By Darshanie Ratnawalli –
Darshanie Ratnawalli
“It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.” “Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,” said Legolas. “And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for”. – Return of the King, Lord of the Ring, Book V, Chapter 9
In 1967, as a young man of 30, R.A.L.H (Leslie) Gunawardana successfully challenged S. Paranavitana’s Ceylon-Malaysia fixation and won renown. This feat of reason and research was published as “Ceylon and Malaysia: A Study of Professor S. Paranavitana’s Research on the Relations Between the Two Regions” (full text here). Gunawardana’s achievement became almost a milestone along the memory lane of Paranavitana. Professor J. G. de Casparis memorializing Paranavitana wrote (1996); “As we all know Paranavitana devoted some his most penetrating studies to ‘Ceylon and Malaysia in ancient times’. The arguments used by Paranavitana in favour of his identifications are not as strong as they may have appeared at first. Thus, the main identifications on which the close relations between Sri Lanka and ‘Malaysia’ are based have been convincingly invalidated by RALH Gunawardana in…”
In 1995 (“Historiography In a Time of Ethnic Conflict[i]”,p1), a mature Leslie Gunawardana noticed that the ethnic conflict was blighting Sri Lanka’s intellectual activity and scholarly production, causing “a notable relaxation of intellectual rigour in research” and a “dismal intellectual climate”. Naturally he wasn’t referring to himself. However, between 1967 and 1995 interesting things had happened to Gunawardana too. In the derivation of the old Sinhala word “aya” in his “Prelude to The State, 1982[ii]”, we glimpse a Leslie Gunawardana with an intellectual rigour so relaxed that it seems to be on vacation in a dismal intellectual climate.
“At twenty-eight of the 269 sites of ancient inscriptions are to be found records set up by individuals who may be identified as rulers of minor principalities. In these records they bear the titles Rajha (var. Raja), Gamani (var.Gamini) or Aya. While the first two of these titles have been generally accepted as denoting the status of ruler, Paranavitana and other scholars who followed him have traced the derivation of Aya and its Pāli equivalent Ayya to Sanskrit Ārya. However, the Pāli equivalent of the Sanskrit Ārya is Ariya. While both these terms, ārya and ariya have been used in an honorific sense with a cultural and religious connotation, there is no evidence to suggest that they had been used to denote political leadership…”– (p. 7)
The passage continues. But I will pause to insert an explanation. The Pāli equivalent of the Sanskrit “Ārya” is not only “Ariya”. The Vedic word “Ārya” has three equivalents in Pāli. The elementary intellectual rigour of an undergraduate would have sufficed to find this out from a standard Pāli dictionary;
Ariya (adj. — n.) [Vedic ārya, of uncertain etym. The other Pāli forms are ayira & ayya]-(PTS dictionary entry here)
Ayira (& Ayyira) (n. — adj.) [Vedic ārya, Metathesis for ariya as diaeretic form of ārya, of which the contracted (assimilation) form is ayya. (Look it up)
Ayya (n. — adj.) [contracted form for the diaeretic ariya (q. v. for etym.). See also ayira] (a) (n.) gentleman, sire, lord, master… (Look it up)
Had I been Gunawardana’s supervisor, I would have said; “Leslie, I am glad that your inability to connect the Pāli “ayya” to the Old Indian “ārya” has a simple explanation. You didn’t have your Pāli dictionary with you! Possibly, somebody borrowed it and never returned it. But my dear fellow, you wrote “Prelude to the State” while at the University of Koyoto as Visiting Research Scholar. Couldn’t you have gone to the library and er… researched? Never mind. Water under the bridge. But Leslie, another horrific possibility occurs to me. Forget “ayya” with the conjoint consonant. What about “aya”? You seem totally unaware that it’s a word occurring in other middle Indo-Aryan dialects too.
Leslie, the way I see it, you were afflicted with two handicaps. Number one; as already described, you were sundered from your Pāli dictionary at a crucial time. Number two; you have only read Inscriptions of Ceylon, Vol. 1 in bits and pieces. A historian Leslie should be reading history books with the same avidity that an adolescent girl reads bodice rippers. If you had you wouldn’t have missed page cvi of IC1;
“But there is a term of respect applied to Buddhist monks in the North Indian Brahmi inscriptions, (Bharhut Inscriptions (CII, Vol. II, pt. II) by H. Luders, E. Waldschmidt and M.A. Mehendale, p.191 and The Monuments of Sanchi by Sir John Marshal and Alfred Foucher, Vol. I, p. 295; Inscription No.265.) that has been avoided in our documents. This is aya, equivalent to Skt. ārya and P. ayya, meaning ‘Aryan’ or ‘Noble’. This term in our inscriptions, is reserved for princes.”
These two handicaps Leslie led you to the erroneous conclusion that “aya” and “ayya” are isolated Sri Lankan usages with no north Indian roots. And it’s this error which sets the stage for your final denouement re “aya”;
(Interrupted passage from “Prelude”-p7 continues) “…Though it may be correct to assume that the greater majority of vocables in the ancient inscriptions of Sri Lanka have parallels in Sanskrit and the Prakritic languages, it is quite likely that some others may have a Tamil origin. The term marumakanake and its variants…are good examples of words traceable to a Tamil origin…Similarly, it is possible to compare aya and ayya with the Tamil terms ayyā (var. Kannada ayya, Malayalam ayyan, Tulu ayye) and ai. The term ayyā and its variants have been used as modes of addressing superiors. The term ai, which is represented by the ninth letter of the Tamil alphabet, has been used in in certain instances to denote “lord” and “master”, as in the Tirukkural, and in other instances as in the Cudamaninikantu, to denote “ruler. Hence it seems very likely that Aya was a word of Tamil derivation which the same meaning as Rajha and Gamani”
Leslie I wonder if you were aware of the process called the Aryanization[iii] (by older historians such as Nilakanta Sastri) or Sanskritization (as per the newer historians) of the South? If you were not aware, your researches into “aya” could have given you an instinctive understanding of it; provided that you had enough sense to refrain from researching during your separation from your Pāli dictionary. You had the Madras Tamil Lexicon and Burrow and Emeneau (as you tell us in fn. 33,) and learned the “lord” and “master” and “ruler” and “superior” connotations of “ai” and “ayya” in Dravidian.
The missing dictionary Leslie could have informed you of the Indo-Aryan provenance of the word ayya; (ayyā pl. the worthy gentlemen, the worthies), amhākam ayyo our worthy Sir (adj.) worthy, gentlemanly, honourable; The voc. is used as a polite form of address (cp. Ger. “Sie” and E. address “Esq.”) like E. Sir, milord or simply “you” with the implication of a pluralis majestatis; ayyā in addressing several; nom. sg. as voc. (for all genders & numbers) ayyo; f. ayyā lady, mistress (= mother of a prince); voc. ayye my lady; ayya putta lit. son of an Ariyan, i. e. an aristocratic (young) man gentleman (cp. in meaning kulaputta); thus (a) son of my master (lit.) said by a servant; lord, master, “governor”(by a servant); by a wife to her husband; prince (see W.Z.K.M. xii., 1898, 75 sq. & Epigraphia Indica iii.137 sq.) J vi.146.
What a moment of epiphany you missed Leslie. Here is a middle Indo-Aryan word deriving from the Old Indo-Aryan “ārya”; occurring in the Pali texts, Old Sinhalese and North Indian Prakrit inscriptions; and also creating an echo in Old Tamil. You would have run crying eureka and informed your colleagues that you discovered “Aryanization/Sanskritization of the South”. But they would have informed you “Er…Les it has already been discovered…by other people”. But perhaps not. As you say it was a dismal intellectual climate[iv] in SL at the time”.
@ http://ratnawalli.blogspot.com/ and rathnawalli@gmail.com
[i] Historiography In a Time of Ethnic Conflict, Construction of the Past in Contemporary Sri Lanka, R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, Social Scientists’ Association, Colombo, 1995.
[ii] Prelude to the State: An Early Phase in the Evolution of Political Institutions in Ancient Sri Lanka, The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, 1982, Published in 1985.
[iii] I am not saying that Gunawardana needed an understanding of Aryanization/Sanskritization of the South to understand the etymology of “aya” in Old Sinhalese and “ayya” in Pāli. A timely encounter with a dictionary and page cvi, IC, Vol.1, would have sufficed. However, familiarity with the concept of ‘Aryanization/Sanskritization of the South’ could have helped him to appreciate why it was “possible to compare aya and ayya with the Tamil terms ayyā (var. Kannada ayya, Malayalam ayyan, Tulu ayye) and ai”; why that Tamil term and its variants were used as modes of addressing superiors; and why the term ai, were used in in certain instances to denote “lord” and “master”. By 1980, the realization that both the Tamil country and Sri Lanka were recipients of the Great Indian Tradition from the North was already old news.
Nilakanta Sastri had opined
“There does not exist a single line of Tamil literature written before the Tamils came into contact with, and let us add accepted with genuine appreciation, the Indo-Aryan culture of North Indian origin”. (See “Vedic Roots of Early Tamil Culture” By Michel Danino).
