Whatever you THINK I am, Portuguese, Sinhala, Buddhist, whatever… I am Sri Lankan. So call me what you want and wherever my blood line can be traced I have no problem admitting I am a Sri Lankan. That is the country I was born into and that is my allegiance. You don’t insult me, you only make yourself look stupid and highlight to other Sri Lankans my exact point about what it means to be Sri Lankan over being a Communalist.

*****Tamils who DONT want to be Sri Lankan should go back to Tamil Nadu… End of Story.*****

Man, if Tamils have a problem or if they DONT want to be in Sri Lankan, or due to some reason if they are forced to move out of Tamil Eelam, still I am sure their father land Tamil Nadu will take them but unfortunately if the Sinhalese have a problem or if they DONT want to be in Sri Lankan, or due to some reason if they are forced to move out of Sri Lanka I do not think their father land Bengal/Bangladesh (from where their forefather Vijaya came) will ever take them back. For you, the only alternative is to jump in the sea.

Not only the last King of Jaffna but also the last king of Kandy was a Tamil by the name Kannasamy (son of Venkata Perumal) from the Nayakkar Dynasty of Madurai, South India. In fact, the last four Kings of Kandy were Tamils from the Nayakkar Dynasty of Madurai and the Sinhalese did not have any problem in appointing them as their rulers.

The problems started only in the 19th century AD after the uncritical acceptance of the Mahavamsa by the British who discovered it and then a few Sinhala nationalists such as Anagarika Dharmapala injecting a racialist content into it.

A low country Sinhala man and a son of a carpenter Don David Hewavitarana AKA Anagarika Dharmapala became famous for creating a new religion in Sri Lanka by linking the Mahavamsa (written in Pali) with the Theravada Buddhist scriptures (Tripitika, also written in Pali) and creating a religion known as Sinhala-Buddhism which is only unique to Sri Lanka. A Tamil Buddhist will not be allowed to ordain as a monk by the Buddhist Maha Sangha of Sri Lanka.

Another group of Sinhalese has formed an organization known as Hela Havula founded by Munidasa Cumaratunga. Today they are in the process of creating a new History for Sri Lanka which is different from what is said in the Mahavamsa.

Then there is another Jathika Chinthanaya group founded by Gunadasa Amarasekera which is not only misinterpreting and abusing the history but also creating a new meaning to the existing history. Prof. Nalin de Silva comes under this group. He is a Maths Professor who has FAILED to excel in math and therefore was never recognised by his peers.

Such people move into more *popular* areas (cheap polemics) where people (not necessarily academic, but society) might treat them as *scholars* even if they are not. They are very dangerous to the society. These people brainwashes younger generation and creates racists, ultra-nationalists and extremists which is detrimental to the country and should be stopped at any cost.

According to the Mahavamsa, there were Tamils in Anurahadpura not as traders but as rulers even in the 1st century A.D. Dutta Gemunu had to conquer not one Tamil king but 32 Tamil Kinglets (Chieftains) around the Anuradhapura principality alone. How could there be 32 Tamil chieftains in the area of Anuradhapura alone, if there were no Tamil settlements? How many more Tamil Kinglets (Chieftains) would have been existing in other parts of the country which were not mentioned anywhere.

WAS DUTUGAMUNU A SINHALA KING?

Where on earth, I mean in which historical document/structure is it mentioned that King Dutugamunu was a Sinhala?

The Mahavamsa says that the young Buddhist prince Gamini worshipped the Katharagama God before going to War with the old Hindu king Elara.

Why did he worship a Hindu God instead of Buddha?

Let us see who this Dutugamunu or Dutha-Gamini is.

In the above article, the author has described about the ancient tribe Nagas very well. The Nagas who were living in both South India and North Sri Lanka (Nagapuram, Nagarkovil, Nagarcot, Nargapattinum, Nagakulam, Nagadivpa, etc) were considered as the natives (Ila/Eela/Hela), the ancient Elu speaking inhabitants of the region.. During the Early Historical Period, South India and Sri Lanka were not considered as two different places. The Nagas not only occupied both South India and North Sri Lanka but they were also moving back and forth between Sri Lanka and South India.

According to the Pali chronicles and the early Brahmi inscriptions, not only Nagas, but there were Damedas/Damelas/Damilas from the Chola Dynasty (believed to be Dravidians who immigrated from west Asia and settled in South India as per the historians) and there were also Pandu/Pandyans (some historians believe they are Aryans who settled during the same time as the Dravidians). During the Early Historical Period, all these people were moving back and forth between Sri Lanka and South India. The Tamils of South India-Sri Lanka are the decedents of these three groups of people.

