By Ariaratnam Gobikrishna –

Ariaratnam Gobikrishna

Buddha statues, carved out of rock, stood so majestic and in repose; pillars of ornate carvings and stone inscriptions stood the test of time; Stupas patinaed with green moss mingled with Hindu temples; Moonstones and guard stones ushered into roofless cloisters—it was a grand tableau, displaying the glorious Buddhist past of Polonnaruwa. The temple troop macaques were all over, discriminating none. As a boy from Jaffna, during my school excursions, I used to be impartial too, succumbing to the awe and tranquility of the Buddhist sacred sites, but this time I felt different…not in terms of reverence and tranquility—that, I think, will never change—but I was skeptical…skeptical about taking things at face value. With that mindset, I meandered through the artifacts with the government designated tour guide who took me to the next rock carving—the statue of the great King Parakramabahu I,…a bare-bodied pot-bellied man holding palm-leaf manuscripts. That must have done it, I suppose, because my skeptical antenna wouldn’t stop firing from then on.

Next we spent some time in front of a temple—listening to our guide’s description—that it was supposedly shaped after the Buddhist temples of Cambodia that made me think about my guided tour of Angkor Wat. What a contrast: Cambodia…a distant land, people of different physical traits, yet the maritime cultural exchange and commerce had transplanted a Hindu culture that flourished before being transformed by the late arrival of Buddhism. The history was cogent and free-flowing, not omitting the influences from the Tamil Pallava and the Chola Kingdoms, and also the taboo elements of religious conflicts and usurpations. Conversion of Buddhist temples in India or Churches in Turkey or Mosques in Spain is no secret to the world history. But in Polonnaruwa facts were shrouded in secrecy: no word of Cholas who inaugurated and ruled Polonnaruwa for 53 years. None whatsoever about Hinduism or Tamil. Mind you, this was when one of the longest dynasties in history had reached its pinnacle— the Emperor Rajendra Chola’s reign. The largest navy of the time conquering distant lands in the far east; the largest standing army controlling most of India; The engineering marvels of ship building, irrigation and warfare. And of course bringing the whole island of Sri Lanka under one rule.

At the end of our tour my curiosity got the better of me so I had this dialogue with the tour guide, that I’m paraphrasing.

“I thought the Cambodian Kings were Hindus before they became Buddhists’” I asked.

“I don’t think so…I’m not sure”

“ How about Hinduism during Polanaruwa period’” I asked.

“It was always a part of Buddhism, ever since it came from North India’” he said.

“Any impact from Tamil invasions”

“very minimal…because those were always small incursions, easily repulsed” “I see a lot of Tamil words in Sinhala,” I asked.

“You will also see a lot of Portuguese words in Sinhala,“ he said.

“You said there was no significant influx from Tamil Nadu, so…how did that happen?,” I asked. “Oh!, Sinhalese Kings sometimes married Tamil Princesses; that had some influence“ “Based on your evidence, when do you think the Tamils came to Sri Lanka?,” I asked.

“During the Dutch time,“ he said.

“Really?”

“No doubt, we have evidence,“ he said.

Our guide was extremely courteous, delivered what he believed to be true facts and it was up to me to do factcheck and come to plausible conclusions and that’s exactly what I set out to do.

The next stop was Anuradhapura: The silhouette of the glowing white Ruwanwelisaya loomed under the midday sun that was punctuated by the movement of antlike figures. As the scene got magnified, it revealed that it was a Buddhist procession and its frontline comprised of a retinue of drummers—in Tamil we call “Parai”; it is an old Tamil tradition…fell out of favor in Temples and is now mostly confined to funerals. As I watched the drummers pass by, I couldn’t help wondering whether this was one of many hushed up ”missing“ links. Then I wandered into a Temple, where I saw this dramatic scene: the battle between Dutugemunu and Elara … Dutugemunu was portrayed as white and Elara black. That scene jolted my memory to an earlier incident, decades ago, at Peradeniya University. There, on many occasions, I was told that I looked Sinhalese. And one day I asked a fellow Sinhalese student what it meant and he said that the Sinhalese race was light-skinned because their ancestors came from North India and the Tamils were very dark because they were from Tamil Nadu. I’m yet to find evidence to substantiate this claim on skin color and every time I watch our cricket team—that I’ve been doing for the past four decades—I’m convinced otherwise. While ruminating about the skin color, the nearby Isurumuniya sculptures stared back at me the same way Mahabalipuram Pallava sculptures did—the men with threads crossing their bare bodies over left shoulders whispered a Hindu origin and the name Ishvara Muni.