Epitomizing this acculturation,
“Chola and Chera kings proudly claimed descent from Lord Rama or from kings of the Lunar dynasty – in other words, an “Aryan” descent. (Ibid). “The Pandya capital is called “southern Madhura” to distinguish it from “northern Madhura,” i.e., Mathura, the famed domicile of Krsna Vasudeva, after which the Pandya Madhura obviously was named (cf. Dessigane et al. 1960, I: xiv; Sircar 1971: 27 n. I; Hardy 1983:156).” (See Asko Parpola here)
And more to the point for Leslie, with his “ai lords and masters” are the following points articulated in Parpola, op.cit;
“The Ay rulers of the eighth-ninth century south Travancore likewise traced their descent from the Yadavas (Champakalakshmi 1981: 34)”… The Vedic (Yadava) trio of the two Asvins and Usas, integrated with agricultural and pastoral deities, became the Vaisnava trio… It seems to me that it was this second wave of Pandu princes coming by sea to Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu who brought with them the Vaisnava religion to the south… Such a migration of the Yadavas is known from the northern Sanskrit sources too…”
“It is clear that the script, formal religions, dynastic traditions, and other features of the civilization of the early Tamils developed from assimilation and adaptation of the Indian Great Tradition (which cannot be termed “Sanskritization” in this case, as the language medium was Prakrit, or Pali)…It appears that the process of acculturation of the Pandiyan region were similar to those which occurred in Ceylon and in the lands across the Bay of Bengal. Moreover, the culture that developed in Ceylon with the arrival of various immigrants, who blended with the indigenous population to form the Sinhalese, was a dynamic force which spilled over into the Pandyan region, as we shall note below. To some extent, both coasts of the Indo-Ceylon straits may be thought of having acted as a single center of diffusion of Indian civilization of the far south.”
As Clarence Maloney explained once commenting under one of my articles on CT, the difference between Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu with regard to the diffusion of the Indu-Aryan culture is reflected in the different language choices of the Pandus of Lanka and the Pandyas of South India. “The difference is that the Sinhala ancestors kept their language, but the Pandiyas took up the local language”
[iv] There’s some evidence that the same human drives that cause the President to be indulgent towards a romping Mervin Silva may have operated in Leslie’s colleagues and encouraged the eventual graduation of this historian from mere incompetence (which may be the case in aya) to actual dishonesty (which is strongly indicated in his misrepresentation of Paranavitana highlighted in my previous episode). The evidence comes from insider information;
“At least one specialist, a colleague of Gunawardana’s, disagrees quite strongly with his interpretation of the late Anuradhapura period, but is not prepared to disturb their friendship by taking this up in print…”- (footnote 13)
Native Vedda / February 23, 2014
Ken Roberts
I haven’t read this typing.
What do you suggest? Would you like me to waste my time reading another thrash by Irrathinavalli?
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Javi / February 23, 2014
It stinks to high heavens!
When I saw the pigs back stuck by lightning I said Oh No the [Edited out] by Michel Roberts – [Edited out].
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Amarasiri / February 23, 2014
Dear Ms.Darshanie Ratnawalli,
“The Pāli equivalent of the Sanskrit “Ārya” is not only “Ariya”. The Vedic word “Ārya” has three equivalents in Pāli.”
Interesting Pali and Sanskrit words, Arya, and it’s roots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryacakravarti_dynasty
Was Arya Chakrawarthi Noble?
Ms. Rarnawali, a better word to research is the word, Paradeshi, Para and Paraya. Why? Para-deshi in Sanskrit ( Pali?) and Hindi means Foreigner.
1. In Sri Lanka, the upper class Tamils call low caste Tamils, Paraya or Parayan, the drummer caste, as a derogatory word.
2. Sometimes, the Sinhala used the word Para-Demala, to address the Tamil in a derogatory manner, which may mean low-caste, Foreign Tamil or both.
3. However, the Native Veddha, are the indigenous people of Lanka, an they walked when the sea levels were low. The successive waves of Para-deshis, Para-Sinhala, Para-Tamil. Para-muslims, Para- Portugese, and Para-Dutch ( Parangio) and Para-English ( Para-Suddas)have ruined their non-racist, non-caste ridden Egalitarian Society, by way of Hinduism and Sinhala (Mahanama)Buddhism.
When will the para-Sinhala and para-Demala, and other Para-people. Para-Deshis who are occupying the Native Veddah homeland leave to where they came from?
Read:
Who are Sri Lanka’s Indigenous Wanniya-laeto? Native Veddah
http://vedda.org/1-who.htm
Sri Lanka’s indigenous inhabitants, the Veddas — or Wanniya-laeto (‘forest-dwellers’) as they call themselves — preserve a direct line of descent from the island’s original Neolithic community dating from at least 16,000 BC and probably far earlier according to current scientific opinion.1
Even today, the surviving Wanniya-laeto community retains much of its own distinctive cyclic worldview, prehistoric cultural memory, and time-tested knowledge of their semi-evergreen dry monsoon forest habitat that has enabled their ancestor-revering culture to meet the diverse challenges to their collective identity and survival.
With the impending extinction of Wanniya-laeto culture, however, Sri Lanka and the world stand to lose a rich body of indigenous lore and living ecological wisdom that is urgently needed for the sustainable future of the rest of mankind.
Historically, for the past twenty-five centuries or more Sri Lanka’s indigenous community has been buffeted by successive waves of immigration and colonization that began with the arrival of the Sinhalese from North India in the 5th century BC. Consequently, the Wanniyalaeto have repeatedly been forced to choose between two alternative survival strategies: either to be assimilated into other cultures or to retreat ever further into a shrinking forest habitat.
/
Javi / February 23, 2014
note:
The richest in the canaries islands are clearly known as Indu not Aryan and they are from the partition. You can never differentiate them from the Spanish. Franco who grew up in the Canaries and who was very strict about Spanish blood respected them.
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Nativultimum / February 25, 2014
Wanniye-laetto = Wanniye Lacto = The milk of Wanni.
The quintessence of the land, the fruit of the earth, the sons of valour who vanquished of the skirmishing Nittos.
Hail Native, the son of the Ancestral Veddahs.
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Native Vedda / February 25, 2014
nittaewo
When did you wake up, Kumbakarna?
“the sons of valour who vanquished of the skirmishing Nittos.”
Years ago I did deal with this nonsense.
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Amarasiri / February 26, 2014
Dear Ms. Darshanie Ratnawalli,
Here is an interesting DNA Test you can do, by taking DNA samples from your cheeks, that can tell a lot more, and can supplement any archaeological data. It traces our ancestors, including that of the Native Vedda and the Balangoda men, to East Africa about 65,000 years ago.
It can tell a whole lot.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/
Since its launch in 2005, National Geographic’s Genographic Project has used advanced DNA analysis and worked with indigenous communities to help answer fundamental questions about where humans originated and how we came to populate the Earth. Now, cutting-edge technology is enabling us to shine a powerful new light on our collective past. By participating in the latest phase of this real-time scientific project, you can learn more about yourself than you ever thought possible. You will also help support the Genographic Legacy Fund, which works to conserve and revitalize indigenous cultures around the world.
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ken robert / February 23, 2014
Native
I had an omen that dharshanie was going to produce another piece of her writings this week end. My instinct was right.
I scanned her writings and the theme of her discussion as usual is quite complex. She is dicussing on the paleo linguistics of indic languages.
Readers may remember her futile attempt to associate the word gama to prakrit and establish a sihala identity in Jaffna. She cited dutch records in the eighteenth century ( i think) stating valigamao as an evidence for sihala in Jaffna. You aptly reminded her sarcastically gama came from vascoda gama ( pardon my spelling).
On a positive note, prolgue mentioning Prof Tolken’s book is refreshing.
kind regards
ken
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James / February 23, 2014
The Pandyans are the decedents Pancha Pandavas (Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva the five sons of Maharaja Pandu).
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James / February 23, 2014
If you dig into the Indian Sanskrit texts Vedas, Upanishads and the Puranas you will understand from where the Mahavihara monks have adopted most of the stories to write the Mahavamsa. Unfortunately, most of the ‘scholars’ who studied and analyzed the Mahavamsa has not read or compared it with the Indian Sanskrit texts to find similarities.
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Snowden Edward Asange / February 23, 2014
[Edited out] ALL her articles are RACIST based and way too LONG for anyone’s reading pleasure… cutting and pasting form irrelavent websites portraying that she has done her research… my foot
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Piraña / February 23, 2014
According to this [Edited out] Rathinavalli not only the Sinhalayas but even the Tamils ( Pandiyas) are Aryans what an extra- ordinary finding from a delusional mind. No wonder Vellupillai Irabakaran is still revered by Tamils all over the world.
The time is fast approaching for the Tamils to go it alone without these so – called Sinhala Aryan Sickos.
