March 2014 – Udayanga Weeratunga

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The history of Sri Lanka begins around 30,000 years ago. Chronicles, including the Mahawansa, the Dipavamsa, the Culavamsa and the Rajaveliya, record events from the beginnings of the Sinhalese monarchy in the 6th century BC, the Tamil Elara (monarch) in the 2nd century BC; through the arrival of European Colonialists in the 16th century; and to the disestablishment of the monarchy in 1815. Some mentions of the country are found in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Lankavatara Sutra Mahayana Buddhism texts of Gautama Lord Buddha’s teachings. Buddhism was introduced in the 3rd century BC by Arhath Mahinda (son of the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great).
From the 16th century, some coastal areas of the country were ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch and British. Sri Lanka was ruled by 181 Kings and Queens from the Anuradhapura to Kandy periods. After 1815 the entire nation was under British colonial rule and armed uprisings against the British took place in the 1818 Uva Rebellion and the 1848 Matale Rebellion. Independence was finally granted in 1948 but the country remained a Dominion of the British Empire.
In 1972 Sri Lanka assumed the status of a Republic. A constitution was introduced in 1978 which made the Executive President the head of state. The Sri Lankan Civil War began in 1983, including an armed youth uprising in 1987–1989, with the 25-year-long civil war ending in 2009.

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Prehistoric era

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[dfd_heading subtitle=”” content_alignment=”text-left” enable_delimiter=”” undefined=”” title_font_options=”tag:h3|font_size:25″ subtitle_font_options=”tag:div” heading_margin=”margin-bottom:15″]Prehistoric era of Sri Lanka[/dfd_heading]

Evidence of human colonization in Sri Lanka appears at the site of Balangoda. Balangoda Man arrived on the island about 34,000 years ago and has been identified as Mesolithic hunter gatherers who lived in caves. Several of these caves, including the well-known Batadombalena and the Fa-Hien Rock cave, have yielded many artifacts from these people who are currently the first known inhabitants of the island.
Balangoda Man probably created Horton Plains, in the central hills, by burning the trees in order to catch game. However, the discovery of oats and barley on the plains at about 15,000 BC suggests that agriculture had already developed at this early date. Several minute granite tools (about 4 centimeters in length), earthenware, remnants of charred timber, and clay burial pots date to the Mesolithic Stone Age. Human remains dating to 6000 BC have been discovered during recent excavations around a cave at Varana Raja Maha vihara and in the Kalatuwawa area.

Cinnamon is native to Sri Lanka and has been found in Ancient Egypt as early as 1500 BC, suggesting early trade between Egypt and the island’s inhabitants. It is possible that Biblical Tarshish was located on the island. James Emerson Tennent identified Tarshish with Galle. The protohistoric Early Iron Age appears to have established itself in South India by at least as early as 1200 BC, if not earlier (Possehl 1990; Deraniyagala 1992:734). The earliest manifestation of this in Sri Lanka is radiocarbon-dated to c. 1000–800 BC at Anuradhapura and Aligala shelter in Sigiriya (Deraniyagala 1992:709-29; Karunaratne and Adikari 1994:58; Mogren 1994:39; with the Anuradhapura dating corroborated by Coningham 1999). It is very likely that further investigations will push back the Sri Lankan lower boundary to match that of South India.
Archaeological evidence for the beginnings of the Iron age in Sri Lanka is found at Anuradhapura, where a large city–settlement was founded before 900 BC. The settlement was about 15 hectares in 900 BC, but by 700 BC it had expanded to 50 hectares. A similar site from the same period has also been discovered near Aligala in Sigiriya.
The hunter-gatherer people known as the Wanniyala-Aetto or Veddas, who still live in the central, Uva and north-eastern parts of the island, are probably direct descendants of the first inhabitants, Balangoda man. They may have migrated to the island from the mainland around the time humans spread from Africa to the Indian subcontinent.
Around 500 BC, Sri Lankans developed a unique hydraulic civilization. Achievements include the construction of the largest reservoirs and dams of the ancient world as well as enormous pyramid-like Stupa (Dagoba) architecture. This phase of Sri Lankan culture was profoundly influenced by early Buddhism.
Buddhist scriptures note three visits by the Buddha to the island to see the Naga Kings, who are said to be snakes that can take the form of a human at, will. Snake transformations of the kings are thought to be symbolic and not based on historical fact.
The earliest surviving chronicles from the island, the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa, say that tribes of Yakkhas (demon worshippers), Nagas (cobra worshippers) and Devas (god worshippers) inhabited the island prior to the migration of Vijaya. Pottery has been found at Anuradhapura bearing Brahmi script and non-Brahmi writing and date back to 600 BC – one of the oldest examples of the script.