The train journey from Colombo to Galle was wonderful. My wife and I were on the way to the literary festival. Taking a stroll inside Galle Fort was even more exhilarating. As we sauntered, I remembered reading about the missing fifth Shiva Temple of Galle, mentioned by many including Hindu Saints from Tamilakam, Ibn Battuta and Zheng He. I also remembered that Zheng He had made an offering to one of its deities and later with the arrival of the Portuguese the Temple complex was sacked. Coincidentally, Zheng He was being discussed in the media at that time. “Why was there a renewed interest in Zheng He whom we never heard about in our school history books?,” I wondered.

It was after the end of civil war. Optimism and jubilation were aplenty. So were Chinese investments —and the responsibility of singing their praises. And Zheng He’s visit to the island in 1409 was being compared against the “ largesse” pouring down from China. Zheng He’s visit could not have been described in a vacuum so one of two indelible events—the gifting of “Trilingual Plate of Galle”, and the deposing of the Kotte King—was briefly mentioned. Naturally the next question was “what is Trilingual Plate of Galle?”

To answer that question I made a visit to the Colombo Museum. And, soon enough, I too stumbled on the same question that was being debated in the media. Before going further, let me tell you about the “Trilingual plate of Galle” The plate has inscriptions in three languages, namely, Mandarin, Persian and Tamil, as an offering by Zheng He to the three Gods—Buddha, Allah and Vishnu—for the safe voyage. The hot topic of the moment was about the omission of Sinhala. One explanation given by the Chairman of Sri Lankan Tourism Board was that the languages might have been chosen due to their popularity among the travelers of the time. Another, from an Army personnel, that it could have been a genuine mistake—fair enough—and he then went onto conflate a recent incident that involved an omission of Tamil in name boards. My take on this is very simple.

The major rulers of the region of that time were Buddhist Ming Empire, Islamic Delhi Sultanate and Hindu South Indian Dynasties. And the King, Zheng He had deposed, was Vira Alekeswara—a descendant from Tamil Gampola kingdom of Alagakkonara of Kanchipuram—who ruled as a Buddhist king, VIjeyabahu IV. His clan had established Kotte kingdom, naming “Kotte” after a Tamil word for fort. So, for obvious reasons, Zheng He must have chosen the dominant court languages of the respective kingdoms. Otherwise, being a Muslim himself and fluent in Arabic, he would have chosen Arabic instead of Persian. (the dominant court language of the Indian Islamic empires was Persian) The Hindu God, to whom the offering was given in Tamil, was Tenavarai Nayanar, the Vishnu deity of the famed Temple complex of Galle, that had been recognized by many foreigners. The Tamil words describing the Gods, the Temples and the area are all denoting to mostly one thing — the Southern tip of the island, that later got corrupted by the invading Portuguese as Dondra.

We were in Kandy, the heart and soul of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It drizzled when we stood in line to visit Sri Dalada Maligawa. While waiting, I thought about the long uninterrupted Kandyan heritage. “What made Kandy the last bastion against the European invasion—not one, but two—since 1505 until the overthrow of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha by the British in 1815?” I wondered. “How come, while rest of the country was undergoing Christianization, Theravatha Buddhism was kept unmolested in Kandy?” I queried. Quickly, I was able to glean through the information that was public knowledge and it was none other than the constant supply of nobility and warriors from Tamil and Nayaka Dynasties of Tamilakam, under whose leadership it was made possible. And as a consequence—no surprise—the court languages of the Kandyan Kingdom were Tamil and Sinhala. In other words, the Kandyan Buddhist Kingdom was preserved and protected by the Sinhalese and the Tamils. If you need a third party to confirm the fact that disparate communities lived together under a Tamil ruler, let’s bring this interesting figure, Robert Knox—the prototype(partially)for the famous figure in literature—Robinson Crusoe. Robert Knox spent 20 years in Kandy in captivity under Rajasinha II. So, naturally, he became fluent in Sinhala; so did Rajasinha II, a Tamil Kandyan King of Thanjavur Nayaka kingdom who had embraced Sinhala Buddhism as many of his predecessors did while being married to a Hindu Tamil as many of his predecessors were. (the practice goes back to Mahavamsa period)Robert Knox somehow escaped from Kandy, and with the help of the Dutch, went back to London. There he wrote a bestseller, in which he talked about Chingulays (Sinhalese),Malabars (Tamils) and Moors(Muslims) in Kandy. He also talked about his inability to communicate, on his escape through Anuradhapura, because the language spoken there was Tamil.

