By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

Tamils and Muslims Betrayed by NPP, a Victim of its Communalism

Ours is a government resoundingly voted in by all major communities of Sri Lanka. Many of those who voted had hoped it would reverse the atrocious Sinhalese-Buddhist stance of all previous governments, eliminating any sign of Tamils on the island of Sri Lanka. Alas! It is not to be. That is why I use Sinhalese Government and not Sri Lankan in the title. Through Gazette Extraordinary No. 2460/56 dated 1 Nov. 2025 (with reference in Sinhalese in the English and Tamil Gazettes but in Tamil only in the Tamil Gazette) Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs Hiniduma Sunil Senevi has appointed a new 19-member Archaeological Advisory Committee that will serve from 10 March, 2025, to 9 March, 2027.

All 19 names are Sinhalese and do sound Buddhist. I see no clear non-Buddhist name. Now, ten days later (Nov. 11), it is said there was a mistake, and amendments are being made to the Act itself. What amendments?

In an article in The Wire, P.A. Krishnan (who is a writer and CEO of a research firm) posits that Attaching Regional Pride to achaeological findings only Muddies Waters. He argues that archaeology must not become a tool for national or regional chauvinists. His argument concerns Indian debates on whether Tamil Brahmi or Asokan Brahmi preceded the other.

Archaeology in Sri Lanka is indeed a tool for Sinhalese chauvinists. That meddling continues under the NPP.  The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice says, “[G]enuine and non-partisan archaeological preservation cannot possibly take place under the auspices of this Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarian government.”

The British backed the antecedence of Asokan Brahmi over Dravidian Brahmi. For long, South Indian archaeologist officials were not allowed to look into the question of whether South Indian Brahmi is older, and official reports on South Indian Brahmi being older than Asokan Brahmi were suppressed. The BBC has reported that there have been significant allegations of political and bureaucratic interference by the Indian Central Government in archaeological excavations in South India, particularly concerning the dating of the Tamil-Brahmi script. The core of the controversy revolves around the potential for the findings to challenge long-held beliefs about the origin and spread of the Brahmi script and the ancient Indian civilisation.

Francis Whyte Ellis: The First Voice of Tamil Language Liberation

Francis Whyte Ellis has been called “the First Voice of Tamil Language Liberation”. It was a time when the East India Company banned missionaries saying conversions are bad for business.  Ellis became a writer in the service at Madras in 1796 at age 19. In 1806 he was appointed judge in Machilipatnam, in 1809 collector of land customs in the Madras presidency, and in 1810 collector of Madras.

Ellis is the first scholar who classified the Dravidian languages as a separate language family. He was the first to hold up Tamil and Dravidian pride. That accomplishment is incorrectly attributed today to Anglican High-Church Bishop Robert Caldwell (7 May 1814 – 28 August 1891). As Trautman notes, however, Caldwell himself acknowledges Ellis’ contribution in his preface to the first edition of A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages.

Responding to the Caldwell sentiment saying, “I should like to see the pre-Sanskrit element amongst you asserting itself rather more”, things are stirring in Tamil Nadu under the DMK. In Sri Lanka, however, Tamils talk big but few dare to be open in the English language press except from abroad or in the Tamil language press that the Sinhalese will not see.

A rare and positive voice is that of Prof. S Pathmanathan. He is open about his views that Tamils have a valid claim to a homeland. A quieter but effective voice is that of Prof. P. Pushparatnam of University of Jaffna who through his archaeological findings has established a long Tamil presence in Sri Lanka.

I must note that while Arumuika Navalar promoted the vedic religion (Vaideeham in Tamil) and Sanskrit, it was missionaries who asserted the anciency and importance of Tamil. Our history has been usurped and overturned by Jaffna’s so called Tamil nationalists who put down Tamil and hide its greatness, attributing missionary accomplishments and contributions to Tamil to Navalar.

Bishop Robert Caldwell

Caldwell arrived in India at age 24 and studied the local language to spread the word of the Bible in a vernacular language, studies that led him to author a text on comparative grammar of the South Indian languages. In his book, Caldwell proposed that there are Dravidian words in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the archaic forms of the Greek language, and the places named by Ptolemy.

