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Sri Lanka Rise of Sinhalese and Tamil Ethnic Awareness
Because the Mahavamsa is essentially a chronicle of
the early Sinhalese-Buddhist royalty on the island, it does not
provide information on the island's early ethnic distributions.
There is, for instance, only scant evidence as to when the first
Tamil settlements were established. Tamil literary sources,
however, speak of active trading centers in southern India as
early as the third century B.C. and it is probable that these
centers had at least some contact with settlements in northern
Sri Lanka. There is some debate among historians as to whether
settlement by Indo-Aryan speakers preceded settlement by
Dravidian-speaking Tamils, but there is no dispute over the fact
that Sri Lanka, from its earliest recorded history, was a
multiethnic society. Evidence suggests that during the early
centuries of Sri Lankan history there was considerable harmony
between the Sinhalese and Tamils.
The peace and stability of the island were first
significantly affected around 237 B.C. when two adventurers from
southern India, Sena and Guttika, usurped the Sinhalese throne at
Anuradhapura. Their combined twenty-two-year rule marked the
first time Sri Lanka was ruled by Tamils. The two were
subsequently murdered, and the Sinhalese royal dynasty was
restored. In 145 B.C., a Tamil general named Elara, of the Chola
dynasty (which ruled much of India from the ninth to twelfth
centuries A.D.), took over the throne at Anuradhapura and ruled
for forty-four years. A Sinhalese king, Dutthagamani (or
Duttugemunu), waged a fifteen-year campaign against the Tamil
monarch and finally deposed him.
Dutthagamani is the outstanding hero of the Mahavamsa,
and his war against Elara is sometimes depicted in contemporary
accounts as a major racial confrontation between Tamils and
Sinhalese. A less biased and more factual interpretation,
according to Sri Lankan historian K.M. de Silva, must take into
consideration the large reserve of support Elara had among the
Sinhalese. Furthermore, another Sri Lankan historian, Sinnappah
Arasaratnam, argues that the war was a dynastic struggle that was
purely political in nature. As a result of Dutthagamani's
victory, Anuradhapura became the locus of power on the island.
Arasaratnam suggests the conflict recorded in the
Mahavamsa marked the beginning of Sinhalese nationalism
and that Dutthagamani's victory is commonly interpreted as a
confirmation that the island was a preserve for the Sinhalese and
Buddhism. The historian maintains that the story is still capable
of stirring the religio-communal passions of the Sinhalese.
The Tamil threat to the Sinhalese Buddhist kingdoms had
become very real in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. Three
Hindu empires in southern India--the Pandya, Pallava, and Chola--
were becoming more assertive. The Sinhalese perception of this
threat intensified because in India, Buddhism--vulnerable to
pressure and absorption by Hinduism--had already receded. Tamil
ethnic and religious consciousness also matured during this
period. In terms of culture, language, and religion, the Tamils
had identified themselves as Dravidian, Tamil, and Hindu,
respectively.
Another Sinhalese king praised in the Mahavamsa is
Dhatusena (459-77), who, in the fifth century A.D., liberated
Anuradhapura from a quarter- century of Pandyan rule. The king
was also honored as a generous patron of Buddhism and as a
builder of water storage tanks. Dhatusena was killed by his son,
Kasyapa (477-95), who is regarded as a great villain in Sri
Lankan history. In fear of retribution from his exiled brother,
the parricide moved the capital from Anuradhapura to Sigiriya, a
fortress and palace perched on a monolithic rock 180 meters high.
Although the capital was returned to Anuradhapura after Kasyapa
was dethroned, Sigiriya is an architectural and engineering fete
displayed in an inaccessible redoubt. The rock fortress
eventually fell to Kasyapa's brother, who received help from an
army of Indian mercenaries.
In the seventh century A.D., Tamil influence became firmly
embedded in the island's culture when Sinhalese Prince Manavamma
seized the throne with Pallava assistance. The dynasty that
Manavamma established was heavily indebted to Pallava patronage
and continued for almost three centuries. During this time,
Pallava influence extended to architecture and sculpture, both of
which bear noticeable Hindu motifs.
By the middle of the ninth century, the Pandyans had risen to
a position of ascendancy in southern India, invaded northern Sri
Lanka, and sacked Anuradhapura. The Pandyans demanded an
indemnity as a price for their withdrawal. Shortly after the
Pandyan departure, however, the Sinhalese invaded Pandya in
support of a rival prince, and the Indian city of Madurai was
sacked in the process.