I was back in my hometown, Jaffna. And the Buddhist site near Kantharodei was on my mind, that I had frequented as a boy. But things were not the same when I visited recently. Kathrugoda Ancient Viharaya, as it’s known now, had an army sentry along with information that I was ignorant about.

The current narrative about the archaeological site states that Buddhism came to Jaffna from Anuradhapura and the towns it flourished in Jaffna were all Sinhalese and the subsequent Tamil intrusion not only erased its existence but corrupted the village names by Tamilization. The Sinhalese historians cite Devanampiya Tissa’s conversion to Buddhism and three visits of Lord Buddha to the island, recorded in Mahavamsa, as evidence. First of all, there was no Sinhala language during Devanampiya Tisa’s period. And,secondly, the visit of Buddha to Manipallavam island( Sri Lanka) to diffuse a dispute is the main theme of Manimekalai—one of 5 great Tamil Epics (the remaining 4 Epics are steeped in Jainism and Buddhism as well)—written by Chithalai

Satthanar … a Tamil Buddhist monk who lived in Tamilakam. It’s common knowledge that Buddhism existed in Northern Sri Lanka but unfortunately it met the same fate as in South India when Hindu revival took the upper hand. And South India, for that matter, is studded with places of Buddhist worship and excavation sites as evidence in plain sight. Places like Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh; Kanchipuram, Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu; and Muziris in Kerala are well known for their storied Buddhist past. As a matter of fact the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Mahabalipuram reinforces the importance of Kanchipuram and its port vis-a’-vis the ancient maritime cultural exchange between China and Tamilakam and that includes the many famous Buddhist scholars as well. If Buddhism could have gone to faraway places from Kanchipuram it certainly could have come to Jaffna. In fact the travel routes of many Buddhist scholars originated from Kanchipuram to many faraway destinations including China, Japan and Indonesia and the scholars Vajrabodhi’s and Buddhaghosa’s certainly coursed through Sri Lanka, leaving everlasting impact. Consequently, Tamils were Buddhists and Jains in Jaffna, but during the height of Bhakti movement, converted back to Hinduism and later during Portuguese period to Catholicism and even later during Dutch period back to Hinduism or to Protestantism. (Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike’s ancestry is a microcosm of this Sri Lankan social evolution) For Sinhalese and Tamils alike, language had no sway over what religion they followed in a given time.

Furthermore, I also delved into the facts pertaining to the demise of Buddhism and Jainism in Tamil

Nadu and Northern Sri Lanka during the Bhakti movement of Saivam and Vaishnavam. Jainism and Buddhism at their initial stages proposed renunciation practices, namely, food donation for the poor, refuge for the helpless, eduction for the masses and medical assistance for the public. They were against the deep-rooted caste system. (All good stuff) They were very popular among the masses for obvious reasons and also for the clever usage of the Tamil language( origin of great Tamil epics) as opposed to Sanskrit, the liturgical language of Hindu priestly class. But the ascetics were relentless in keeping the practices—and the public, over time, found them too rigid and difficult to keep. And also they didn’t sit well with the rulers and the upper echelon. So the upcoming Bhakti movement swept across easily, swaying the rulers first and the disgruntled public later, and also by weaponizing Tamil in public debates, (a short lull from Sanskrit) and as an unintended consequence, we are left with some of the best Tamil poetry and literature. I have a hunch that this must have pushed the ardent Tamil Buddhists towards Anuradhapura to stay away from Hinduism and the newly minted flowery Tamil in particular—and the rest is history.

Basically what I have tried to do, so far, through the examples of my recent travels, is that I have highlighted the obvious contradictions in our shared history. My intension is not to favor one community over the other, but to create a paradigm shift in our thought process. To see what the picture will look like if we—both the majority and the minorities — view it through unbiased lens. So, I think, if you look at the history through unbiased lens you will see a clear picture. A picture of two large groups evolving from waves of migration—mostly from South India—slowly turning into a Buddhist predominance from an initial Hindu-Buddhist codominance; likewise, turning into a Sinhala predominance from Tamil-Sinhala codominance. It must have been a slow process, going back and forth, over many centuries like what took place in the formation of Kerala, but preferring Buddhism. Time and again, the Tamil Kings seemed to have adopted not only the names of the nobility but the language and the religion that came with it and large swaths of the population must have followed suit. This phenomenon is well documented during Portuguese period due to its relatively recent history—in relation to the adoption of a new religion. The reasons for adoption would have been many: sometimes of one’s own volition, for example, for the nobility and for the voluntary ethnic/ religious converts. But many a times it would have been by inducements, coercion and by sheer threats to the lives and livelihood.

