{"id":56197,"date":"2016-07-02T17:16:02","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T00:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=56197"},"modified":"2016-07-02T17:16:02","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T00:16:02","slug":"sinhala-place-names-in-ancient-jaffna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/07\/02\/sinhala-place-names-in-ancient-jaffna\/","title":{"rendered":"SINHALA PLACE NAMES IN ANCIENT JAFFNA"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA\u00a0 PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The place names in ancient Jaffna were Sinhala because Jaffna was a part of the Sinhala kingdom. The British administrators working in the Northern Province recognized this fact and said so in their reports.\u00a0\u00a0 Henry Parker, an irrigation engineer, presented a series of Sessional Papers to the Legislative Council in 1886 on the subject of irrigation in the Northern Province. In addition to irrigation, he had also looked into the historical information available on the places he was working in. He found that Tamil place names had been substituted for the original Sinhala names. Maha Kachchatkodi tank was originally Tittaveli, Maha Iranpaikkulam was originally Rambewetiya, Iluppaikkadavai was Sallariya, Kuruntur maai was Piyangala and Kuruntankulam was Kurunegama.<\/p>\n

J.P. Lewis, of the Ceylon Civil Service, in 1896 presented a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon branch, titled \u2018The place names in the Vanni \u2018. He said Vanni was colonized by the Tamils only recently. The original Sinhalese inhabitants had been driven out and new Tamil place names given. Some place names were Tamilised versions of the original Sinhala names. Galkandamadu became Kallukondamadu. In Tamil \u2018k\u2019 is used for \u2018ga\u2019 and \u2018ha\u2019. Many of the Tamil names in the Vanni had their exact equivalents in Sinhalese villages. \u2018Mandukoddai\u2019 was Manadukanda, \u2018Uhanda\u2019 was Okanda. Lewis found heaps of Puliyankulams in the Vanni. Kulam is Tamil for tank. The original name of one such Puliyankulam was Siyabalagaswewa. \u2018Vilankulam\u2019 was earlier Diwulwewa. Sinhalese tended to name places after trees, plants or incidents connected to the place, said Lewis.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Horsburgh published an essay on Sinhalese place names in the Jaffna Peninsula\u201d, in the Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register, 1916. <\/em>He said that the Sinhalese had earlier occupied the north portion of the mainland, which is now Tamil country. \u2018There is ample evidence carried in stone all over Mannar and Mullaitivu district. In Jaffna the evidence is in the place names,\u2019 he said. At least thirty of the place names in Jaffna were Sinhala in origin. He pointed out that Tamil place names which ended in \u2018kalappu\u2019, \u2018vattei\u2019, \u2018palai\u2019, \u2018kam\u2019, \u2018pai\u2019 and \u2018vil\u2019 were meaningless in Tamil. \u2018Vil\u2019 is bow in Tamil, \u2018pai\u2019 is net or sail.<\/em> However the names made sense when they were seen as translation of Sinhala names. Valikamam and Vimankam have no meaning in Tamil but made sense as the Tamilised versions of Weligama and Vimangama. Chunnakam was Hunugama, Kokkuvil was Kokavila, Uduvil was Uduvila, Tanankalapu was Tanankalapuwa, Saravattai was Sarawatte and Manipai was Mampe.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Horburgh\u2019s views met with a favorable response. Rev. S. Gnana Prakasar and S.W. Coomaraswamy wrote to the Ceylon Antiquary <\/em>agreeing with Horsburgh and giving their own lists of Tamilised place names. S. Sabaratnam partially agreed with Horsburgh.\u00a0 Rev. Gnana Prakasar\u00a0\u00a0 listed more villages ending in \u2018vil\u2019 such as Kandavil and Inuvil.\u00a0 He drew attention to villages ending in \u2018vattei\u2019, such as\u00a0 Polvattei and\u00a0 Sittavattei, villages ending with \u2018kumbura\u2019 such as Markkamburei, villages using \u2018yaya\u2019 such as Moolay , \u2018deniya\u2019 as in Narandanei and\u00a0 \u2018eliya\u2019\u00a0 as in\u00a0 Puloly.\u00a0 S.W. Coomaraswamy said Manipai was not Mampe but Mampaya and Sandituppay was probably Sandurupaya.\u00a0 J.P. Lewis gave Tamilised Sinhala place names from Mannar and Mullaitivu.<\/p>\n