Even though Prof. S. Paranavitana was a Sinhala-Buddhist whose research was fully biased, there were times when even he could not deny, so here I must quote Prof. S. Paranavitana who says, the vast majority of the people who today speak Sinhalese or Tamil must be ultimately be descended from those autochthonous people of whom we know next to nothing.
In other words, both Tamils and Sinhalese descend from those Nagas even though they later mixed with the so called *Aryans, Dravidians, North Indians, South Indians, etc*

Now, let us look into Dutugamunu family.

The kings belonging to the Tissa and Lambakarana dynasties that ruled the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Anuradhapura were Nagas. Dutugemunu, the national hero of Sri Lanka, was a Naga king belonging to the Tissa dynasty. His mother Vihara Maha Devi was the daughter of the Naga king of Keleniya, and his father Kavan Tissa, was the great grandson of Maha Naga, who established a kingdom in Mahagama (modern Tissamaharama) in Rohana (ancient south Lanka). Maha Naga’s older brother, Devanampiya Tissa, a contemporary of Emperor Asoka, was the first king of the Tissa dynasty.

Some of the Tissa kings who proudly bore Naga clan names Khallata Naga (Dutugemunu’s nephew), Cora Naga, who was one of the many victims poisoned to death by the amorous Queen Anula, Mahadathika Maha Naga and Ila Naga. Ila Naga’s son Candamuka Siva married Damila Devi, a Tamil princes from South India. Yasa Lalaka Tissa was the last king of the first dynasty that ruled the Anurdhapura kingdom.

Naga poets from Eelam (ancient Sri Lanka) are known to have participated in the activities of literary academies of ancient Tamil Nadu. These academies, which are known as the three Tamil Sangams flourished in the pre-Christian and early-Christian eras. A few known names of the Naga poets of Eelam who contributed to ancient Tamil literature are Eelaththu Poothan Thevanar whose compositions are included in anthologies known as Nattrinai, Kurunthokai and Puranaanooru Mudingarayar, Musiri Asiriyar, Neelakandanar and Eela Nagar. Whether this latter name refers to King Ila Naga whose son married Damila Devi, the South Indian Tamil princess is not certain.

During the Early Historical Period, the Cholas, Pandyans and the Nagas were fighting each other to capture a larger territory, to expand their kingdom. This phenomenon was very common throughout the ancient world.

According to the Mahavamsa, King Elara was a Damila from the Chola Dynasty. From the above we see that King Dutugemunu was a Naga from the Tissa Dynasty.

The account of the armed conflict between the *Sinhala* hero, Duttagamini, and the Damila prince, Elara, in the Mahawamsa, has formed the basis of 20th century perception of the relations between the Sinhalas and the Tamils in ancient Sri Lanka.
But the modern historians consider this interpretation invalid.
They point out that the Mahawamsa had portrayed Elara as a just ruler who was admired greatly by Duttagamini.

The latter had noted that Elara was a protector of Buddhism, and admired him for being just to friend and foe alike.
Duttagamini even built a memorial for Elara and asked everybody to worship at it.

It should be noted that the Tissa Dynasty started with king Tissa (307-267 BC) who was given the title Devanampiya by the Indian emperor (Devanampriya) Asoka for accepting Buddhism.

Before Buddhism, prince Tissa was the second Son of King Muta Siva (367-307 BC) and brother of king Maha Siva (257-247 BC).
Muta Siva (367-307 BC) was the Son of King Pandu kabaya, and Pandu kabaya (437-367 BC) was the son-in-law of Giri Kanda Siva and Grandson of King Pandu Vasudeva (504-474 BC).

Another King whom the Sinhalese praise is King Parakramabahu who was a grandson of a TAMIL prince.

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.

When will these people wake up and overcome their ignorance? May be not till the Dooms day when poor Lanka will be erased from the world map.

Even the people of Bengal and Orissa from where the Sinhala forefathers are believed to have come from are not Aryans.

It was the Europeans who introduced this Aryan myth to the Sinhalese. Even the Mahavamsa was discovered during the colonial period and was first translated by a European pali scholar.

It was only in the 19th century AD, the British discovered the Mahavamsa. The first printed edition and English translation of the Mahavansha was published in 1837 by George Turnour, an historian and officer of the Ceylon Civil Service. A German translation of Mahavansha was completed by Wilhelm Geiger in 1912. This was then translated into English by Mabel Haynes Bode, and the English translation was revised by Geiger.