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Piraña / February 23, 2014
This [Edited out] Rathinavalli has pulled another nonsense from her delusional mind. According to her not only the So – called Sinhalayas but also the Tamils ( Pandyas) are aryans. This is the height of lunacy of these Tamils and south Indians who have adopted a certain percentage of Prakrit into their other wise pure Dravidian dialect which they now call Sinhalese. This language corruption doesn’t make a Dravidian to become an Aryan overnight like Rathinavalli suggests.
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Piraña / February 23, 2014
[Edited out] Rathinavalli has once again pulled out a rather bizzare Theory from her delusional mind. According to her not only the so – called Sinhalayas but also the Tamils ( Pandyas)?are aryans. What a remarkable discovery that can only be attributed to sick minds such as the one of Rathinavalli.
The Sinhalayas who are pure Dravidians ( primarily Tamils ) imbibed a certain amount of Prakrit into their Dravidian language and the adulterated language is called Sinhala. This language shift alone cannot make otherwise pure blooded Dravidians into Aryans as this sick Sinhala? Woman attempt to portray.
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Suresh / February 24, 2014
The city of Madhura in South India (presently in Tamil Nadu) is one of the continuously inhabited ancient cities of the world and it was a well-developed and well planned ancient city on the banks of river Waikai. It was the capital of Tamil Pandya (Pandu) dynasty and the Pandyas/Pandus were the close allies of the Sinhala Royal house of Sri Lanka from the beginning of Sri Lanka’s history. From the King Abahaya Pandya (Pandukabhaya) to Parakrma Bahu, most of the Buddhist Kings and Queens of Sri Lanka were from the Tamil Pandya dynasty. The Sri Lankan King Abhaya Pandya aka Pandukabahaya received help from his native city of Madhura in the planning of the city of Anuradhpura. Even recently, in the Kandyan kingdom, the Kandy Lake that was built by the King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe was designed after Madhura Thepapakulam.
The Kandyan kings who were from the Nayakkar Dynasty of Madhura in South India took the Sri Lankan royal name RAJASINGHE and converted to Buddhism. The Kings who ruled the Jaffna kingdom were from the Aryacakravarti dynasty (Ariya in Tamil denotes a noble or a learned person) of South India and they took the royal name SINGAI ARYA CHAKRAVARTI. Similarly, the kings who ruled Sri Lanka from the Pandya/Pandu dynasty of Madhura in South India took the Sri Lankan royal name BAHU and converted to Buddhism.
It is the Pandyans of Madhura, Tamil Nadu who RULED Sri Lanka most of the time, even king Vijaya and his men took wives from the Pandyans of Madhura. All the Buddhist kings of Sri Lanka with the royal name BAHU are actually Pandyans of Madhura. Just because they are Buddhists, the Sinhalese want to claim that they are Sinhala. However there is no evidence to prove that the Buddhist kings by the royal name BAHU were Sinhalese. The Pali chronicles NEVER calls them Sinhalese, none of the BAHUs called them Sinhalese, not a single stone inscription calls them Sinhalese, there is NO evidence what so ever to call them Sinhalese. Whereas, if you look at their relationship, they are all relatives of Pandyans of Madhura. It is a known fact that the ruling families of Madhura, South India (PANDYANs) and Sri Lanka (BAHUs) were related to each other.
For example let us take King PARAKRAMABHU.
King Vijaya Bahu married a princess from Kalinga Royal Family as his second Mahesi, and from her he had a son named Vikrama Bahu and a daughter named Ratnavali. Vijaya Bahu’s sister, Mitta, was given in marriage to a Pandya Prince, who had three sons. The eldest of whom named Manabharana, became the husband of King Vijaya Bahu’s daughter Ratnavali. Their son was Parakrama Bahu I (1140-1173 AD), Grandson of Vijaya Bahu I, Prince of Royal Blood, Pandyan descent, son of Manabharana and Vijaya Bahu’s sister, Mitta whose husband was a Tamil prince.
Parakrama Bahu is a grandson of a Pandyan prince. What is the big connection between the Sinhalese and the King Parakramabahu? Tamils have more connection to Parakramabahu than the Sinhalese, why should we call him as a Sinhala King?
The pillar of stone inscription in Tamil is at the entrance that leads to the Palace of King Parakramabahu the great. King Parakrambahu the great built a statue to honor the Tamil sage Agaththiyar (who brought the Tamil language) to commemorate his Tamil roots, but the foolish Sinhalese are calling the sage Agathiyar`s statue as Parakrmabahu`s statue.
King Parakramabahu was the patron of numerous Hindu Temples including Jaffna Nallur Murukan Temple and Rameswaram Sivan Temple, and his Tamil inscriptions are still in Rameswaram Temple. The Tamil Saivites of Jaffna are still invoking his name in the Nallur Temple before the temple procession of Lord Murukan.
Similarly, all other BAHUs are having Tamil Pandyan connections or rather they are all from Pandyan descend. You do not find these Pandyan/Bahu royal names anywhere other than in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, both ruled by Tamil Pandyans.
In Tamil Nadu, the Tamil kings of the Pandyan Dynasty were known as VIJAYA PANDYAN, VIKRAMA PANDYAN, PARAKRAMA PANDYAN, VIRA PANDYAN, VIKRAMA PANDYAN, VIRA PARAKRAMA PANDYAN, JAYA PANDYAN and so on.
In Sri Lanka, the Buddhist Kings of the Pandyan Dynasty were known as VIJAYA BAHU, VIKRAMA BAHU, PARAKRAMA BAHU, VIRA BAHU, VIKRAMA BAHU, VIRA BAHU PANDYAN, JAYA BAHU And so on.
In Sri Lanka, the same Pandyan names are prakitized. PANDYAN is replaced with BAHU. None of these are names of any North Indian kings or Naga kings. These kings were pure Tamils from the Pandyan dynasty but they were not mentioned as Damelars or invaders because they were Buddhists. (Only non-Buddhists were mentioned as Damelars or invaders).
During the early historic period, just because a person in Sri Lanka is a Buddhist he/she cannot automatically become a Sinhalese. At that time even Tamils were Buddhists. All the BAHUs in Sri Lanka were Buddhists no doubt but there is no evidence to prove they were NOT Sinhalese. Just because they are Buddhists, the Sinhalese want to claim that they are Sinhala. This is how the Sinhalese including Paranavithana twisted and manipulated the history.
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Suresh / February 24, 2014
Correction
The following sentence in the last paragraph should read as:
“All the BAHUs in Sri Lanka were Buddhists no doubt but there is no evidence to prove they were Sinhalese”.
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ken robert / February 24, 2014
Suresh
connection between pandyans and sinhalese
Thank you for your input. I was not aware that statue was sage agasthiar and not the great Parakramabahu himself. I am sure the connection between srilankan kings and pandyans was quite strong.
What is your thoughts on Mr Clarence Maloney’s assertion that Pandyas adapted local language (tamil) and pandyas of Srilanka became sinhalese. It certainly matches up with Mahavamsa’s poetry!
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Native Vedda / February 26, 2014
Suresh
“All the BAHUs in Sri Lanka were Buddhists no doubt but there is no evidence to prove they were Sinhalese”.”
All Sinhala/Buddhists are Sinhala speaking Tamils.
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Amarasiri / February 25, 2014
Suresh,
“All the BAHUs in Sri Lanka were Buddhists no doubt but there is no evidence to prove they were NOT Sinhalese. Just because they are Buddhists, the Sinhalese want to claim that they are Sinhala. This is how the Sinhalese including Paranavithana twisted and manipulated the history.”
Interesting. Thank You. There were Tamil Buddhists at that time. May be the Monk Mahanama Mahawansa was not read much then.
I would like to add, from the native Vedda Point of view, the the Pandyyas, the Bahus, the Sinhala and Tamil are all Hora Oru, Kalla Thoni or Illegal Boat People.
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M.Sivananthan / February 25, 2014
Senguntha or Kai Kula caste people claim their ancestor was “VEERA BAHU” who was the LT.of Lord Muruga.
Bahu means hand. The history of Kai kula(Khai kula=Kshatriya kula) people always realted them as soldiers and they stopped their war duties when Telugu nayaks captured Tamil Nadu.
Chola era stories widely mention the bravery of these Kai Kula people.
Now they are weavers in Tamil Nadu.
They trace their ancestry with Pallava Royals. Pallav= Muthali.
Now the word Muthali is used by many castes in India.
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Kap De Silva / February 23, 2014
Good read.
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Amarasiri / February 23, 2014
Dear Ms. Darshanie Ratnawalli,
Does AryaChakrawarthi comes under your analysis? Arya. Ariya etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan
“Aryan” /ˈɛərɪən/ is an English language loanword derived from the Sanskrit ārya (‘noble’).[1][2][3]
Can you research Pardesi (Hindi: परदेसी; translation: foreigner)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardesi
In Sri Lanka we have a paradeshi Problem.
The Paradeshis are Para-Sinhala, Para-Demala, Para-Muslims, Para-Portugese ( Paraangi), Para-Dutch (Parangi), Para-English ( Para-sudda) and many other paras, who are creating havoc in the Native Land of the native Veddahs.