Prince Vijaya

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Prince Vijaya was the first recorded King of Sri Lanka mentioned in the Pali chronicles. His reign is traditionally dated to 543–505 BCE.The primary source for his life-story is the Mahavamsa.
The Sri Lankan chronicle, the Mahavamsa, written circa 400 CE by the monk Mahanama using the Dipavamsa and Sinhala Attakatha as sources, correlates well with Indian histories of the period. Lanka, before colonization by Prince Vijaya, was earlier inhabited by the ancient tribes known as “Yakkhas” and “Nagas”. With the arrival of Prince Vijaya and his 700 followers, the history of the Sinhalese began. Vijaya was the eldest son of King Sinhabahu and his Queen Sinhasivali of Bhurishrestha Kingdom. Vijaya married Kuveni, a local Yakkha princess, like his army marrying off local women. Later this gave rise to the modern Sinhala race. Vijaya landed on Sri Lanka near Mahathitha (Mannar), and named the island Thambaparni “copper-colored palms”.

This is attested in Ptolemy’s map of the ancient world. The Mahavamsa also claims that Lord Buddha visited Sri Lanka three times. In the first instance, it was to stop a war between a Naga king and his son-in-law who were fighting over a ruby chair. It is said that on his last visit, the Buddha left his foot-print on Sripada (Adam’s Peak). Tamirabharani was the old name for the second longest river in Sri Lanka (now known as Malwatu Oya in Sinhala & Aruvi (Aru in Tamil). This river was the main supply-route connecting the capital, Anuradhapura, to Mahathitha (Mannar). The waterway was used by Greek and Chinese ships traveling the southern Silk Route. Mahathitha was an ancient port linking Sri Lanka to Bengal and the Persian Gulf.
At the beginning of the chronicle, the king of Bengal is married to the daughter of the King of Kalinga. Their daughter, Suppadevi, was not only ‘very fair and very amorous’, but was also prophesied to consummate a ‘union with the king of beasts’- in the Mahavamsa, a lion. When this duly happened, she gave birth to two children – Sinhabahu and Sinhasivali. ‘Sinhabahu’ means ‘Lion-Armed’, and the young prince himself is described as having “hands and feet…formed like a lion’s.The family lived together in the lion’s cave, blocked in by a large rock the lion had placed to prevent their exit. Eventually, however, Suppadevi and her two children flee the cave. Later Sinhabahu kills his father with an arrow. Then, marrying his sister, he establishes a kingdom based on a city called Singhapur. Sinhasivali bears him a series of twins; their eldest child is named Vijaya, and his younger twin brother Sumitta. However, a critical twist and serious study by scholars and researchers with further references suggest that the king of Sinhpur/Sinhapura (Sihor) region’s very ancient telltales and references about Prince Vijaya, his exile, his route, are the ones which connect strongly to the history of Sri Lanka and to the Sinhalese people and culture.
Vijaya is described as indulging in “evil conduct and his followers were… (like himself), and many intolerable deeds of violence were done by them.” So antisocial were his activities that the people of the kingdom eventually demanded that the now-aging King Sinhabahu have him executed. Instead Sinhabhu had half their heads shaved, a sign of disgrace, and exiled Vijaya with his followers, their wives and children, from the kingdom – traditionally said to number a total of 700 souls. After resting in several places they are found to be hostile, and the wayward prince and his associates “landed in Lanka, in the region called Tambapanni”.
A second geographical issue is the location of Tambapanni, the landing-site of the Vijaya expedition. The Rajaveliya states that the group saw Adam’s Peak from their boats and thus landed in Southern Sri Lanka, in an area that eventually became part of the Kingdom of Ruhuna. British historian H. Parker narrowed this down to the mouth of Kirindi Oya. This is now thought to be a far too Southerly location. The more favored region currently is between the cities of Mannar and Negombo, and Puttalam, where the copper-colored beaches may have given rise to the name Tambapanni, which means ‘copper-palmed’.

Anuradhapura Period

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King Pandukabhaya, the founder and first ruler of the Anuradhapura Kingdom, fixed village boundaries in the country and established an administration system by appointing village headmen. He constructed hermitages, houses for the poor, cemeteries, and irrigation tanks. He brought a large portion of the country under the control of the Anuradhapura Kingdom. However, it was not until the reign of Dutthagamani (161–137 BC) that the whole country was unified under the Anuradhapura Kingdom. He defeated 32 rulers in different parts of the country before he killed Elara, the South Indian ruler who was occupying Anuradhapura, and ascended to the throne. The chronicle Mahavamsa describes his reign with much praise, and devotes 11 chapters out of 37 for his reign. He is described as both a warrior king and a devout Buddhist. After unifying the country, he helped establish Buddhism on a firm and secure base, and built several monasteries and shrines including the Ruwanweli Seya and Lovamahapaya.