Significantly, Caldwell says all Sanskrit words in Tamil can be eliminated because there are Tamil equivalents but what cannot be eliminated is the word for  idol (Vikraham) becaue it has no equivalent in Tamil. So the worship of idols is alien to Tamils, even though integrally a part of Navalar worship rules. Both word and thing are foreign to primitive Tamil usages and habits of thought; and were introduced into Tamil country by Brahmins, [along] with the Puranic system of religion and worship of idols encouraged by Navalar’s Vaitheeham.

The Brahmi Debate: Navalar the Vedantist

Sir P. Theagaraya Chetty (or Reddy), one of the founders of the Dravidian movement in India, writes further, “it may be expected that the Dravidian mind will ere long be roused from its lethargy and stimulated to enter upon a brighter career. If the national mind and heart were stirred to so great a degree a thousand years ago by the diffusion of Jainism . . . it is reasonable to expect still more important results from the propagation of the grand and soul-stirring truths of Christianity. (ibid.)

It is also said, “Sanskrit has not disdained to borrow from its Dravidian neighbours…Tamil, the most highly cultivated ab intra of all Dravidian idioms can dispense with its Sanskrit…and not only stand alone, but flourish without its aid…a Tamil poetical composition is regarded as…classical, not in proportion to the amount of Sanskrit it contains…but in proportion to its freedom from Sanskrit.

E.V. Ramasamy, also known as Periyar, is a Tamil political leader and social reformer. He said in a speech on December 17, 1939, during the Dravida Nadu Conference, “You are of pure Dravidian race…I should like to see the pre-Sanskrit element amongst you asserting itself rather more…The constant putting forward of Sanskrit literature as if it were pre-eminently Indian, should stir the national pride of some of you [who are] Tamil, Telugu, or Cannarese [Kannada].” This was originlly from the then Governor of Madras, the arch racist, Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff.

Grant-Duff adds, “You have less to do with Sanskrit than we English have. Ruffianly Europeans have sometimes been known to speak of natives of India as ‘Niggers,’ but they do not, like the proud speakers or writers of Sanskrit, speak of the people of the South as legions of monkeys. It was these Sanskrit speakers, not Europeans, who lumped up the Southern races as Rakshusas – demons. It was they who deliberately grounded all social distinctions on Varna, Colour.”

Navalar has upheld the Vedic iterature calling us Tamils monkeys, noseless ones and Rakshusas. He is our hero, although his features are dark, hairy and African (with signs of birth defects) but his real likeness is doctored as at the Hindu College statue. Ravaya has a real picture I have used in my book Heritage Histories.

Caldwell’s Promotion of Dravidian Ideals and the Evidence

The term Brahmi was ascribed to Asoka’s writing by a French scholar by name Terrien who himself admitted that it is doubtful if Asoka’s writings were termed originally as Brahmi. However the term Tamil-Brahmi has stuck on for convenience.

Among the Indian states, Tamil Nadu is the home to more than 50 per cent of the total rock edicts of India. This attests to the fact that the Tamils were familiar with writing. Tolkappiyam the first available book of the Tamils written in the 4th Century BC contains a whole chapter on Ezhutthu (letters), which implies that the Tamil language has had a script even before the 4th Century BC date. The late B. Krishnamoorthy, a Dravidian linguist from Andhra has disclosed that the Tamil word ezhuthu (write) actually means writing. The Vedic language did not have a word that means write; the Sanskrit term Akshara simply means vibrations in air caused by pronouncing a word.

The evidence for pre-Asoka forms of the Brahmi scripts comes from Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. The earliest attested Brahmi inscriptions in South Asia  are found in Anuradhapura and are dated to the 4th century AD.

When K. Rajan, Professor, Department of History, Pondicherry University, excavated this megalithic grave, little did he realise that the paddy found in the four-legged jar would be instrumental in reviving the debate on the origin of the Tamil-Brahmi script. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dated the paddy done by Beta Analysis Inc., Miami, U.S.A. It assigned the paddy to 490 BC “Since all the goods kept in the grave including the paddy and the ring-stands with the Tamil-Brahmi script are single-time deposits, the date given to the paddy is applicable to the Tamil-Brahmi script also,” said Dr. Rajan. So the date of evolution of Tamil-Brahmi could be pushed 200 years before Asoka, he argued.