The Native Veddahs walked when the sea levels were low, but the Para-arrivals from Indoa have made havoc in their land.
Can you research the Paras, and ask the Prara to leave the sacred Native land of the Native Vedda.
Who are Sri Lanka’s Indigenous Wanniya-laeto. They are NOT Paras.
http://vedda.org/1-who.htm
Sri Lanka’s indigenous inhabitants, the Veddas — or Wanniya-laeto (‘forest-dwellers’) as they call themselves — preserve a direct line of descent from the island’s original Neolithic community dating from at least 16,000 BC and probably far earlier according to current scientific opinion.1
Even today, the surviving Wanniya-laeto community retains much of its own distinctive cyclic worldview, prehistoric cultural memory, and time-tested knowledge of their semi-evergreen dry monsoon forest habitat that has enabled their ancestor-revering culture to meet the diverse challenges to their collective identity and survival.
With the impending extinction of Wanniya-laeto culture, however, Sri Lanka and the world stand to lose a rich body of indigenous lore and living ecological wisdom that is urgently needed for the sustainable future of the rest of mankind.
Historically, for the past twenty-five centuries or more Sri Lanka’s indigenous community has been buffeted by successive waves of immigration and colonization that began with the arrival of the Sinhalese from North India in the 5th century BC. Consequently, the Wanniyalaeto have repeatedly been forced to choose between two alternative survival strategies: either to be assimilated into other cultures or to retreat ever further into a shrinking forest habitat.
In the course of history, uncounted thousands of these original inhabitants of the wanni (dry monsoon forest) have been more or less absorbed into mainstream Sinhala society (as in the North Central and Uva provinces) or Tamil society (as on the East Coast). Today only a few remaining Wanniya-laeto still manage to preserve their cultural identity and traditional lifestyle despite relentless pressure from the surrounding dominant communities.
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ken robert / February 23, 2014
Native
I had an omen that dharshanie was going to produce another piece of her writings this week end. My instinct was right.
I scanned her writings and the theme of her discussion as usual is quite complex. She is dicussing on the paleo linguistics of indic languages.
Readers may remember her futile attempt to associate the word gama to prakrit and establish a sihala identity in Jaffna. She cited dutch records in the eighteenth century ( i think) stating valigamao as an evidence for sihala in Jaffna. You aptly reminded her sarcastically gama came from vascoda gama ( pardon my spelling).
On a positive note, prolgue mentioning Prof Tolken’s book is refreshing.
kind regards
ken
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Prasad / February 23, 2014
Dr. Paranavithana
Dr. Senerath Paranavitana, an Archaeological Commissioner, was a dominating figure in archaeology, epigraphy, and ancient history of Lanka for more than fifty years during the last century. For him, the Mahavamsa was like a holy book. Instead of giving primacy to archaeology and epigraphy, and supplementing his findings with material from the Mahavamsa, he was trying his best to interpret archaeology and epigraphy in the light of the Mahavamsa. His research was one sided (biased), beginning with the conclusion (Mahavamsa), he was only finding evidence to prove his conclusion. If the archaeological/epigraphical findings did not match the conclusion (Mahavamsa) he redefined/misinterpreted them using his own theories, assumptions, hypothesis and analogies to prove that the Mahavamsa was right.
On his retirement as Archaeological Commissioner, he was appointed as Professor of Archaeology in the University of Ceylon (the only university in Lanka at that time) for a short period. The University of Ceylon had a project for publishing an authoritative history of the country and Prof. Paranavitana functioned as its editor. He was adopting the Mahavamsa as his guide, especially for the early period of Lankan history. He himself admitted that he had rejected some portions of a Tamil contributor to the volume on the ancient period of Lankan history, because those portions didn’t fit into what he considered Lankan history (Mahavamsa).
Prof. Paranavitana was a non-Buddhist but today we have people like Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thero, the former leader of Jathika Hela Urumaya doing archaeological research especially in the Northern and Eastern provinces. Tamil ancient inscriptions, Hindu deity statues, and other artefacts found in favor of Tamils, suddenly disappearing is not a surprise.
Nilakanta Sastri
Another Historian that the Sinhalese Pseudo-scholars always quote is Nilakanta Sastri of Tamil Nadu. Nilakanta Sastri’s historical research was over 50 years old. According to historians/scholars in Tamil Nadu, Nilakanta Sastri’s Tamil proficiency was not good and he relied on others for understanding Tamil literary works. Thus he was not able to analyze the changing meaning of words over time. They say, the professional historiography in Tamil Nadu practiced during K. A. Nilakanta Sastri’s period there was rarely any interrogation of sources.
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Amarasiri / February 23, 2014
Ms. Ratnawali and Prasad,
1. You say, Dr. Paranawithana, was a non-Buddhist, but must have been Sinhala. However, it was immaterial to his Ego. He had his hypothesis, and everything had to support his hypothesis, the confirmation bias. However, Dr. Para-nawithana, is still , Para-Sinhala like Para-Tamil, from the native Veddah terminology, the Foreigner, Para-deshi. (Some may object and say Parana – is old, but still Para- Old Foreigner)
Dr, Paranawithana lived at a time when science and molecular biology were less advanced, and Mahawansa and few Artifacts are mostly what he had. Today, we know more. We know the scientific Adam came out of Africa about 65,000 years ago, and the Balangoda men.
2. “and supplementing his findings with material from the Mahavamsa, he was trying his best to interpret archaeology and epigraphy in the light of the Mahavamsa. His research was one sided (biased), beginning with the conclusion (Mahavamsa), he was only finding evidence to prove his conclusion.”
This is called confirmation of bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
3, Non- Confirmation bias of Mahawansa
Did Dr. Para-nawithana, believe, the Imaginations of monk Mahanama of 5th Century such as:
a) Grandfather of Para-Vijaya was a lion? Any DNA data in support of this imagination?
b) Buddha visited Lanka 3 times in 500 BC? any support for the Imagination.
c) During one visit, Buddha left his giant footprint on top of Mount Samanala Kanda, “Adams Peak”. Did he fly by the Dandu Monera Yanthraya, Giant Bird, and parachute?
d) The Veddah are the offspring of Para-Vijaya and Kuveni. Is there any DNA data to support this? No. Another Monk Mahanam Imagination.
Who are the natives of Lanka? Native Vedda. The walked. They are not Para- and not Paradeshi, Kallathoni, Illegal Boat People or Hora-Oru, like the Para-Sibhala, Para-Demala and other Paras,
Read
http://vedda.org/deraniyagala.htm
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linsay / February 25, 2014
All these uncles. Amarasiri, Native, ken roberts, the senior citizen population. Unfortunately not the best sample. Inferior intellectual material. Comprehension issues. Too late to remedy with ink blots. Read this excerpt from Amarasiri uncle’s http://vedda.org/deraniyagala.htm.
treat it as a comprehension exercise in English.
try to see if you can still read. And remember what you read. And see if you can recall. Score yourselves. Consider this an IQ enhancer, a rubric cube game
“…Thereafter, Sri Lanka’s attraction for settlers from further afield than South India appears to have gained rapidly. This swell coincided with the so-called Second Urbanisation of the Indo-Gangetic Plain (v. Allchin 1995). As mentioned earlier, Anuradhapura was at least 10 ha in extent by ca. 900 BC (perhaps much more). and by 700-500 BC it exceeded 50 ha. The phenomenon of the Indian Second Urbanisation would appear to have manifested itself unexpectedly early in Sri Lanka, either through rapid stimulus diffusion, or convergent evolution due to a stimulus from further afield such as long-distance trade, or (more likely) a combination of both.
TRANSITION TO THE HISTORICAL PERIOD
The Early Iron Age of Sri Lanka, at ca. 1000-500 BC, is referred to as protohistoric since there is no evidence of writing in this period. At ca. 600-500 BC, the first appearance of writing (in Brahmi almost identical to the Asokan script some 200 years later) heralds the commencement of the Early Historic period (Deraniyagala 1992:739-5; Coningham 1999; Deraniyagala and Abeyratne ip). This writing, radiocarbon dated on charcoal from three locations in the Citadel of Anuradhapura and checked by thermoluminescence dating, is inscribed on potsherds signifying ownership. Among the names was Anuradh…, which, coincidentally or otherwise, is stated in the ancient chronicles to have been the name of a minister of prince Vijaya, the purported ‘founder’ leader of the Sinhalese, at ca. 500 BC. The new chronology for the beginnings of writing has thus revolutionised our concept of the lower boundary of the historical period of South Asia (for revised periodisation v. Deraniyagala 1992:714). It has pushed it back by at least two centuries ) into the times of the Buddha. Coeval with the first appearance of writing at Anuradhapura is the rise of new pottery forms (such as Early Historic BRW) and wares (eg, a medium-fine grey ware, possibly a North Indian import), red glass beads and what appear to be writing styli made of bone (Deraniyagala 1992:714)8 . One suspects a pan-India wave of cultural impulses that manifested itself in these material transformations. It is possible that some long-distance migrations, as evinced in the legend of Prince Vijaya’s arrival in Sri Lanka from North India, were concomitant to this phenomenon.