Prof. K. Indrapala says in his book, ‘The evolution of an Ethnic Identity: The Tamils in Sri Lanka C. 300 BCE to C. 1200 CE’, it was in the nineteenth century, under the British rule, that the British officials adopted a keen interest in the history of the island. The European discovery of the Pali and Sinhala chronicles, the publication of early translations of the Mahavamsa and the acquisition of information relating to the ancient ruins lead to the first serious British attempt to write the early history of Sri Lanka in the middle of the nineteenth century.

It was in these early colonial writings, largely based on the uncritical acceptance of the local chronicles, that a new perspective of the ancient history of the island began to develop.

The view that the Sinhalese were the ‘proper inhabitants’ of the island in ancient times and that the Tamils were invaders came to dominate colonial historical writings.

Before long, the Sinhalese were identified with the ‘Aryans’ and the Tamils with the ‘Dravidians’.

In recent years, several anthropologists and historians have shown how this perspective came to be developed in the colonial writings.

It was only in the 19th century AD, the Sinhalese started to believe the myth that they are Aryans from North India and the proper inhabitants of Sri Lanka where as the Tamils are Dravidians and outsiders.

The most influential figure in this field was the great German Indologist, Max Muller. According to Prof. Leslie Gunawardana, scholars in late 19th century Sri Lanka took up Max Muller’s theories and injected a RACIALIST content into Sinhala nationalist thinking.

One such scholar, a dirty Sinhala racist who was known as the Father of Racism in Sri Lanka was the great Sinhala Lion Anagarika Dharmapala.

Don David Hewavitarana better known as Anagarika Dharmapala, the son of Mr. Don Carolis (carpenter/ furniture dealer) and Mrs. Mallika Hewavitarne was born in 1864 and received his early education at Christian schools. He founded the Maha Bodhi Society in 1891 to spread Buddhism. He died in 1933 at the age of 69.

He was the God father of Sinhala Buddhist racism in Sri Lanka. Through his racist publications such as the ‘Sinhala Bauddhaya’, ‘Sinhala Jatiya’, and the ‘Mahabodhi Journal’ during the period between 1909 to 1915, he propagated the Mahavamsa as the Orthodox Theravada Buddhist doctrine of the Sinhala Buddhists.

His anti-Tamil and anti-Muslim propaganda during that time was the beginning of the Sinhala Buddhist racism in Sri Lanka.
His virulent attacks on Muslims and Tamils led to his internment in Calcutta by the British in 1915.

He called the Sinhala Buddhists as the only unique race (Arya-Sinhala) with a pure Aryan blood. He was such strong racist like the Nazi German Hitler. It was due to him, and his followers including the Maha Sangha are the main cause for the death and destruction of our people and our country today.

Today, the Maha Sangha and the Sinhala-Buddhist monks are NOT the disciples of Buddha, they are the disciples of Anagarika Dharmapala who believes in the Mahavamsa as an Orthodox Theravada Buddhist doctrine of the Sinhala Buddhists.

Due to the influence of the mahavamsa, a Sinhala-Buddhist Bikkhu is at liberty to engage in racist politics and promote war and hatred as we see today.

In other words the Buddhism followed in Sri Lanka is unique which can be termed as either Mahavamsa Buddhism or Sinhala Buddhism.

Ven. Mahanama, the author of Mahavamsa has created an imaginary link between the three elements, Country-Race-Religion and made it into one unit similar to the Holy Trinity, whereby Sri Lanka (Dhamma Deepa), Buddha’s chosen people (Sinhalese), and Buddhism (Buddha Sasana) should be protected for 5000 years. This is known as the Jathika chintanaya or the Mahavamsa mindset and one of its outcomes is the unitary state. Therefore, for the next 2500 years a Sinhala Buddhist will never allow a federal state in Sri Lanka.

From a very young age, the innocent Sinhala Buddhist children who attend the Sunday schools in the Buddhist temples are brainwashed by engraving the Mahavamsa Buddhism and Sinhala Buddhist racism into their sub-conscious minds.

They are taught to believe that the Non Sinhala Buddhists (Tamils) are invaders, they don’t belong to Sri Lanka, all the Tamils should be chased away to Tamil Nadu just the way their ancient Kings Dutugemunu, Parakarama bahu and Sapumal kumara did. The country, Sinhala race and Buddhism should be protected from the Tamils.

It is not worth spending your precious time in trying to penetrate into their heads which are already engraved with the Mahavamsa mindset. It is also not worth wasting our time in going for Peace talks with them. There will never be peace in Sri Lanka for the next 2500 years.

We Tamils have no other alternatives. As SJV Chelvanayagam said, only God can save the Sri Lankan Tamils from the Sinhalese. This is where the importance of the LTTE is felt.

****On the other hand Tamils in Sri Lanka are also a distinct race whose presence in Sri Lanaka as a distinct race can only be traced back to the 12th Century or around. ****

Not only the Sri Lankan Tamils but also the Sinhalese as a distinct race can only be traced back to the 12th Century or around.

