Pathmanathan likes to write some of his most silly theories in non-peer-reviewed felicitation volumes, there were people who came out of the woodwork to defend them. Today they are casting anti-feminine barbs instead of trying to say anything in Pathmanathan’s defence.
Also, there are these types who attack paranavithana, remaining silent here.
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Native Vedda / September 9, 2013
Kautilya
“When it is impossible to defend Pathmanathan, it is easier to attack the writer”
My purpose in this forum is to download insult as and when needed, because you Tamils and Sinhalese deserve it in large quantities on a regular basis.
It is not in my interest to defend all those pretentious windbags as it would legitimise your theft of my ancestral land.
As in any living organism there are stages of growth and development. Some reach maturity some don’t. One should know when one read the writing of a child. It could be and most probably an arrested development of an adult.
I have no religion.
My insults know no religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, caste, region, colour……… and are aimed at most stupid contributors.
If it hurts you I am sorry you deserve it.
Where is your Guru Bandu? Is he directing your typing?
I like that eccentric old chap. Say hello to him.
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Kautilya / September 10, 2013
Good. Natav Veddah’s job is to download insults on the Tamils and Sinhalese when needed?
Kautilya’s job is to complement them when needed. So shouldn’t we complement Ratnawalli? If she wrote her name as Ratnavalli I would know that she is Tamil.
You see the slight difference between Tamil Brahmi and Sinhala Brahmi?
According to Pathmanathan and Sittrappalam (and also all the mudrappalams) the Veddahs were Tamils, and Vijaya took their homeland. So make sure you don’t insult yourself when you insult tamils! As for Bandu, I might be a little older than even Bandu.
How do I say hellow to Bandu in the name of a Native Veddha? Better as Gananath as he knows the Veddah language.
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Native Vedda / September 10, 2013
Kautilya
“So shouldn’t we complement Ratnawalli?”
Yes of course you should only when she deserves it. Being a child she has immense difficulties, learning, thinking, rationally or coherently arguing her case if there is one, …………..
In the absence of all these qualities one should not encourage a child to misbehave.
In my case, I am bit thick and my purpose is to insult the stupid Tamils and stupid Sinhalese, there for I believe I do not have to have an intellectual pretends.
Until she grows pass her teenage no one will take her seriously. Between you and me please tell me what new knowledge she has brought in the field of history.
After her attack on Prof I searched Prof Pathmanathan’s contribution on the net. It seems the old codger has published more than 200 works. According to Irathinavalli’s Professor Pathmanathan has enough publications (most of them downloadable here). I checked the website which provides only 9 of his contributions.
Nine out of two hundred is not most of his work. It is only a fraction. From this you can safely deduce that not only she does not know about Prof Pathmanathan’s work she has no sense of basic mathematics.
Please teach her.
“You see the slight difference between Tamil Brahmi and Sinhala Brahmi?”
Brahmi research is one of the most difficult areas of history. Even no two experts will agree on the reading of one inscription. My elders tell me there are stark difference between Iravatham Madhavan and other expert epigraphist. Let us leave the debate to the expert, as Prof Sudharsan Seneviratne would suggest.
I am not aware of Prof Pathmanathan suggesting “the Veddahs were Tamils”. My East Coast cousins speak Tamil and Sinhala, that does not make them ThamHela.
Bandu is a nice and generous man whom I will remember for the rest of my life as he once offered me a job as domestic servant in his household. I am eternally grateful to the old chap for his offer and a piece he wrote on Adhivasi though I don’t agree with it.
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ken robert / September 11, 2013
Kautilya
Should not we complement ratnawalli?
Yes.
Please visit her web site and read about her discussion on her life. I do not care they are true or not but there is a style and prose which could be complemented. But when it comes to history and especially archaeology there is always a grey zone between truth and fiction.
Furthermore commentators have pointed countless times that there has been systematic biases irrespective of whether it is sinhalese or tamil histories.
Therefore it is imperative any student or child in history needs to careful with their words and intentions. Unfortunately I disagree with the way ratnawalli’s presenting
1. Presenting opinions as facts
2. Failure to grasp her cognitive biases( she dwells on brammi scripts which she thinks she knows well on the contrary no one could possibly decipher brammi unless we have a discovery such as rosetta stone.)
3. Failure to respond to critics
4. Directing criticism mainly at the author rather than topic
The main danger is that my good friend Jim the brain softy could believe ratnawalli’s writing is scholarly academic discovery.
I quote a professor pharmacolgy used to say ” if one could not convince the examiner, try confusing him”
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Silva / September 9, 2013
Kautilya
Only some learnerd professors are able to either critisize or defend another learnerd professor. Do you think professors such as Pathmanathan,Sittramppalam or any professor for that matter in the same field (history, archeology, epigraphy, etc) will even bother to read such a childish article and respond to every tom, dick and harry or Rathnawalli,Kautilya and Vibhushana who write such stupid stuff?
When People find some absolutely hilarious threads like this one, they enjoy having some fun.
Btw, are you serious when you said impossible to defend Pathmanathan???
Man, can’t you see the contradiction here. She is giving a link to Pathmanathan’s publications. But her article does not talk about any of his publications. Instead, she is talking about some K.S. Sivakumaran’s article where he is believed to have translated a Tamil newspaper article by Pathmanathan. What a JOKE!
Do you think a learned person like Pathmanathan will even bother to read such rubbish or any other learned person will bother to defend such silly and childish criticism?
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Iqbal / September 9, 2013
Dr. Pathmanathan is a far better historian and a real one with academic pedigree than that Sinhalese Buddhist fascist and fake charlatan – Paranavitana!
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JULAMPITIYE AMARAYA / September 9, 2013
Most Children are Incorrigible Nowadays.