The earliest (600-500 BC) inscriptions on pottery at Anuradhapura, whenever adequately complete to be linguistically diagnostic, are in Indo-Aryan Prakrit. This situation is repeated in the earliest inscription found in Megalithic Kodumanal, and possibly in the lowermost levels of Arikamedu as well, in South India (ibid.:745-6; Casal 1949; Rajan 1990). So far, none of them are in Dravidian. If appears to corroborate the view that Indo-Aryan was pre-dominant from at least as early as 500 BC in Sri Lanka, as affirmed in the chronicles concerning an Aryan impulse associated with Vijaya. The views of Parpola (1984; 1988; v. Deraniyagala 1992:749-8) are relevant in this regard. They are bold and provocative, and they merit serious consideration. He postulates long-distance southward migrations of ruling Indo-Aryan elites at ca. 500 BC and argues his case well.
The prime mover for these impulses is difficult to isolate. The urban centres of the Ganges plains could well have constituted the nodes from which they went out, centrifugally, to be developed in the periphery and returned centripetally to these original nodes as a feedback phenomenon, thus creating a relatively closed interactive system. On the other hand, one cannot discount the possibility of inputs at the same time from West Asia, the Mediterranean and China. It is probable that this latter aspect has been greatly underestimated. The idea of devising the Brahmi script might have arisen through contact with Semitic trading scripts from West Asia (Deraniyagala 1992:744; note that long-distance trade could have existed during the protohistoric Early Iron Age extending into Southeast Asia and West Asia). Whatever the mechanism for the onset of urbanism in Sri Lanka, by 500 BC it was ready to accelerate into the Early Historic period.
In the time of Emperor Asoka in the third century BC, the city of Anuradhapura was nearly 100 ha in extent (ibid.:712-3), making it (on present estimates) the tenth largest city in India/Sri Lanka at that time and the largest south of Ujjain in northern India (Allchin 1989:3,12). Buddhism had by then taken root as the formal belief system of the island, coinage introduced and technologically the concept of irrigated agriculture, probably introduced during the Early Iron Age, developed into sophisticated and large-scale systems which served as the economic foundation of the correspondingly complex settlement configurations of the Early Historic period.”
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ken robert / February 26, 2014
Linsay or Lindsay?
Thank you for your cut and paste job on pre christian migration and development of indic scripts from Prod Deraniyagala article.
This writing, radiocarbon dated on charcoal from three locations in the Citadel of Anuradhapura and checked by thermoluminescence dating, is inscribed on potsherds signifying ownership. Among the names was Anuradh…, which, coincidentally or otherwise, is stated in the ancient chronicles to have been the name of a minister of prince Vijaya, the purported ‘founder’ leader of the Sinhalese, at ca. 500 BC.
The new chronology for the beginnings of writing has thus revolutionised our concept of the lower boundary of the historical period of South Asia (for revised periodisation v. Deraniyagala 1992:714). It has pushed it back by at least two centuries ) into the times of the Buddha.
This could be labelled as ‘Mahavamsa mind set” looking through the lens of mahavamsa without searching for alternative reasons. Old age does bring a cognitive bias known as premature closure.
I suggest you should book into a memory clinic.
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linsay / February 26, 2014
Uncle I apologize. You are an expert on linguistics with a ‘pecuniary interest’ in linguistics. I have been reading your comments. You say the Brahmi script is not yet deciphered right?
Some of your pearls of wisdom I have collected over the months;
“inappropriate evidence such as brahmi texts for support for evolution of Sinhala is morally wrong until we fully decipher brahmi”
“Brammi intepretation has been quite controversial as each region claims that they have their own version of languages for example tamil and sinhala brammi.”
“Earliest evidence for a written script in India is for sanskrit in the form of rigveda.”
So uncle the Brahmi script is like the Indus script na? Not yet deciphered? And uncle from the Sri Lankan side the bad Paranavitana pretended to decipher it and said that WHAT’S WRITTEN IS IN OLD SINHALA/SINHALESE PRAKRIT. And from the Tamil Nadu side the bad Mahadevan et al pretended to decipher it and said WHAT’S WRITTEN IS IN OLD TAMIL. And from the North Indian side, the baddie North Indians tried to decipher the Brahmi Asokan edicts and said WHAT’S WRITTEN IS IN VARIOUS NORTH INDIAN PRAKRIT DIALECTS.
And So uncle, the script the Rigveda is written has been deciphered? Lovely uncle!
What is it called? Who deciphered it ? Tell us Uncs, take pity on our ignorance and enlighten us?
So Uncle when the Deraniyagala team saw those pot sherds with Brahmi letters, Deraniyagala sort of scratched his head, and said “hmm.. this word looks like ‘anuradha’ to me. After all there’s an anuradha bloke in mahavansa right?” And they all concluded that the word was Anuradha.
If I had been there, I would have challenged it. I would have said; “People, give it a rest. Brahmi has not been deciphered yet. So let’s not jump the gun”
Then they maybe would have said; “Brahmi has not been deciphered yet? Dang.”
I would have said “ Yes it deffa hasn’t been deciphered yet. Ken Roberts says so”
They would have said “ Gee, fancy that. “
I would have said “ Yes dumbos, go and consult ken Roberts. There’s only one script in ancient India that has been deciphered and that is the script the Rigveda is written in. It has been deciphered! Probably by Ken Roberts. Sit at his feet and learn that script Idiots and leave the deciphering of Brahmi to Ken Roberts. The greatest linguist of our times”
Continue to give us your pearls of wisdom uncle. We are waiting
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ken Robert / February 26, 2014
Linsay
My pearls of wisdom is leave the inscriptions to the experts and stop pretending that sinhala is unique ancient language.
It is a Srilankan tradition to call seniors an uncle. I do not know your age but if you are less than forty years I do not mind you calling me an uncle.
bye
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linsay / February 27, 2014
Ah our lovely “young” Uncle
My advice is to start living up to your new image ’40 year old young uncle’ and not expose your doddering old fool persona, which has been popping out with nauseating frequency over the past months.
The symptoms
1) “I have a pecuniary interest in linguistics”-
[A delusion which probably compensates for dotage]
2) “Inappropriate evidence such as brahmi texts for support for evolution of Sinhala is morally wrong until we fully decipher brahmi” “Brammi intepretation has been quite controversial as each region claims that they have their own version of languages for example tamil and sinhala brammi.”
[Oh you doddering senile highness you are mixing up Brahmi with the Indus script. It’s the Indus valley script, which has not yet being deciphered with consensus. Brahmi was first deciphered by James Prinsep in the 1930s. Read these article you intellectually challenged pretentious fossil; (http://tinyurl.com/Coningham and http://tinyurl.com/Richard-Salomon). The only brahmi inscriptions that resisted decipherment were the tamil nadu stone inscriptions. Because they were not written in a prakrit (a middle indo Aryan language),their readings failed to convey any meaning…Until it was recognized that the brahmi script of tamil nadu has orthographic adaptations that made it suited for writing certain sounds peculiar tamil and not found in the indo Aryan languages. Read this article by r champakalaxmi (http://tinyurl.com/champakalakshmi ) if your outdated grey matter still permits reading]
3) “Earliest evidence for a written script in India is for sanskrit in the form of rigveda.”
[Oh you hopeless geriatrics case, the rigveda was orally composed and transmitted orally. Even after writing was available in the form of Brahmi and Kharoshti scripts, the Brahmins resisted writing it down. It was written down quite late. Even Panini who wrote after kharoshti (a writing script) was available, they say may not have written his grammar down. I would have given a link to an article but your brain is past the date of expiry for reading and understanding. My advice; switch to pictorial reading matter]
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ken robert / November 30, 2014
Lindsay instead of wrongly labelled ‘linsay’
“I have a pecuniary interest in linguistics”
Thank you for reminding. I still have that interest in spite of being a doddering fool with delusions. In fact, I can understand the difference between a keen interest and delusion better than others ,based on my medical background. I deferred this comment, hoping that sanity prevails and personal attacks subsides.
“Inappropriate evidence such as brahmi texts for support for evolution of Sinhala is morally wrong until we fully decipher brahmi” “Brahmi interpretation has been quite controversial as each region claims that they have their own version of languages for example Tamil and Sinhala brahmi”
I did know that that brahmi was deciphered in 1930s when you commented in February 2014. I think that my comment on “we fully decipher brahmi” is taken out of context.
I said “Inappropriate evidence such as brahmi texts for support for evolution of Sinhala is morally wrong until we fully decipher brahmi”
I meant that claiming brahmi as proto Sinhala or Sinhala brahmi needs to be reviewed and in fact W Geiger also acknowledges that this classification is arbitrary. Prof Bandusena Gunasekara (Prof of Sinhala in his book titled evolution of Sinhalese script from 6th century) states that so called Sinhalese script was greatly influenced by the Pallava Grantha script from 6th century onwards.