According to Prof. R. A. L. H. (Leslie) Gunawardana, a historian/archeologist at the Peradeniya University, there NEVER was a Sinhala race/ethnic group or a Sinhala Kingdom before the 12th CAD. What existed was ONLY a Sinhala dynasty, a ruling linage group. There is NO evidence whatsoever to prove that an ethnic group/race or a kingdom by the name Sinhala existed in Sri Lanka before the 12th CAD. The concept that the Sinhalas were indigenous people or the first to arrive in the island originated only during the colonial and post-colonial period.

In his publication ‘The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography’, Prof. Leslie Gunawardana says,
Sinhala was a name adopted by a ruling linage group for whose origin the lion myth had been created. He says, contrary to popular belief, in ancient times the Sinhala identity was associated primarily with the dynasty which ruled Anuradapura. He goes even further by saying that, not only the Sinhala kingdom but also the Sinhala ethnic identity (race) in Sri Lanka emerged only after the 12th Century AD. Before that, there never was a Sinhala race or a Sinhala Kingdom, but only a Sinhala royal family (dynasty).

It was only after the 12th Century AD that the two communities Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamils emerged as two distinct ethnic groups/races (by assimilating with various tribal, linguistic and ethnic communities including the invaders) with distinct territories – the Tamils identified with the North and the East, and the Sinhalas with the rest of the island and with distinct language, religion, and culture.

History cannot be unlived but the unwise decide to live its wrenching pain again.

A few months ago, Kosovo became an independent sovereign state because of the “oppressive unilateralism” by the Serbians against the legitimate rights and freedoms of the people in Kosovo. Although the lessons of others are there, the Sinhala nation (SN) refuses to learn that their unilateral repression against the Tamil nation (TN) will gradually but surely lead to a “Kosovo” in the island.

The historical combat between two kings; Ellalan from the TN and Dutugemunu from the SN is taught to every child in SL. But when Sinhalese become adults, they refuse to accept the nationhood of Tamils. It is funny but true. Britain colonsed these two nations at different times with a gap of a few years, later joined the two countries as one country and named it Ceylon. But to this day SN refuses to recognise constituionally, the nationhood of Tamils. Sound reasoning appears to disappear into a cloud of unilateralist repression in adulthood !!

The SN declared UDR- Unilateral Declaration of Republic- in 1972 and annexed North East (NE) illegally into its terrirtory, when Ceylon was still a dominion under the queen of England. Britain should have called a constituent assembly in the NE and granted independence separately. But Britain failed to do justice though it faced UDI in Rhodhesia in 1966 and reacted with non recognition of the UDI regime and economic sanctions.

An unjust Britain and a defiant rebel state forced the TN to seek independence. The Tamil leader SJV Chelvanayakam, seeing the rugged journey ahead said ” God only can save Tamils”. He commenced a gradualist approach and his vision was “if we do not see the promised land our children should definitely see it”.

Realising that the constitution of the rebel state of SL provided muscle for subjugation, oppression and occupation of NE, the elected representatives of NE assembled and resolved at Vaddukoddai in 1976, to establish an independent state called Tamil Eelam (TE). Following this event, TULF as a political front, used the election process in 1977 as a self referendum, to receive peoples’ mandate. Never were a people so patient and democratic, but Britain was stone silent and SL became defiant and oppressive.

Still adhereing to the best democratic principles, TULF representatives assembled with armed freedom movements at Thimpu, India, in 1980’s, to work out a strategy to realise the 1977 mandate to liberate NE. The assembly at Thimpu was similar to the gathering of representatives of any territory aspiring for independence. After much deliberation and thought, “Thimpu declaration” calling for the self determination of the people of NE was made.

Logically, legally and democratically, the next step would have been to ask the UN to decolonise TE and finish the job unfinished by Britain, obligated by the UN. Self determination for NE would have been speedily achieved.

But, with the intent to solve the problem regionally without international intervention, India intervened and finalised the Indo Lanka Accord (ILA) with some dgree of self rule for NE. Tamil leaders predicted the abrogation of ILA but could not prevent compliance.

Tamil leaders were right. After a shelf life of 20 years, ILA now remains abrogated with the demerger of NE.

Based on Thimpu Declaration, now, the people of NE could stand tall and justifiably and sucsessfully plea for self determination of the people of NE before the UN, request countries to recognise TE and seek justification from the International Court of Justice. “Kosovo” in the island would be then soon be born.

Wise thinking should therefore be, as to how the two countries TE and SL could be at peace and develop together in the island peacefully.