Chanaka Bandarage

This Part is prepared basically to respond to comments made by readers in the two earlier articles about this topic.

Within our country, we can say anything.  We can glorify ourselves and of course, everyone will be happy. But, the facts asserted must be 100% true. Also, the rest of the world must accept them.

What we must bear in mind is that the world at large has not yet accepted our recent findings – eg, Sri Lanka had an advanced civilization before others. According to the current school history textbooks (2015 edition), it began 125,000 years ago

It is universally accepted that Mohenjodaro and Mesopotamia were the world’s foremost advanced human settlements. They existed about 5,000 – 5,500 years ago.

Naming the so-called pre-Vijaya civilization as ‘Homo-sapiens Civilization’ in school history books is bizarre. Homo sapiens is the name coined by Linnaeus in 1758, they are the species to which all modern human beings belong. The homo-sapiens is not a distinct Sri Lankan identity. To discard well-known Vijaya in lieu of the unknown homo-sapiens is cruel.

Currently, we say many new things but the rest of the world has been silent and uninterested.

Currently, the whole world acknowledges that China invented cast the iron some 3,500 years ago; but these books say our homo-sapiens made iron more than 4,500 years ago.  At least we should discuss with Chinese archeologists/universities etc, convince them, and ask them to certify that we did this before them.  That is just one way of obtaining credibility, and there are many ways.

Paranavitana et al always operated that way. They held high worldwide credibility.

That is why the world regards Sigiriya as the world’s 8^th wonder. That is why Wikipedia states that King Dutu Gamunu built Ruwanweli Maha Seya.

One of the editors of these history books (hereinafter the editor) had stated elsewhere (in YouTube videos) that we grew rice paddy 49,000 years ago and that Barley and Oates may have been grown in Horton Plains (at the moment the whole world believes that rice paddy cultivation was first started in China about 13,500 years ago and Barley was first harvested in Israel about 10,000 years ago). He also states that lions had roamed in ancient Sri Lanka.

Archeologists/Anthropologists/Historians of the world must acknowledge and accept these new findings. Afterward, they will alter their books, amend records and other documents. Then only world-famous websites such as Wikipedia, Google, BBC, Yahoo, Oxford Dictionary, various encyclopedias, history books, etc would include them in their records. 

The editor has implied in the videos that Kuweni’s clan may have had a Tamil lineage, Buddhism may have existed in Sri Lanka prior to the arrival of Ven Mihindu, Vijaya seems a myth, Sinhalese do not possess Vijaya’s genes, and that Mahavansa is dubious.  What he has stated is contrary to the history that we have learned and accepted from time immemorial.  That author has made many grave pronouncements; to the best of my knowledge, none of them have been internationally acknowledged/accepted.

It is important that our Archeologists/Anthropologists/Historians publish their new findings in international journals/magazines etc.  And, that international institutes, universities, museums, etc accept these recent, marvelous findings as true and authentic.

Re Ravana – some Hindus in India believe in Ramayanaya but we in Sri Lanka (including Tamils) have always accepted it as a myth. Tamil separatists in order to carve out their separate state – Tamil Eelam, invented the lie that Ravana existed in Sri Lanka and that he was a Tamil King (to establish that Tamils were here before the Sinhalese).  We then ‘got in the bandwagon’ to rebut their claim and tried saying that Ravana was indeed a Sinhala King. Basically we got caught in the Tamil separatist trick. We do not know how to get out of the mess now.

In the recent past, the battle between the Tamil separatists and us regarding Ravana ‘ownership’ has intensified. It has become somewhat a ‘dog fight’. The dispute has become so bad that separatists now claim that Sigiriya was built by Ravana and not King Kashyapa. They have even gone to the extent of saying that Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka during the time of King Devanam Piyatissam (a Tamil!). The separatists receive a lot of international support and millions of funding– from groups vested in the splitting of our country. The Sinhalese have nil international support. We are confined to 7/9 provinces of the country (only 2/3 of the landmass) and even in the lush midlands, we seem to have ‘lost power’ as ‘Malayanadu’ concept seems to gain momentum.

What we should have done was to disregard the Tamil separatist lie and stuck to our Great Chronicle, the Mahavansa. Mahavansa does not say anything about Ravana. 

As outlined before, since recently there exists a discourse in this country that we have had an elaborate pre-Vijaya civilization and that Vijaya and Mahavansa are unimportant and irrelevant.

The current history textbooks have adopted this position (basically, this is an underlying theme of the Grades 6 and 10 books). They stipulate that even if Vijaya existed, he only continued with the lavish homo –sapiens civilization. And, that Vijaya did not begin civilization in this country though Mahavansa proclaims so. This is a major deviation from our established history.

And, this is a serious situation. 

This is not just a question about our history, but about our identity as well – the Sinhala Buddhists.  We are confined to this island and ‘we have nowhere else to go’. The writer believes that the current Sinhala Buddhist population in the country must be around 60% and that in 50 years’ time it would drop to around 40% (Sinhalese, the ‘dying’ race).  We continue to ferociously fight on party political lines, in the meantime the separatist conjugate and become stronger.

The school textbooks clearly state that the ethnicity of the homo-sapiens is not an issue. The editor had previously articulated this in his YouTube videos.  This is clearly an attack on the claim we are making that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country (even His Eminence the Cardinal has accepted this and also the Muslims).

Why cannot the school history textbooks boldly say that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country?  

Why cannot the school history textbooks boldly say, unequivocally, that the Sinhala race started from Vijaya, the Prince of northern India?

Why are we scared to reveal the truth to our present-day younger generation – they are the future of this country.

The books must try to promote patriotism among children, nothing of that sort has been done in them.

Re Kuweni – it is possible that she and her clan were living in thatched houses and Mahavansa records that when she first met Vijaya she was knitting cotton. But, the claim that when Vijaya arrived, Sri Lanka was a highly organized advanced society or developing into one that needs to be substantiated more with evidence and elaborately.

The comments made by Aloy that we had supplied the biggest ships to the Emperor of China and that we possessed Astro navigation technology; again, for credibility purposes, we must obtain international archeological/anthropological recognition for them. If true, the Chinese could issue certification in that regard. Thereafter, we must ‘market’ these findings internationally (in various ways) so that the rest of the world would accept our history and give it prominence.

It is extremely important that we continuously write and publicize about our new archeological discoveries/findings in the international scene.

As to how I see them, the textbooks have been carefully prepared to discredit Vijaya’s arrival and the Great Chronicle Mahavansa. Effectively, they could be described as an attack on our Sinhala Buddhist heritage.

The textbooks do not sufficiently emphasize on our (including Tamil) ways of life, the advanced Sinhalese (and Tamil) values, customs and cultures, the strong nexus between Sinhala village/ Buddhist temple, the unique hydraulic irrigation system and how and why the homo sapiens became Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim, etc.

 I am very concerned about the dilemma that our history students may face when they travel overseas (eg for higher studies), say to the US, UK, Australia, China, Japan, India, etc. Our students would be asked to substantiate their claims as at the moment they are not even regionally recognized. I am concerned about our history students possibly becoming ‘out of place’ and/or even becoming ‘lost’ among their colleagues as most of what we currently say is limited to our country alone.

The issue at hand is that our ‘new history’ claims directly challenge/are in conflict with the existing world history.  We suddenly say that we were the pioneers in many fields, but has repeatedly stated herein we have not done our basic groundwork of obtaining the necessary international sanctions/acknowledgments for them.

The writer is an international lawyer.

srilankasupportgroup@bigpond.com