Another notable king of the Anuradhapura Kingdom is Valagamba (103, 89–77 BC), also known as Vatthagamani Abhaya, who was overthrown by five invaders from South India. He regained his throne after defeating these invaders one by one and unified the country again under his rule. Saddha Tissa (137–119 BC), Mahaculi Mahatissa (77–63 BC), Vasabha (67–111), Gajabahu I (114–136), Dhatusena (455–473), Aggabodhi I (571–604) and Aggabodhi II (604–614) were among the rulers who held sway over the entire country after Dutthagamani and Valagamba. Rulers from Kutakanna Tissa (44–22 BC) to Amandagamani (29–19 BC) also managed to keep the whole country under the rule of the Anuradhapura Kingdom. Other rulers could not maintain their rule over the whole island, and independent regions often existed in Ruhuna and Malayarata (hill country) for limited periods. During the final years of the Anuradhapura Kingdom, rebellions sprang up and the authority of the kings gradually declined. By the time of Mahinda V (982–1017), the last king of the Anuradhapura Kingdom, the rule of the king had become so weak that he could not even properly organize the collection of taxes.
During the times of Vasabha, Mahasena (274–301) and Dhatusena, the construction of large irrigation tanks and canals was given priority. Vasabha constructed 11 tanks and 12 canals. Mahasen constructed 16 tanks and a large canal. And Dhatusena built 18 tanks. Most of the other kings have also built irrigation tanks throughout Rajarata, the area around Anuradhapura. By the end of the Anuradhapura Kingdom, a large and intricate irrigation network was available throughout Rajarata to support the agriculture of the country. Because the kingdom was largely based on agriculture, the construction of irrigation works was a major achievement of the Anuradhapura Kingdom, ensuring water supply in the dry zone and helping the country grow mostly self-sufficient. Several kings, most notably Vasabha and Mahasena, built large reservoirs and canals, which created a vast and complex irrigation network in the Rajarata area throughout the Anuradhapura period. These constructions are an indication of the advanced technical and engineering skills used to create them. The famous paintings and structures at Sigiriya; the Ruwanwelisaya, Jetavana stupas, and other large stupas; large buildings like the Lovamahapaya and religious works are landmarks demonstrating the Anuradhapura period’s advancement in sculpting.

Polonnaruwa Period

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The Kingdom of Polonnaruwa was the kingdom from which Sri Lankan kings ruled the island from the 8th century until 1310 CE. Pollonnaruwa was the fifth administrative center of the Kingdom of Rajarata.
The city is situated on the left bank of River Mahaweli. Archeological evidence and accounts in chronicles suggests that the city is as old as Anuradhapura. The Vijithagama settlement made by Vijitha in 400 BC is thought to be situated near the town. Name Pulathisipura is derived from the guardian sage of the city Pulasthi there are several theories on the name Polonnaruwa.According to the most accepted one word is derived from conjunction of to words Pulun which means cotton in Sinhala and Maruwa which mean exchanging. So Pulun+Maruwa=Polonnaruwa

After ruling the country for over 1,200 years from the Kingdom of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka was captured by Cholas in 1017A.D.Chola King Rajarajan (I) captured Anuradhapura and taken king Mahinda (V) as a captive to India. Mahinda (V) died in India on 1029. Cholas shifted the capital to Polonnaruwa and ruled Sri Lanka for 52 years. Polonnaruwa was named as Jananathamangalam by the Cholas. King Vijayabahu (I) defeated Cholas and regained the Sinhalese lineage. Polonnaruwa had previously been an important settlement in the country, as it commanded the crossings of the Mahaweli Ganga towards Anuradhapura.
Some of the rulers of Polonnaruwa include Vijayabahu (I) and Parakramabahu (I) (Parakramabahu the Great). Most of Polonnaruwa that remains today dates from after the 1150s, as the extensive civil wars that preceded Parakramabahu’s accession to the throne devastated the city. Parakrama Pandyan (II) from Pandyan Kingdom invaded the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa in the thirteenth century and ruled from 1212 to 1215 CE. He was succeeded by Kalinga Magha the founder of the Jaffna kingdom. Kalinga Magha ruled 21 years until he was expelled from Polonnaruwa in 1236.
The Kingdom of Polonnaruwa was abandoned in the 14th century, and the seat of government for the Sinhalese kings was moved to Yapahuwa. Although many factors contributed to this, the leading cause of the abandonment of Polonnaruwa as the kingdom of Sri Lanka was its susceptibility to invasions from south India.