Apart from Ramesh another notable scholar, Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Emeritus Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, called the Porunthal Tamil-Brahmi script “an epoch-making discovery in the archaeology of Tamil Nadu” and said there “is no doubt” that Tamil-Brahmi belonged to the pre-Asoka period. In two of his books  – “An Oxford Companion to Indian Archaeology” and “India, an Archaeological History”  – he had written that the evolution of Tamil-Brahmi should go back to circa 500 BC. He refuted the theory that Tamil-Brahmi was post-Asoka.

A black and red ware potsherd with Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, unearthed from Ucchapanai, Kandarodai, Jaffna, is dated to the 3rd Century BC. A gold bar, with Tamil-Brahmi script engraved on it unearthed at Thenur near Madurai is dated to the 3rd Century BC. Tamil-Brahmi inscribed potsherds found in Poonagari, Jaffna are dated to the 2nd Century BC.  A 2012 discovery of a 2nd Century BC Tamil Brahmi inscription in Samanamalai (Jaina hill), Madurai district indicates widespread use of Brahmi scripts in the Tamil country post-Asoka, that is, the 3rd Century BC period. Tamil-Brahmi inscription on a black and red ware (a flat dish) excavated at the earliest layer in the southern town of Tissamaharama is dated to approximately 200 BC by German scholars who undertook the excavation.

Tamil Brahmi Outside Tamil Nadu and India

At Quseir-al-Qadim, Egypt a storage jar with inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi datable to the 1st Century BC is found. An amphora inscribed with Tamil-Brahmi datable to the 1st Century BC-1st Century AD is found at the ancient Ptolemy-period, Roman settlement in Egypt. A potsherd with Tamil-Brahmi inscription found in Oman is dated to the 1st Century CE. In Phu Khao Thong, Thailand a pottery bearing Tamil-Brahmi inscription dated to the 2nd Century AD is found. And a touchstone bearing Tamil Brahmi script dated to the 3rd – 4th Century AD is found at Khuan Luk Pat, Thailand. The Mankulam inscriptions (not Sri Lanka, but in Madurai nor what Parnavitana  calls Mathura to place Madurai in North India)  are one of the earliest Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and they are dated to the second century BC. However Dr. Ramesh who retired as Joint-Director, ASI in 1993, said the Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found at Mankulam, near Madurai, were pre-Asoka. He claimed “The consonants in the Mankulam inscriptions do not have vowel value attached to them. They are pre-Asoka and the script is more rudimentary than the Asoka-Brahmi.”

Despite the mounting evidence of the widespread finding of Tamil Brahmi in many places, Sinhalese nationalists are unable to see the Brahmi in Sri Lanka as part of that vast spread in Tamil Nadu and abroad.

My good friend and engineering practical partner (because both our names begin with an H) Nimal Herath has written a book he titles “The Sinhala Script based on Sri Lankan Inscriptions.” It appears in The Sunday Times (Aug. 11, 2024. Sinhala or Dravidian?

Senarat Parnavitana: Scientist or Charlatan?

Unfortunately in Sri Lanka, archaeology starting with Prof. Senarat Parnavitana, a Sri Lankan archaeologist and epigraphist, has become a tool of Sihhalese-Buddhist hegemony. According to K. Nesiah (who was Head of Education when Parnavitane was Head of Archaeology at Peradeniya), Parnavitane would seal a site he was excavating and not allow others to go in and be taking artefacts out  by the lorryloads – to where no one knew. However, the general view was that he was hiding or removing any sign of a Tamil presence.

The most telling indictment of Parnavitana, however, is by Ananda Guruge, an eminent Sinhalese archaeologist and epigrapher. He is mercilessly critical of Parnavitane in his paper. Guruge is known for his critical assessment of the later works of the renowned Senarat Paranavitane, specifically characterising some of his conclusions thus:

“Senarat Paranavitana [is] a Writer of Historical Fiction in Sanskrit.”

Guruge  caused a stir but given Guruge’s standing, his views could not be dismissed or even ignored. The problem was reviewed comprehensively a short time later by D. P. M. Weerakkody, Professor Emeritus Don Patrick Mervyn Weerakkody who is the only blind Sri Lankan known to have earned a western doctorate Lanka and a role model to many blind students.

The general consensus that has emerged subsequent to these publications is that all of Paranavitana’s later readings need to be double-checked before being treated as sound epigraphic and historical evidence. Parnavitane was deemed to be suffering from mental illness throughout his career and changing Sri Lankan history. Finally he is said to have tried to change Sigiriya history by writing “The Story of Sigiriya”.

