KAMALIKA PIERIS

The North and East of Sri Lanka was Sinhala and Buddhist   till the British took power in 1815. The North and East of Sri Lanka was never the area of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking peoples”.  The North and East of Sri Lanka never was the homeland” of the Tamil people”.

The North and East of Sri Lanka was a part of the Sinhala kingdom from Anuradhapura period to Udarata period. The North and East was a part of the Rajarata of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The Raja rata was divided into uttara passa (north) dakkhina, (south) pacina, (east) and pajjima (west). Uttara passa consisted of today’s Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Mannar, and Jaffna. The pacina passa consisted of the east, probably ending somewhere between Trincomalee and Batticaloa. That is my guess .Each quarter was ruled by an officer appointed by king.  

 Jaffna was an island named Nagadipa. In Vasabha’s time ((67-111 AD) Jaffna was ruled by Vasabha’s minister Isigiri. Nelugala inscription indicated that a minister, also named, Isigiri administered the north under Bhatiya Tissa II   (143-167) and Kanitta Tissa (167-186).  Inscription of Kassapa IV ((898-914) at Kadurugoda said Kassapa was the ruler of the south as well as the north. Jaffna was joined to the mainland during British rule.

Rajarata had important ports on the east and the west. There were many ports in the east to choose from and the west had the double moated port of Mantota. Dennis. N. Fernando said that ports on the north western coast, particularly Mantota, would have been used to unload goods which were then transferred through Anuradhapura to the ports at Jambukola and Seruwila in the east. It is possible that Anuradhapura became a capital due to its central position between the dominant ports on the north western and north eastern seaboard, he said. 

 Dennis N Fernando, a surveyor by profession, stated that in his view, Jambukola patuna was not in the north, it was on the east. He suggests a location close to Tiriyaya and Kuchchaveli.  Sanghamitta would have arrived at a harbor in the east he said. She woud not have disembarked at Jaffna and trudged all the way to Anuradhapura.

 Anuradhapura is only 60 miles from Jambukola (also known at Palavakki in ancient times) which is five days travel time, walking both morning and   evening.  Jaffna peninsula on the other hand is nearly 200 kms away from Anuradhapura. The journey would have taken three times longer and would have included crossing the lagoon and walking through uninhabited terrain as well.

The north and east continued to remain under the Sinhala king after the Polonnaruwa period. The capital city moved from place to place and finally came to roost at Kotte. Kokila Sandesaya (15^th century) gives a route from Kotte to Jaffna via   Mannar.   Mannar was a part of the Sitawaka kingdom.  During the time of Rajasinha I, (1581-93) Manamperi Mohottala administered Mannar.  

The Sinhala kingdom then moved to the central hills. Baldeus (1632-72) writing during the Dutch occupation, gave a list of places under the Udarata king. It included Trincomalee, Mannar, Batticaloa, and Jaffna.   

Another way of showing that the North was ruled by the Sinhala king was by comparing the language and script in northern inscription and those elsewhere. Ven. Ellawela Medhananda found that the language and script were the same in the Mailagastota,    Kallampattuva and Tunukai inscriptions.  Mailagastota was in the   south, Kallampattuva in the east and Tunukai in the north. 

 Medhananda said that inscriptions of Kassapa IV were found in south, east and northwest of the island. The script and language was the same.   He found 2 inscriptions dated to 2 century AD at Kandakudichchi Aru ruins (Eastern province). The script and language resembled inscriptions at Ritigala, Vessagiriya, and Mihintale.  

The Sinhala Buddhist environment of the North and East was recognized by researchers of the British period. Horsburgh declared in 1916 that there is ample evidence carved in stone all over the Mannar and Mullaitivu Districts to show that the Sinhalese occupied the Northern portion of the mainland, which is now Tamil country.

S.0. Canagaretnam stated in 1921 that at one time Batticaloa district had flourishing and populous Sinhala villages as evidenced by the ruins and remains dotted about there. Batticaloa district had very old stone inscriptions. One was the Nuwaragala inscription dated 4 BC found in Bintenne.

The north and east became Tamil and Hindu, after the Dutch arrived in   Sri Lanka in the 17^th century.  The history of the present day Tamils does not go beyond 1650, observed Nalin de Silva.  Tamil labourers were brought in by the Dutch to      work on their tobacco plantations. The Dutch had also taken Tamil agricultural labourers to Natal in South Africa.

The present day Tamils in the north are descendants of the low caste, landless, agriculture laborers who were brought in by the Dutch to work on the tobacco plantations in the north. The Dutch wished to expand their tobacco cultivation, said historian Bandu de Silva. The immigrant Tamils were Sudra, the lowest of the four caste groups.

In the eighteenth century, there was an active tobacco trade between Jaffna and Kerala. The tobacco which thrived in Jaffna was in great demand in Travancore.  Tobacco was paid for in gold by the ruler of Travancore who held the monopoly. The Tamils used the ‘Jaffna gold ‘brought in from Travancore tobacco market to entrench themselves in Jaffna said Bandu.

However, according to Bandu de Silva, there has also been another migration of Tamils into the north. He said The Dutch encouraged through the sale of vacant and other lands the immigration of large number of Tamils from south India.  The original owners became a landless class of serfs under these Tamils who become the new landowning class.They also introduced their own landholding system which the Dutch codified as Thesaawalami later on. (Bandu de Silva.   Tobacco gold that made Jaffna assertive. Island Sat Mag. 1.4.2006 p 1)

These Tamil arrivals were initially considered foreigners. Robert Knox met them when he was escaping to England via Mannar in 1679 and   spoke of them as the Malabars, who came from another country.’ R.Percival in his book ‘Account of the island of Ceylon” (1803) spoke of the Tamils in the Jaffna peninsula as foreigners”.

Tamil historians said that the Tamils were in the north and east from the beginning of time. They also say that there was a Kingdom of Jaffna in the 15th century .That is not so.There never was a Kingdom of Jaffna. There is no evidence of such a kingdom, such as inscriptions, monuments and historical references.

Instead, when the Pandya rulers of Tamilnadu, left Sri Lanka in 1323 after the last Pandya invasion, they left a military outpost in Jaffna, with an officer known as Ariyachakravarti in charge. Ariyachakravarti managed to annexe some of the adjoining lands and made periodic incursions into Sinhala territory. He was always defeated and sent back to Jaffna.

This Pandya outpost was taken over by the Vijayanagara kingdom of Karnataka in the 14th century as a part of Vijayanagara’s annexation of   the Tamil kingdom in south India. So there could not have been any Kingdom of Jaffna. After that, the Jaffna peninsula went under the Portuguese, (1591) Dutch (1658)   British (1795) and back to government of Ceylon in 1948. (Continued)