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Portuguese Period

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[dfd_heading subtitle=”” content_alignment=”text-left” enable_delimiter=”” undefined=”” title_font_options=”tag:h4|font_size:25″ subtitle_font_options=”tag:div” heading_margin=”margin-bottom:15″]The Portuguese in Sri Lanka (1505-1658)[/dfd_heading]

By the late fifteenth century, Portugal, which had already established its dominance as a maritime power in the Atlantic, was exploring new waters. In 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and discovered an ocean route connecting Europe with India, thus inaugurating a new era of maritime supremacy for Portugal. The Portuguese were consumed by two objectives in their empire-building efforts: to convert followers of non-Christian religions to Roman Catholicism and to capture the major share of the spice trade for the European market. To carry out their goals, the Portuguese did not seek territorial conquest, which would have been difficult given their small numbers. Instead, they tried to dominate strategic points through which trade passed. By virtue of their supremacy on the seas, their knowledge of firearms, and by what has been called their “desperate soldiering” on land, the Portuguese gained an influence in South Asia that was far out of proportion to their numerical strength.

At the onset of the European period in Sri Lanka in the sixteenth century, there were three native centers of political power: the two Sinhalese kingdoms of Kotte and Kandy and the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna. Kotte was the principal seat of Sinhalese power, and it claimed a largely imaginary overlordship not only over Kandy but also over the entire island. None of the three kingdoms, however, had the strength to assert itself over the other two and reunify the island.

In 1505 Don Lourenço de Almeida, son of the Portuguese viceroy in India, was sailing off the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka looking for Moorish ships to attack when stormy weather forced his fleet to dock at Galle. Word of these strangers who “eat hunks of white stone and drink blood (presumably wine). . . and have guns with a noise louder than thunder. . .” spread quickly and reached King Parakramabahu( VIII) of Kotte (1484-1508), who offered gifts of cinnamon and elephants to the Portuguese to take back to their home port at Cochin on the Malabar Coast of southwestern India. The king also gave the Portuguese permission to build a residence in Colombo for trade purposes. Within a short time, however, Portuguese militaristic and monopolistic intentions became apparent. Their heavily fortified “trading post” at Colombo and open hostility toward the island’s Muslim traders aroused Sinhalese suspicions.

Following the decline of the Chola as a maritime power in the twelfth century, Muslim trading communities in South Asia claimed a major share of commerce in the Indian Ocean and developed extensive east-west, as well as Indo-Sri Lankan, commercial trade routes. As the Portuguese expanded into the region, this flourishing Muslim trade became an irresistible target for European interlopers. The sixteenth-century Roman Catholic Church was intolerant of Islam and encouraged the Portuguese to take over the profitable shipping trade monopolized by the Moors. In addition, the Portuguese would later have another strong motive for hostility toward the Moors because the latter played an important role in the Kandyan economy, one that enabled the kingdom successfully to resist the Portuguese.

The Portuguese soon decided that the island, which they called Cilao, conveyed a strategic advantage that was necessary for protecting their coastal establishments in India and increasing Lisbon’s potential for dominating Indian Ocean trade. These incentives proved irresistible, and, the Portuguese, with only a limited number of personnel, sought to extend their power over the island. They had not long to wait. Palace intrigue and then revolution in Kotte threatened the survival of the kingdom. The Portuguese skillfully exploited these developments. In 1521 Bhuvanekabahu, the ruler of Kotte, requested Portuguese aid against his brother, Mayadunne, the more able rival king who had established his independence from the Portuguese at Sitawake, a domain in the Kotte kingdom. Powerless on his own, King Bhuvanekabahu became a puppet of the Portuguese. But shortly before his death in 1551, the king successfully obtained Portuguese recognition of his grandson, Dharmapala, as his successor. Portugal pledged to protect Dharmapala from attack in return for privileges, including a continuous payment in cinnamon and permission to rebuild the fort at Colombo on a grander scale. When Bhuvanekabahu died, Dharmapala, still a child, was entrusted to the Franciscans for his education, and, in 1557, he converted to Roman Catholicism. His conversion broke the centuries-old connection between Buddhism and the state, and a great majority of Sinhalese immediately disqualified the young monarch from any claim to the throne. The rival king at Sitawake exploited the issue of the prince’s conversion and accused Dharmapala of being a puppet of a foreign power.