So do This girl also.
Let her be that way to divulge what is in mind and
get her frustration out of the mind in time to come
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C. Wijeyawickrema / September 9, 2013
All these attacks on Rathnavalli show that Colombo Telegraph has a lot of useless readers,just attacking anything they do nodt like or do not understand.
Rathnavalli is like the caravan while the dogs are barking!!!
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Native Vedda / September 9, 2013
C. Wijeyawickrema
“All these attacks on Rathnavalli show that Colombo Telegraph has a lot of useless readers,just attacking anything they do nodt like or do not understand.”
Probably yes they are useless. They do read your contributions and interventions which confirms it.
“Rathnavalli is like the caravan while the dogs are barking”
Is she going to permanently camped? Just the thought worries me.
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Wijja / September 9, 2013
That empty caravan is heading South while tracking the North Star.
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Piranha / September 9, 2013
Here she goes again challenging Tamil professors in a pathetic attempt to prove Sri Lanaka was Sinhala from year zero. She must have a lot of angst against the Tamils and it is plainly visible behind the smirking face of her photo here. How sad that she has to devote enormous time to tarnish the names of respected Tamil professors. Makes me wonder if she doesn’t believe that the Mahawamsa was fact.
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Native Vedda / September 9, 2013
Piranha
Professor R A L H Gunawardana was the subject of attack in her blog earlier.
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Tickle / September 9, 2013
“The ignorance in this is so mindboggling that at first I did not know how to tackle it”.
Archaeology has become a homeland issue, tough to tackle?
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Tickle / September 9, 2013
(“X was made a professor emeritus after just one publication” remarked a senior academic grimly)
Who is this grimly? A British?
(Well know of a grizzly the bare all).
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ken robert / September 9, 2013
The topic chosen by ratnawalli according my understanding is the mistakes and hidden agenda of Prof Pathmanathan in interpreting ancient brammi scripts.
Let us be clear about the problems facing the interpretation.
1. Brammi is a script not necessarily a language. (Different languages could have used the same script).
2. Knowledge of spoken language of india and Srilanka beyond 10 century AD is difficult. From the srilanka perspective it is mahavamsa etc from literature and archeological findings such as sigiriya could be corroborated to sinhalese civilisation.
3. It is quite possible that brammi scripts could have evolved into different scripts. This could have been due to the material ancient people used to write. South indians preferred to use ola (panai olai?) Leaves and north indian used clay pots. Ola script writing could have developed into what is known as watteluthu in south india resulting in current tamil and sinhala writing.
4. Previous discussion on prof sittampalam, the commentators mentioned about the similarities in grammar, phonology of words between tamil and sinhalese.
I wish I have a copy of Link ( by prof indrathilaka prof of linguistics) to shed more light into this.
5. It is my opinion that ms ratnawalli is better suited to write fiction because she could not choose the topic to critisise by choosing a difficult topic such as brammi script interpretation and not understanding the difference between facts and opinion.
I wish to ask whether or not she has degree from a srilankan university for a start!
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Native Vedda / September 9, 2013
ken robert
She is a child.
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ken robert / September 10, 2013
Native vedda
I was checking prof Pathmanathan’s details in the web and found a blogging site called pathmam which describes history of srilanka from 10 century AD. Prof pathmanathan (is a prof of history ) seem to dwell a lot in the kerala connection of srilanka.
Walli’s writing is remincence of prof Nalin de silva who argued that chingalas were ruling jaffna as per some portugese book.
I am concerned that her writing in a national news paper could have detrimental effects on our chequered history of srilanka
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Mohammed / September 10, 2013
ken Robert
Prof. Nalin de Silva is a Professor in Natural Science (Maths/Physics) and NOT Social Science (History/Archaeology/Epigraphy/ etymology/anthropology). Most of his arguments are based on logical assumptions (in Social science, logical assumptions based on unobserved facts leads to falsehood). Nalin de Silva became popular among Sinhala-Buddhist racists by engaging in CHEAP polemics. Most of the moderate Sinhalese only laugh at him and call him a PISSA. None of the learned people (including professors) challenge him because they do not like to lose their dignity by arguing/debating with someone who is engaged in polemics for cheap popularity.
This Rathnawalli is not second to Nalin de Silva. She has replaced him. At least Nalin de Silva is a learned professor and some people will listen to him due to his title. Rathnawalli is just a journalist who is following the steps of Nalin de Silva by engaging in polemics for cheap popularity. What she cannot understand is, there are no takers (even among Sinhala-Buddhist racists) and the learned ones are simply ignoring her. The 50 odd comments here prove what the readers think of her. The national news paper she writes in is hardly having any circulation due to its chief editor, a well known Sinhala-Buddhist racist.
Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana from Ontario better known as GamVasiya is also another Nalin de Silva. A Professor in Natural Science (NOT Social Science), he also gets involved in cheap polemics but unfortunately never became popular (even among the Sinhala-Buddhist racists).
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Native Vedda / September 10, 2013
ken robert
Here is the link to Professor S Pathmanathan’s profile.
http://www.noolaham.net/project/47/4628/4628.pdf
He has written more than 250 articles and books.
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J.Muthu / September 10, 2013
Look like she lack of bonk, hope she will get some thing soon. What a bonkers this little sweet looking girly need…good and hard knock will do this stupid tiny brain for ever….
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Native Vedda / September 11, 2013
J.Muthu
“Look like she lack of bonk, hope she will get some thing soon.”
Are you being tempted to help her?
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Katukarosana / September 19, 2013
Is Native Vedda reborn a Tamil Librarian?
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Native Vedda / September 21, 2013
Katukarosana
“Is Native Vedda reborn a Tamil Librarian?”
My elders are familiar “stuff”.
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