The Fruit of the Poisoned Parnavitana Tree: The Eminent Senake Bandaranayake

Sadly all Sri Lankan writings on inscriptions are academically tainted by Parnavitana’s poisoned fruit. Every archaeologist of note in Sri Lanka was tainted by Parnavitana’s ideas, possibly even through being in his classes. That is the “fruit of the poisoned tree”. I have read that Moothasiva (clearly a Hindu) was Kasyappah’s father and at the same time I have also read that they were half-brothers. Sinhalese histories rarely mention Moothasiva who became Anuradhapura’s king after defeating Kasyappah as Mogallana because it woud make Anuradhapura a Hindu kingdom. Even the name Kasyappah is as Hindu as any. Deciphering our history is difficult if not impossible becauise of Parnavitana’s  legacy

That has to be seen in Prof. Senake Bandaranayake absorbing some ideas and building his career on Sigiriya as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sigiriya was said to have been – and I do not believe this – founded by Mootha-Siva (the Elder Siva) but talked up by Parnavitane as Kasyappah’s fortress.

In my presence, Prof. Bandaranayake boasted at a UGC meeting that at a conference at the Open University, he suggested that Pali was exported from Sri Lanka to India and that the academic audience accepted it. It is as if all the Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in Tamil Nadu and outside India  were also exported by the Sinhalese.

In a cheap The Sunday Times article (Jan. 27, 2023) where Prof. Bandaranayake was the main person interviewed, he talks of the Moonstone steps. Such steps  at Peradeniya’s Senate Building entrance which John Gnani Asirwatham (High Court Judge Colombo) said he as a student saw were constructed by Tamil artisans from Madras. However, it is boasted as Sinhalese as done by the Sinhalese orally, waiting for someone untrained to put it in a journal article and make the claim authentic.

Worse, the Bandaranayake interview  speaks of the moonstones being from “the ‘Rare Buddhist Anuradhapura period (377 BC-1017 AD)” which extraordinarily are waffled and described in the same article as Indian carved stone temple steps.” Which is it? Indian or Sri Lankan?

The article describes the sculpture as “the beautiful 1,000 year-old pre-Hindu stone step.” The 2025 article would put the steps at 1025. Is that pre-Hindu? Moothasiva is from the 5th century AD. The Anuradhapura period is partly Hindu and partly Buddhist. What nonsense we pass for our history!

This brings me to Pali and Prakrit (a corrupt form of Sanskrit that became Pali). Wordplay, a sleight of words, is used to impose Sinhalese propaganda. The oldest work of Sinhalese literature, Dhampiya-Atuva-Getapadaya, dates back to the 9th century AD. That is even the Sinhalese language in spoken form, was merely 200 years (at most 300 years) earlier because spoken language is 200-300 years before literature.

Yet, Pali inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi are now carefully described as Sinhalese Brahmi inscriptions, leaving it to the less educated to misunderstand this and call it Sinhalese Brahmi when there was no Sinhalese. The internet then drives this propaganda.

Distortions by the Internet

With the proliferation of Internet articles, the majority prevails. When asked why they write nonsense, a Wiki-editor said they take the material from the majority of writings. So when Sinhalese in their numerical strength write their propaganda, it becomes the truth.

It is like almost one billion Indians writing the nonsense that Jesus came to India and learnt all he knew from us. Or like the claim that Arumuka Navalar (who never passed out of school and knew neither Sanskrit nor Classical Geek) translated the Bible into Tamil from the original languages as claimed on the Tamil Bible’s frontispiece. A less mature researcher doing a literature search will believe such nonsense if he or she goes by unreviewed articles and their numbers, unlike those in staid journals. (The Wikipedia page on my brother Rajan Hoole refuses to accept that he is an electrical engineer from Peradeniya!).

The Internet proliferation is a tragedy that the world must find a way around if we are to treat the Internet as a useful invention it often is.

Conclusion

Sri Lankan archaeology and history must clean-up and get their act together. And that cannot be left to the Sinhalese who either lack scholars, or men and women who are knowledgeable but afraid to stand and speak up.

Even peace, goodwill and reconciliation in Sri Lanka are at stake because we have no Sinhalese who are fit to serve impartially on war crimes tribunals.