Having said that, let’s look at the two parallel narratives that had caused this great chasm in the first place and subsequently the bloody civil war. The Sinhalese claim that they’ve inhabited the whole island for at least 2500 years—via continuous migration from North India for two millennia—and somehow, despite their valiant efforts, Tamils have encroached their lands illegally. Their theory, from the outset, allows only Tamil Princesses and their entourage and the children of Emperor Ashoka to disembark at the Northern shores and then continues to restrict, throughout the history, everyone except people of North Indian descent. It also conveniently glosses over all the Tamil Kingdoms that existed from time immemorial, including the ones admitted in Mahavamsa itself. In fact, I was chuckling, while reading some pieces, vehemently arguing for punitive measures against Jaffna Tamils for not preserving Buddhist artifacts, written by Sinhalese who still carry Portuguese names. The Tamils, on the other hand, claim that they are the original inhabitants of the island and the Sinhalese—a race from North India of Indo-Aryan origin—invaded and made them the minority by devious means; so, with the help of Tamil Nadu, they should carve out at least 1/3 of the island for Eelam. They also feel that they, with their relatively large population in the world, deserve a country of their own. Their slogan is “Is it wrong to think that once mighty rulers, always rulers?”. Due to these deeply rooted convictions, both communities refuse to even entertain the possibility that all these different communities, existing now, could have evolved from one another.

So, as an effort to break the stalemate, I thought, we should bring science to the rescue—the DNA analysis in particular. But unfortunately we have very few studies, mostly done by Sri Lankans, that hover over the theory of origin—the arrival of Prince Vijaya from Northwestern India. So I searched for an independent study that dealt with the reality on the ground, namely, the magnitude of shared genetic footprint among current populations inside and outside of Sri Lanka. And I found one that was surprisingly popular among the Sri Lankan media as well. It was done by Professor Gautam Kumar Kshatriya of the University of Delhi .

What his study revealed is very interesting so I reproduce the results verbatim to avoid being accused of spinning the facts. It states that………………..

the present-day Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka are closer to Indian Tamils and South Indian Muslims. They are farthest from Veddahs and quite distant from Gujaratis and Punjabis of northwest

India and Bengalis of northeast India. The study of genetic admixture revealed that the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka have a higher contribution from the Tamils of southern India (69.86% ± 0.61) compared with the Bengalis of northeast India (25.41% ± 0.51), whereas the Tamils of Sri Lanka have received a higher contribution from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka (55.20% ± 9.47) compared with the Tamils of India (16.63% ± 8.73). Similarly, the Bengali contribution is 28.17% and that of the Indian Tamils is 16.63%.

In conclusion, the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka were the Veddahs, who have had little admixture with the Sinhalese and possibly none with the Tamils. The Veddahs are distinct because they were confined to inhospitable dry zones and were hardly influenced by the neighboring inhabitants. Furthermore, the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils are an admixed population genetically. The Sinhalese, who first came from northwest India under the leadership of Prince Vijaya in 543 B.C., have received and exchanged a substantial amount of their genes with the populations of northeastern and southern India. The Sinhalese and the Tamils have no contribution from the population groups of northwest India. In fact, the contribution made by Prince Vijaya and his small band of 700 companions to the original pool of the Sinhalese must have been eliminated by the long-standing contribution (over 2000 years) of the population groups of northeastern and southern India.

I thought the matter is settled once and for all because the results and the analysis not only answer the perennial question unequivocally, but also jibe with common sense. “Oh boy!, I couldn’t have been more wrong”. Not that the study was ignored—on the contrary, the Sinhalese literati paid so much attention and praise but at the end the only thing that was visible to their eyes was the Bengali contribution. As usual they picked and chose what suited for their narrative, but this time they latched onto the maternal side story of Prince Vijaya from Bengal in lieu of the Northwestern origin. The Tamils were silent about the Sinhalese and the Bengali contributions as well. The message though was loud and clear: despite our bloody recent past, each community, particularly the majority, is gung ho on delegitimizing the other at any cost. The majority Sinhalese will take anything but Tamil from South India as their true origin and the minority Tamils won’t take anything but Tamil from South India—from whom they have become genetically distant. So, in this milieu, even the science can’t come to the rescue. Unless people are willing to see the truth as is and the destruction it wrought for not doing so, nothing can sway them towards reality—they will always remain in the clouds of their hopeless fantasies.