My proposition is that Sinhalese and Tamil scripts probably did evolve from brahmi and continue to evolve in the first millennium, these two scripts distinctly diverged perhaps in latter centuries of the first millennium.
Establishing a Sinhala hegemony by stating brahmi is proto Sinhala is counter intuitive in my opinion.
“Earliest evidence for a written script in India is for Sanskrit in the form of Rig-Veda”
This is wrong and I thank you for correcting me. Earliest evidence of undeciphered written script in South Asia is Indus valley script. Rig-Veda is an oral tradition and should not have been mentioned.
Hopefully, your interview with Prof Raj Somadeva gets published in Colombo telegraph too.
Ken
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Native Vedda / November 30, 2014
ken
Here is something that might interest you.
Proto Elamo Dravidian The Evidence and its Implications
David W McAlpin
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
1981
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ken robert / November 30, 2014
Native
Thanks. I will have a look. My current interest is to find the influence of prakrit on tamil script phonology, lexicon as well as semantics.
Ken
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Native Vedda / November 30, 2014
ken robert
Please read the third part of the interview with Prof Raj Somadev.
Raj dismisses Indrapala’s reading of Annaikottai seal. Now my worry is that zealous Sinhala/Buddhist academics doing what the colonial masters couldn’t over 450 years, destroying shared heritage of this island. Their writings of history have become so ridiculous even the authors themselves may one day kick themselves on their back.
It is the difference between judgement and intentions.
I may be able to send you a scanned copy of Proto Elamo Dravidian The Evidence and its Implications through CT.
Need some time.
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Ken Robert / November 30, 2014
‘Raj dismisses Indrapala’s reading of Annaikottai seal’
Native
I read that news paper interview. Prof Somadeva has the right to dismiss the interpretation of Prof Indrapala preferably in a academic setting by providing reasons for his views.
Here is what Prof Rajan thought of Anaikottai seal.
Book name
Early Interactions Between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross …edited by Pierre-Yves Manguin, A. Mani, Geoff Wade
Chapter 8: Emergence of early historic trade in peninsular India
Prof Rajan argues, presence of late iron aged monuments (be it coins, bronze Anaikottai seal, brahmi inscriptions from various sites in south India) indicate the presence of developed civilisation with cities, In addition Prof Rajan in conjunction wit Dr Boparacchchi did explore the trade between Srilankan and south India in a different paper.
The interpretation of Anaikottai seal carries the same reverberation of Vallipuram palate inscriptions. Dr Alvapillai Velupillai elegantly dismisses the interpretation of Prof Paranavithana. I expect Prof Somadeva to come out with his own interpretation before dismissing others.
Ken
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ken robert / December 1, 2014
‘Raj dismisses Indrapala’s reading of Annaikottai seal’
Native
I read that news paper interview. Prof Somadeva has the right to dismiss the interpretation of Prof Indrapala preferably in a academic setting by providing reasons for his views.
Here is what Prof Rajan thought of Anaikottai seal.
Book name
Early Interactions Between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross …edited by Pierre-Yves Manguin, A. Mani, Geoff Wade
Chapter 8: Emergence of early historic trade in peninsular India
Prof Rajan argues, presence of late iron aged monuments (be it coins, bronze Anaikottai seal, brahmi inscriptions from various sites in south India) indicate the presence of developed civilisation with cities, In addition Prof Rajan in conjunction wit Dr Boparacchchi did explore the trade between Srilankan and south India in a different paper.
The interpretation of Anaikottai seal carries the same reverberation of Vallipuram palate inscriptions. Dr Alvapillai Velupillai elegantly dismisses the interpretation of Prof Paranavithana. I expect Prof Somadeva to come out with his own interpretation before dismissing others.
Ken
Thank you for article on Vallipuram inscriptions you linked many months ago.
on Further note, I was scanning a another article on Sinhala Buddhism titled Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka
http://www.misterdanger.net/books/Buddhism%20Books/Buddhism%20conflict%20violence%20modern%20sri%20lanka.pdf
I found my views have been already mirrored by none other than Prof Ganganath Obeysekeare. He states that he agrees with Prof Gunawardana in arguing a case against fixing a specific date for origin of Sinhala consciousness. Unfortunately the views of learned men are not visible.
Here we have the KNO Dharmadasas and Somadevas having an insular attitudes, I need not mention Michael Roberts or his side kick DR their intentions are patently clear!
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Native Vedda / December 1, 2014
Ken
I have already read two article namely
Buddhism, ethnicity, and identity: a problem in
Buddhist history
GANANATH OBEYESEKERE
Roots of the conflict and the peace process 177
R.A.L.H. GUNAWARDANA
Thanks.
DR is yet to comment on Prof Gananth’s life time work.
My worry is that the Sinhalese are going to lose their own identity, heritage, etc because of these nationalistic historian’s history writing.
I am still awaiting for the scanned copy of Proto Elamo Dravidian The Evidence and its Implications.
An old codger promised to send me and I should receive it within the next few days.
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kautilya / February 24, 2014
To claim that Paranavitana treated the Mahavamsa as a “holy book” is nonsense.
Paranavitana’s attitude to the mahavamsa was consonant with that of Geiger, both in regard to etymology and other matters, as can be seen from the many articles by paranavitana in the RAAS journals. In these matters he agreed with Nicholas.
It is not just Leslie Gunawardana, even Borrows and Emmenaue, in their Dravidian Etymology have failed to observe the fact that many words that they listed as root Dravidian were actually old Rig Veda words, or found in early Jain and Buddhist texts.
At one time, the southern states (Dhakshina Desha –> Dravidian lands,–> THamila, south of the Vindhya mountains) were run by small kinglets who were North Indian (e.g., Guptan) princes. They gave their North Indian administrative words (e.g., Mudra-dharai , viz., keeper of the king’s seal –> Mudali) to the south. But a lot of writers incorrectly ascribe Mudali to dravidian roots.
With the decline of the power in the North, and the rise of Dravidian Kingdoms, the assimilation of North Indian words (“sanskritisation, if you wish) in to Dravidian-language polity became established. The rise of the tamil language (which did not exist except as a form of Prakrit) also began with the Sangam period which began around the same time. Iruvathu Mahadevan has treated this and assigned the appearance of tamil as such to the early Sangam period.
But Leslie was probably persuaded by Eelam Historians about Tamil being a very old language (going back to Sumarian, as claimed by some star-eyed nationalists), and by his Marxist friends who also had a specific vision anti- to Sinhala, Buddhism, the mahavamsa etc., where as they should have been above ethnic considerations if they really believed in the prolatariate. many of them were rich land owners in the North and hence their marixsm was applied only to the power strata and castes above them (if any), while full control was demanded of those “below” them.
It is not just his analysis of Aiyya, arya etc that is at fault. Even Leslie’s analysis of rajah (and many other terms as coming from Tamil are based on his misconceptions of the origins of sinhala and Tamil, a language that he did not know.
You cannot discuss Leslie’s historical writings, while forgetting his underlying influences coming from his (largely historically or linguistically uneducated) political friends. So, while Ratnawalli is to be thanked for bringing this out, she will find that there is a lot of such nonsense, starting from the time of W. F. Gunawardena (Guttila Kavya editor) who claimed during the 1920-130s that Sinhala is a mongrel language derived from Tamil. This had its echo in politics, when G. G. Ponnambalam went around claiming that the Sinhalese are mongrels derived from the Tamils, and that he is a pure Dravidian, and proud to be a Dravidan and NOT a Ceylonese (Hansard,135, column 305). Ponnambalam’s rhetoric became even more violent and racist, with denunciations of the Mahavamsa which he states should be burnt and not studied etc. Finally, a Sinhala-Tamil race riot erupted in Nawalapitiya in July 1939 after one of his fiery speeches.
The riots spread all over the country, but, unlike JRJ in 1983 or SWRD in 1957, the British moved the security forces and crushed the riots very rapidly.
if you think in terms of those political upheavals, you will understand the type of comments that you see written by various people who are still having the GGPonnambalam mindset. Actually, GGP finally moderated his position and joined DSSenanayake for the first cabinet of Independent Ceylon. After that, the extremist mantel was taken up by SJVChelvanayagam who declared GGP a traitor, and launched the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi in 1948-1949, with E.M.V. Nagatnathan who claimed to be a direct descendant of a Chola Minister.
So you see why it is hard to have “intellectual rigour” or “objectivity” in a climate of war. the climate of war began when the upper-class “Tamil” lawyers (many who did not even speak tamil) launched their effort to break away from the center to avoid the Donoughmore commission effects. In what way were they Tamil? they all owned a lot of land in the jaffna peninsula, although they lived in Cinnamon gardens, Colombo, and spoke English, sinhalese, and a bit of Tamil – enough to say “inga va” to their servants. Even today, the TNA is in direct continuity with that political tradition, and emphazises land powers, while “low-caste” Tamil writers like Sebastian Rasalingam demand the nationalization and re-distribution of land in the North, to eliminate the Aiyyahs and Appahas who have run the show.