In the tenth century, the Sinhalese again sent an invading
army to India, this time to aid the Pandyan king against the
Cholas. The Pandyan king was defeated and fled to Sri Lanka,
carrying with him the royal insignia. The Chola, initially under
Rajaraja the Great (A.D 985-1018), were impatient to recapture
the royal insignia; they sacked Anuradhapura in A.D. 993 and
annexed Rajarata--the heartland of the Sinhalese kingdom--to the
Chola Empire. King Mahinda V, the last of the Sinhalese monarchs
to rule from Anuradhapura, fled to Rohana, where he reigned until
1017, when the Chola took him prisoner. He subsequently died in
India in 1029.
Under the rule of Rajaraja's son, Rajendra (1018-35), the
Chola Empire grew stronger, to the extent that it posed a threat
to states as far away as the empire of Sri Vijaya in modern
Malaysia and Sumatra in Indonesia. For seventy-five years, Sri
Lanka was ruled directly as a Chola province. During this period,
Hinduism flourished, and Buddhism received a serious setback.
After the destruction of Anuradhapura, the Chola set up their
capital farther to the southeast, at Polonnaruwa, a strategically
defensible location near the Mahaweli Ganga, a river that offered
good protection against potential invaders from the southern
Sinhalese kingdom of Ruhunu
(see
fig. 2). When the Sinhalese
kings regained their dominance, they chose not to reestablish
themselves at Anuradhapura because Polonnaruwa offered better
geographical security from any future invasions from southern
India. The area surrounding the new capital already had a well-
developed irrigation system and a number of water storage tanks
in the vicinity, including the great Minneriya Tank and its
feeder canals built by King Mahasena (A.D. 274-301), the last of
the Sinhalese monarchs mentioned in the Mahavamsa.
King Vijayabahu I drove the Chola out of Sri Lanka in A.D.
1070. Considered by many as the author of Sinhalese freedom, the
king recaptured Anuradhapura but ruled from Polonnaruwa, slightly
less than 100 kilometers to the southeast. During his forty-year
reign, Vijayabahu I (A.D. 1070-1110) concentrated on rebuilding
the Buddhist temples and monasteries that had been neglected
during Chola rule. He left no clearly designated successor to his
throne, and a period of instability and civil war followed his
rule until the rise of King Parakramabahu I, known as the Great
(A.D. 1153-86).
Parakramabahu is the greatest hero of the Culavamsa,
and under his patronage, the city of Polonnaruwa grew to rival
Anuradhapura in architectural diversity and as a repository of
Buddhist art. Parakramabahu was a great patron of Buddhism and a
reformer as well. He reorganized the sangha (community of
monks) and healed a longstanding schism between Mahavihara--the
Theravada Buddhist monastery--and Abhayagiri--the Mahayana
Buddhist monastery. Parakramabahu's reign coincided with the last
great period of Sinhalese hydraulic engineering; many remarkable
irrigation works were constructed during his rule, including his
crowning achievement, the massive Parakrama Samudra (Sea of
Parakrama or Parakrama Tank). Polonnaruwa became one of the
magnificent capitals of the ancient world, and nineteenth-century
British historian Sir Emerson Tenant even estimated that during
Parakramabahu's rule, the population of Polonnaruwa reached 3
million--a figure, however, that is considered to be too high by
twentieth-century historians.
Parakramabahu's reign was not only a time of Buddhist
renaissance but also a period of religious expansionism abroad.
Parakramabahu was powerful enough to send a punitive mission
against the Burmese for their mistreatment of a Sri Lankan
mission in 1164. The Sinhalese monarch also meddled extensively
in Indian politics and invaded southern India in several
unsuccessful expeditions to aid a Pandyan claimant to the throne.
Although a revered figure in Sinhalese annals, Parakramabahu
is believed to have greatly strained the royal treasury and
contributed to the fall of the Sinhalese kingdom. The post-
Parakramabahu history of Polonnaruwa describes the destruction of
the city twenty-nine years after his death and fifteen rulers
later.
For the decade following Parakramabahu's death, however, a
period of peace and stability ensued during the reign of King
Nissankamalla (A.D. 1187-97). During Nissankamalla's rule, the
Brahmanic legal system came to regulate the Sinhalese caste
system. Henceforth, the highest caste stratum became identified
with the cultivator caste, and land ownership conferred high
status. Occupational caste became hereditary and regulated
dietary and marriage codes. At the bottom of the caste strata was
the Chandala, who corresponded roughly to the Indian untouchable.
It was during this brief period that it became mandatory for the
Sinhalese king to be a Buddhist.
Data as of October 1988
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