    Paul\u00a0 E. Pieris (1917) also observed that place names in Jaffna derived from Sinhala. He mentioned Valikamam (Weligama), Kodikaman (Godigamuwa), Kat pokkanari (Gal pokuna)and\u00a0 Udupiti (Udupitiya). He stated that the 1645 Jaffna Foral of the Portuguese used the word \u2018gama\u2019 to describe the lands in Vanni allotted to Tamils for cultivation. Godakumbura ( 1968)\u00a0 said Kantarodai was originally known as Kadurugoda. He thought that\u00a0 Chunnakam\u00a0 was not Hunugama, it could be Sulanagama from the Pali word \u00a0Cullanagagama<\/p>\n

    it could be Kannangara in his book Jaffna and the Sinhala heritage<\/em> (1984) says Tisamalai was\u00a0\u00a0 earlier Tissagama,\u00a0 Mallakam was Mallagama, Keerimalai was Mugatikanda and\u00a0 Puloli was\u00a0 Kaputota.\u00a0 Tellippalai was Telipola. He observed that the Sinhala Nam Pota mentions Telipola. Sinhala Nam Pota\u00a0 also gave the name Puvangu divaina to Pungudutivu. The place was also called Piyangudipa. Piyangudipa is mentioned in the Vallipuram gold plate which speaks of \u2018Piyaguka tissa who built a monastery there…\u2019 Kannangara\u00a0 observed that at\u00a0 \u2018Gothamaluwa watta\u2019 on Ponnali, on Point Pedro road,\u00a0 the name is still in original Sinhala.<\/p>\n

    P.A.T. Gunasinghe said in The Tamils of Sri Lanka<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (1984) that place names like Polvattai refer to the Sinhala used in the 14th century. They showed that Jaffna was populated by Sinhalese\u00a0 in the medieval period. He added that in the east too,\u00a0 place names like Mattakalapu are direct borrowings from Sinhala. Madakalapuwa in Tamil is Chattakuli. Somapala Gunadheera (2011) pointed out that Omanthai is from Omatta.<\/p>\n

    Present day commentators such as D.G.A. Perera\u00a0 also point out that many Sinhala names in the north and east have been Tamilised. The list includes Dambakolapatuna (Sambilturai), Gangahistota (Kankesanturai) Girikande (Keerimalai) Girinuwara (Mutur) Meenipitya (Manipai), Nagadeepa (Nainativu), Somapura (Sampur) and\u00a0 Udupitiya (Udippidi).<\/p>\n

    The name given to Jaffna peninsula today is \u2018Yalpanam.\u2019 The origin of this name is given as a fanciful legend. Simon Casie Chetty\u00a0 in Tamil Plutarch<\/em> (1859) says Yalapana Nayanar, a blind minstrel came to the peninsula, having had a quarrel with his wife in Tamilnadu. The Tamil king was pleased with his\u00a0 playing and gave him a piece of land which turned out to be the Jaffna peninsula. The peninsula was uninhabited. Yalpana nayar cleared it and brought down a colony of Tamils to settle in it and called it Yalapana nadu. The Skanda Purana<\/em>\u00a0 gives a different story. It says that the king, pleased with the playing of a\u00a0 musician named Susangita , gave him the name Yalpana since he was always with a lute in his hand. Susangita\u00a0 cleared the land he was given, established a settlement and called it Yalpanam. (Denham 1911 p 71)<\/p>\n

    Horsburgh dismissed the legend as pure myth, saying it had no historical foundation whatever. He though that \u2018Yapana\u2019 had come from \u2018Yapa\u2019 which was a good Sinhala word and \u2018na\u2019 was used as an ending as in Habarana. \u2018Yalpanam\u2019 he thought was a later elaboration. E.T.Kannangara\u00a0\u00a0 said\u00a0 that Yapane would have come from Yapapatuna, which means \u2018town of the crown prince.\u2019 Yapane, according to this, is not a name at all, it is a description.<\/p>\n

    Paul E Pieris\u00a0 stumbled on the correct ancient\u00a0 name for Jaffna, while researching the Buddhist ruins of Jaffna.\u00a0 He wanted to find out the location of Nagadipa. According to the Mahavamsa the second visit of Gautama Buddha was to Nagadipa.\u00a0\u00a0 The main embarkation point to north India in ancient times was Jambukola in \u2018Nagadipa\u2019. From Jambukola it took seven days to get to Tamralipti, a port at the mouth of the Ganges. Jambukola therefore had to be in the Jaffna peninsula. Pieris\u00a0\u00a0 concluded that the name given to the Jaffna peninsula and its islands was \u2018Nagadipa\u2019.<\/p>\n

    Pieris read a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch,\u00a0 saying that \u2018Nagadipa\u2019 was the name given to the Jaffna peninsula and its islands. John M Senaveratne present at the talk said that Pieris has \u2018confirmed for us what was for long suspected and indicated\u2019 by B. Horsburgh and J.P.Lewis that Jaffna was a part of the ancient Sinhala Buddhist civilization. The paper was published as \u2018Nagadipa and Buddhist remains in Jaffna\u2019 (1917).\u00a0 The Vallipuram gold plate, found around 1936, settled the matter. It confirmed that \u2018Nakadiva\u2019 was the ancient name for Jaffna.\u00a0 In 1968 C.E.\u00a0 Godakumbura reiterated,\u00a0 through the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Ceylon Branch,\u00a0 that the ancient name for Jaffna peninsula was Nagadipa. (http:\/\/www.island.lk\/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=147882<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    KAMALIKA\u00a0 PIERIS The place names in ancient Jaffna were Sinhala because Jaffna was a part of the Sinhala kingdom. The British administrators working in the Northern Province recognized this fact and said so in their reports.\u00a0\u00a0 Henry Parker, an irrigation engineer, presented a series of Sessional Papers to the Legislative Council in 1886 on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}