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Native Vedda / February 25, 2014
kautilya
“But Leslie was probably persuaded by Eelam Historians about Tamil being a very old language”
You may be right however
the Sinhalese believe the first ape spoke Sinhala and practiced Sinhala/Buddhism.
the Tamils believe the first ape spoke Senthamil and practiced Tamil/Saivam.
the Muslims believe the first ape spoke Arabic and practiced Arab/Islam.
the Christians believe the first ape spoke Latin and practiced Vatican Christianity.
I am not sure where the truth lies.
Can you enlighten us?
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Kosimo / February 25, 2014
And.. Veddahs spake of Vedantha, and followed Vedican Barberity.
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ken robert / February 25, 2014
Kautilya
Kautilya
“To claim that Paranavitana treated the Mahavamsa as a “holy book” is nonsense”
I agree. Mahavamsa did not suggest a deep connection between sri lanka and Malaysia as revered Prof Paranavitana believed. Secondly Monk Mahanama was not dumb enough to suggest there existed a connection between greek and ancient sri lankans as Prof Paranavitana asserted . Great Mahanama thera was silent when it came to tamil land, language or religion which is understandable given the motive of mahavamsa was trying to establish a religious doctrine.
However I will be surprised Prof Paranavitana was not an ardent fan of Mahavamsa. We (kautilya, native and me) discussed about Prof Paranavitana’s ignorance in learning tamil/dravidian languages in previous commentaries. Therefore his interpretation of brahmi/epigraphy was inherently biased. Interestingly Paranavitana interpretations did not mention sihala /sihala in ancient Sri lankan inscription. On the contrary tamil people are frequently mentioned.
There is plenty of evidence exists now to say that ancient and post christian ancestry between sri lanka and south india is shared. That is where Prof Gunawardena’s views are valuable in comparison to biased Mahanama and Prof Paranavitana’s assertions.
“With the decline of the power in the North, and the rise of Dravidian Kingdoms, the assimilation of North Indian words (“sanskritisation, if you wish) in to Dravidian-language polity became established. The rise of the tamil language (which did not exist except as a form of Prakrit) also began with the Sangam period which began around the same time”
Please see native vedda’s argument for dravidian civilisation.
Dismissing that south indians during pre christian era were uncivilised in comparison to north indians seems quite unreasonable for the following reasons
1.Dravidian sister language is present as far as afghanistan in the form of baihui indicating widespread use.
2.Trading between Roman/foreigners and south india flourished before christian times as evidenced by ancient pottery and coinage.
3 uniqueness of tamil language with aspirants in phonetics, numerical system different to sanskrit, earliest and extensive literary work in compared to other sister dravidian languages.
4. Megalithic burial sites found in Anuradhapura and Pomparippu in south India shows cultural significance and similarities.
I will be grateful if you do not digress into politics for the following reasons
1. we have enough controversy in interpretation of history, languages etc of Srilanka.
2. it is an insult to your pseudonym Kautilya/chanakya the great Jain philosopher and tactician.
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Afzal / February 23, 2014
Thank you for the link to “Ceylon and Malaysia: A Study of Professor S. Paranavitana’s Research on the Relations Between the Two Regions”
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JimSofty / February 23, 2014
As I heard, initially Dravidean Languages and Aryan languages were intermixed because people of the two groups lived nearby.
Because of that, what is the possibility that Aya (ayar ?) came to Dravidean languages from Aryan languages ?
I mean the aya (ayyar?) are not initial tamil words, what is the possibility ?
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JimSofty / February 23, 2014
I don’t about this subject. Yet, for me, It looks that Dharshani is sort of biased.
The reason is that she has not thought of the possibility the word Aya came to Dravidean Lanaugages from Aryan Languages long before that Tamil developed developed as a separate Dravidean language.
I can not read any thoughts on that.
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James / February 23, 2014
Professor S. Paranavitana was a biased researcher and most of his interpretation of Ceylon history was not the truth.
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Javi / February 24, 2014
This is a well-known fact when one lives in the cities of north or central of India but there are also Stupid Tamils eg Palm Squirrel who perhaps has specialised in language now that they are in the US like this historian whose heads have gone square and would never want to give up that there is nothing called Aryan but the place where the Iranian lived was called such eg hoover than vacuum cleaner, Ipad than tablet. They will never attempt to read what you have given below because it beats their conceptual lie just like the religious fanatics.
On top of it these folk are trolling for the political Lokka who think just like Hitler.
Valli, michael Robert, Malinda Seneviratne are the 3 stooges
Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. Adolf Hitler
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James / February 23, 2014
The Sinhalese may deny their ancestry and genetic composition to suit their parochial political nationalism. The fact remains that most of the Sinhalese people are closely related to the South Indian Tamils.
Useful links to gnetic studies:
Genetic affinities of Sri Lankan populations
Human Biology| December 01, 1995 | Kshatriya, Gautam Kumar
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-17863670/genetic-affinities-s…
Genetic variation in Sri Lanka.(Special Issue on the Level of Genetic Differentiation in Populations of the Indian Subcontinent)
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-18903057/genetic-variation-sr…
Genetic and anthropological assessments
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Sinhalese-people#Genetic_and_ant…
New evidences suggest there wasn’t an Aryan Invasion of India. Max Muller’s unscientific assertions were never tested. It is sad that Sinhalese bought the idea from Anagarika who had other plans.
Articles on introduction to contesting the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT):
Arya: Its Significance
By Yogi Aravind
The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings By Sri Aurobindo
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_arvind.html
The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India
By David Frawley
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley.html
Demise of the Aryan Invasion Theory
By Dr.Dinesh Agrawal
The Aryan-Dravidian Controversy
By David Frawley
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley_1.html
Aryan Invasion Theory is a Hoax : History Revisited
Source: Times of India, August 22, 1993
Aryan Invasion Theory ‘Disproved’
Source: Times of India, June 5, 1993
The Myth of Aryans and Non-Aryans
By Swami Vivekananda
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_vivekananda.html
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Amarasiri / February 24, 2014
James,
Thank you.
The bulk of the Sinhala gene pool is South Indian. DNA Analysis will confirm it. Many people, Europeans, Chinese and even Indians cannot tell a Sinhala from a Tamil.
The Native Veddah Arrived much earlier, at leat 16,000 years ago.
So the Sinhala and Tamil are Para-Sinhala and Para-Demala or Para-Tamil.
http://vedda.org/1-who.htm
Sri Lanka’s indigenous inhabitants, the Veddas — or Wanniya-laeto (‘forest-dwellers’) as they call themselves — preserve a direct line of descent from the island’s original Neolithic community dating from at least 16,000 BC and probably far earlier according to current scientific opinion.1
Even today, the surviving Wanniya-laeto community retains much of its own distinctive cyclic worldview, prehistoric cultural memory, and time-tested knowledge of their semi-evergreen dry monsoon forest habitat that has enabled their ancestor-revering culture to meet the diverse challenges to their collective identity and survival.
With the impending extinction of Wanniya-laeto culture, however, Sri Lanka and the world stand to lose a rich body of indigenous lore and living ecological wisdom that is urgently needed for the sustainable future of the rest of mankind.
Historically, for the past twenty-five centuries or more Sri Lanka’s indigenous community has been buffeted by successive waves of immigration and colonization that began with the arrival of the Sinhalese from North India in the 5th century BC. Consequently, the Wanniyalaeto have repeatedly been forced to choose between two alternative survival strategies: either to be assimilated into other cultures or to retreat ever further into a shrinking forest habitat.
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ken robert / February 24, 2014
james
Thank you for the references in AMT/AIT. genetic studies definitive about the sinhala and tamils are mixture of veddas and south indians.
However evolution of Indic languages has always been shrouded with controversy. Initially due to the western aryan supremacist mythology of aryan invasion theory. It is likely that the the people from the north/pale skinned/ pandus got assimilated into the indigenous/brown/ ancient population. There is a school of thought that suggests the aryans/pale skinned/pandus came via Gujarat, Kannada and brought sanskrit/religious traditions to south india and Srilanka in the pre and post christian era.
In the meantime the concept of dravidian civilisation came in last two to three centuries due to proponents such as E V Ramasamy, Maraimalai adigal as well as Fr Cauldwell. However there is paucity of evidence in language, literature or archeological findings to suggest that a
dravidian civilisation founded on south india in pre christian era. This has been expertly explained by Messrs Clarence Maloney, Michael Danino. Infact Prof Parpola cogently argues this case citing puranas of Hindu mythology.
Lack of evidence does not mean the absence of it. Archaeology dept in Tamil nadu is building a case for antiquity of tamil based on tamil brahmi dated to 5th century BC. Presence of dravidian sister language in Afghanistan( Baihui) is a solid evidence that the dravidian languages could have been widespread across India in prehistoric times. I am not claiming that there was a well established dravidian civilisation/language existed based on this.