Before long, rival King Mayadunne had annexed much of the Kotte kingdom and was threatening the security of the capital city itself. The Portuguese were obliged to defend Dharmapala (and their own credibility) because the ruler lacked a popular following. They were subsequently forced to abandon Kotte and retreat to Colombo, taking the despised puppet king with them. Mayadunne and, later, his son, Rajasinha, besieged Colombo many times. The latter was so successful that the Portuguese were once even forced to eat the flesh of their dead to avoid starvation. The Portuguese would probably have lost their holdings in Sri Lanka had they not had maritime superiority and been able to send reinforcements by sea from their base at Goa on the western coast of India.

The Kingdom of Sitawake put up the most vigorous opposition to Western imperialism in the island’s history. For the seventy- three-year period of its existence, Sitawake (1521-94) rose to become the predominant power on the island, with only the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna and the Portuguese fort at Colombo beyond its control. When Rajasinha died in 1593, no effective successors were left to consolidate his gains, and the kingdom collapsed as quickly as it had arisen.

Dharmapala, despised by his countrymen and totally compromised by the Portuguese, was deprived of all his royal duties and became completely manipulated by the Portuguese advisers surrounding him. In 1580 the Franciscans persuaded him to make out a deed donating his dominions to the king of Portugal. When Dharmapala died in 1597, the Portuguese emissary, the captain-general, took formal possession of the kingdom.

Portuguese missionaries had also been busily involving themselves in the affairs of the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna, converting almost the entire island of Mannar to Roman Catholicism by 1544. The reaction of Sangily, king of Jaffna, however, was to lead an expedition to Mannar and decapitate the resident priest and about 600 of his congregation. The king of Portugal took this as a personal affront and sent several expeditions against Jaffna. The Portuguese, having disposed of the Tamil king who fled south, installed one of the Tamil princes on the throne, obliging him to pay an annual tribute. In 1619 Lisbon annexed the Kingdom of Jaffna.
After the annexation of Jaffna, only the central highland Kingdom of Kandy–the last remnant of Buddhist Singhalese power– remained independent of use control. The kingdom acquired a new significance as custodian of Singhalese nationalism. The Portuguese attempted the same strategy they had used successfully at Kotte and Jaffna and set up a puppet on the throne. They were able to put a queen on the Kandyan throne and even to have her baptized. But despite considerable Portuguese help, she was not able to retain power. The Portuguese spent the next half century trying in vain to expand their control over the Kingdom of Kandy. In one expedition in 1630, the Kandyans ambushed and massacred the whole Portuguese force, including the captain-general. The Kandyans fomented rebellion and consistently frustrated Portuguese attempts to expand into the interior.

The areas the Portuguese claimed to control in Sri Lanka were part of what they majestically called the Estado da India and were governed in name by the viceroy in Goa, who represented the king. But in actuality, from headquarters in Colombo, the captain-general, a subordinate of the viceroy, directly ruled Sri Lanka with all the affectations of royalty once reserved for the Sinhalese kings.

The Portuguese did not try to alter the existing basic structure of native administration. Although Portuguese governors were put in charge of each province, the customary hierarchy, determined by caste and land ownership, remained unchanged. Traditional Singhalese institutions were maintained and placed at the service of the new rulers. Portuguese administrators offered land grants to Europeans and Singhalese in place of salaries, and the traditional compulsory labor obligation was used for construction and military purposes.
The Portuguese tried vigorously, if not fanatically, to force religious and, to a lesser extent, educational, change in Sri Lanka. They discriminated against other religions with a vengeance, destroyed Buddhist and Hindu temples, and gave the temple lands to Roman Catholic religious orders. Buddhist monks fled to Kandy, which became a refuge for people disaffected with colonial rule. One of the most durable legacies of the Portuguese was the conversion of a large number of Sinhalese and Tamils to Roman Catholicism. Although small pockets of Nestorian Christianity had existed in Sri Lanka, the Portuguese were the first to propagate Christianity on a mass scale.

Sixteenth-century Portuguese Catholicism was intolerant. But perhaps because it caught Buddhism at its nadir, it nevertheless became rooted firmly enough on the island to survive the subsequent persecutions of the Protestant Dutch Reformists. The Roman Catholic Church was especially effective in fishing communities–both Singhalese and Tamil–and contributed to the upward mobility of the castes associated with this occupation. Portuguese emphasis on proselytization spurred the development and standardization of educational institutions. In order to convert the masses, mission schools were opened, with instruction in Portuguese and Singhalese or Tamil. Many Singhalese converts assumed Portuguese names. The rise of many families influential in the twentieth century dates from this period. For a while, Portuguese became not only the language of the upper classes of Sri Lanka but also the lingua franca of prominence in the Asian maritime world.

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