Strong literary traditions albeit based on sanskrit, unique words and number systems different from sanskrit differentiates tamil from the the other indian languages. Infact I think that sinhala is a Indo aryan language is also a myth based on it closeness to Tamil, kannada and telugu due same numerical system, grammar structure and loan words etc.
In summary, interpretation of meaning words for antiquity of a language is fraught with errors. Slandering professors for their presumed mistakes in this difficult field in public is disgraceful.
I wish the author of this writing had been educated in a Srilankan University, Then she would have learnt to respect the Srilankan professors.
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Native Vedda / February 24, 2014
Ken
Thanks for your response to my earlier comment.
“Lack of evidence does not mean the absence of it. Archaeology dept in Tamil nadu is building a case for antiquity of tamil based on tamil brahmi dated to 5th century BC”
You are right and marine archaeology if properly done has lot to offer.
Please refer to the article available on link below:
Underwater investigations off Mahabalipuram,
Tamil Nadu, India
Sundaresh*, A. S. Gaur, Sila Tripati and K. H. Vora
http://drs.nio.org/drs/bitstream/2264/316/1/Curr_Sci_86_1231.pdf
Many scholars believe the South Indian Tamils have had some ancient connection with earlier civilisations such as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro.
What is your understanding on this Dravidian myth?
See below what Asko Parpola has to say about Indus script
COIMBATORE, June 25, 2010
Updated: June 30, 2010 09:26 IST
Underlying language of Indus script, Proto-Dravidian: Asko Parpola
The underlying language of the Indus script was Proto-Dravidian, Asko Parpola, Professor-Emeritus of Indology, Institute of World Cultures, University of Helsinki, Finland, said on Friday.
Declaring that “an opening to the secrets of the Indus script has been achieved,” Prof. Parpola said the results of his readings kept within narrow limits: fertility cult connected with fig trees, a central Hindu myth associated with astronomy and time-reckoning and chief deities of Hindu and Old Tamil religion.
Delivering the Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Research Endowment Lecture on “A Dravidian solution to the Indus script problem” at the World Classical Tamil Conference here, the Indologist said the readings were based on reasonable identifications of the signs’ pictorial shapes. The results made good sense in the framework of ancient Indian cultural history.
“These readings have been achieved with strictly adhered methodology which is in full agreement with the history of writing, methods of decipherment and historical linguistics including the comparative study of Dravidian languages,” he told the audience that included Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
Displaying nearly two dozen illustrations of Indus seals and inscriptions, he dwelt upon the topic by explaining two broad aspects — underlying language and type of the script — that were essential in the decipherment of an ancient script. He also substantiated his thesis with an etymological analysis of certain Tamil words such as ‘muruku’ and ‘miin’.
Hinting that Harappan language had a genetic relationship with the Dravidian language family, Prof. Parpola said 26 Dravidian languages were now mainly spoken in central and southern parts of India. However, one Dravidian language, Brahui, had been spoken in Baluchistan of Pakistan for at least one thousand years. In contrast to Burushashki, Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic languages, very small minority languages in south Asia, the Dravidian speakers until recently constituted one-fourth of the population in India.
Loanwords from the Dravidian family had been identified from Indo-Aryan texts composed in northwestern India around 1100-600 BCE. Besides, Indo-Aryan had several structural features that had long been interpreted as borrowings from Dravidian. “Historical linguistics thus suggests that the Harappans probably spoke a Dravidian language.”
Referring to the type of writing system, Prof. Parpola said the number of known Indus signs was around 400 “which agrees well with the logo-syllabic type but is too high for the script to be syllabic or alphabetic”. Though word divisions were not marked, many inscriptions comprised one, two or three signs and longer texts could be segmented into comparable units. The Indus script was created before any syllabic or alphabetic script existed.
Pointing out that the confirmed interpretations and their wider contexts provided a lot of clues for progress, he acknowledged there were still serious difficulties in the decipherment of the script. “One is the schematic shape of many signs which makes it difficult to recognise their pictorial meaning with certainty. Possibilities of proposing likely readings and their effective checking are severely limited by our defective knowledge of Proto-Dravidian vocabulary, compounds and phraseology.”
The problem of the Indus script resembled to some extent that of the logo-syllabic Maya script, where advance was phenomenal after Mayan speakers were trained in the methods of decipherment.
The Indologist said those who had good acquaintance with the realities of Indian culture and south Asian nature could make useful contributions in suggesting possible pictorial meanings for the Indus signs. For this, there was no need to be a Dravidian speaker.
Iravatham Mahadevan, eminent archaeologist, presided over the event.
Keywords: Asko Parpola, WCTC, Tamil language, Dravidian languag
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/underlying-language-of-indus-script-protodravidian-asko-parpola/article485447.ece
Please let me know if there is any critique of Senerath Paranavitarana reading and interpretation of Epigraphy in Sri Lanka.
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C. Wijeyawickrema / February 24, 2014
I came to know two incidents about Leslie Gunawardena separated by 50 years.[Edited out]
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Native Vedda / February 24, 2014
C. Wijeyawickrema
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Native Vedda / February 24, 2014
C. Wijeyawickrema
“I came to know two incidents about Leslie Gunawardena separated by 50 years.[Edited out]”
Yes go on we are listening. Rather reading.
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Rajash / February 24, 2014
“R.A.L.H Gunawardana’s Separation From His Pali Dictionary At A Crucial Time ..”
Darshanie Ratnawalli’s sepration form her brain(if she has any) seems to be permanet.
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Brangisopa Dongarismo / February 25, 2014
“if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come”, and Darshanie will bear the fruit of the seeds to sow the evils of the fame fake.
Darshanie, the “uputagat-kaputa”.
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Aryampatti Namacchalingam / February 25, 2014
…..However, the Pāli equivalent of the Sanskrit Ārya is Ariya. While both these terms, ārya and ariya have been used in an honorific sense with a cultural and religious connotation, there is no evidence to suggest that they had been used to denote political leadership…”- (p. 7)
Darshanie, also read the same in today’s worldly useage:
Ayatollah – Sign of God [Ar.]
Aya – Maiden
Aaya – Verse [Ar.]
Ayyappan – Dharma Sastavu
(Ayy-appan) – 5 father [Kunti’s own bandits the PunchPandas]
Ayyo – The Tamil, Malayalam, Sinhala and Egyptian ‘Ouch’ [exclamation]
Aye – Yes [in affirmative]
Ayan – Shepherd [O.T.] (esp. the arrival of Noah)
Ayyantuu – meaning fame bearer (from Anuak people of Western Ethiopia)
Ayyawear – Boots
Ay Papi – Daddy (Spanish) [prob. exclaimation in ecstasy in action]
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His-storian / February 28, 2014
Darshani has done a disservice by quoting Prof Casparis partially. The most important part is not there.It is the sentence Where Prof Casparis says: “…although the present author [I] agrees with these criticisms,he feels that Paranavitana had a sharp intuition about the relations between this island and the world of South East Asia”. Paranavtana’s mistake he refers to is the use of interlinear inscriptions and the story he built up on that to support his thesis that Kalinga referred to in the Chronicle was not in India but in Malaysia.What is the intuition Prof C speaks of? It is the presence of some probabilities which have not been sufficiently analysed to form a provable hypothesis to show that Kalinga of the latter day (Polonnaruva times in Sri Lanka)was in SE/Asia.
These are:1.Absence of a continuing Kalinga tradition of India after the days of Asoka Maurya and Kharavela, the days of greatness of Kalingas mentioned by Pliny.There was no Kalinga dynastic line in India around the time Polonnaruva rulers like Nissanka Malla boasted about Kalinga ancestry. 2. Shifting of centre of power of Kalingas who were perhaps the first maritime people of NE India (before the Pallavas and Colas) to SE/Asia and Sri Lanka.
3.Build up of a SE/Asian (Burma, Malaya and Sri Vijaya and Sri Lanka n the 11th Century with matrimonial and other links to oust Colas from Sri Lanka and Malay Straits.
4.Presence of archaeological evidence at Polonnnaruva and Dambadenya of a strong SE/Asian presence and even SE/Asian armed forces, a Kambuja Wasala area and Kambuja style buildings.
5. Even today, in SE/Asia people of India are known as “Klings’ and there are places called “kling” n these lands.
These traces have not been sufficiently analysed and formed into provable hypothesis though HCP Bell has done a tremendous job collating the archaeological evidence at Polonnaruva in his Archaeological Survey Reports.
Paranavtana need not have gone to write fiction to prove his Malay theory of Kalinga.In his fading days he could have asked for some help from Jaffna historians to work out the mathematical additions of these “grocery packets.” They have done a wonderful job tracing the history of 18th century Vellalas brought by the Dutch from South India to plant tobacco tracing them back to prehistoric times. It was not the Vellalas who were mobile people but people like fisherfolk (They call them “Karaiyar” today,-people who by the Sea (Kara[i).Perhaps, as Arthur Clarke wrote Paranavitana wrote this fiction to confuse them, the best thing he could do in his last days.
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