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Hindus set to convert to Buddhism
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rswkv
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3 Nov 2006 07:56:47 GMT Report for Abuse
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Guys,
Forgive me if I'm disturbing your unique discussion. But as a person who has been following your all theories, I just though of adding some info based on scientific evidence on Sinhalese.
Following is the assessment of a genetic analysis done on specimen of Sri Lankan containing Sinhalese Tamils and others had to reveal.
Genetic and anthropological assessments
Overall, the evidence supports the strong possibility that the Sinhalese are largely indigenous to Sri Lanka and adopted the Indo-Aryan language from invaders who in turn showed limited ancestry from some original Indo-Aryan invaders stemming from some Eurasian homeland. Ultimately,the genetic evidence also shows substantial genetic drift that corresponds to geography and in the case of Sri Lanka supports the notion that most Sinhalese stem from very early migrants, rather than later invaders:
Please refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese for more info. |
Kulakottan
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3 Nov 2006 08:00:00 GMT Report for Abuse
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Mucha,
Just a clarification on one of your comments:
However, according to my knowledge it is nowhere made any specific reference to a Siva temple. What it all speaks about is a temple where Brahminical Gods were worshipped.
Even though the Gieger's English translation does not specifically say that a Siva temple was destroyed, in his foot note quoting the pali version of the Tika he clarifies that King Mahasena destroyed symbols of Siva:
The Tika then adds:
Evam sabbaththa Lankadipamhi kuditthikAnam Alayam viddhaamesetvA, SivalingadAyo nAsetvA buddhasAsanam eva patittahapesi.
Everywhere in the island of Lanka he established the doctrine of the Buddha having abolished the symbols of Siva and so forth
According to the Tika the Gokarna-vihara is one of such viharas established on the coast of the Eastern sea.
It is clear that it was Sivalingam and not just Brahmanical Gods!
Edited By - Kulakottan - 3 Nov 2006 08:17:18 GMT |
LuLa
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3 Nov 2006 09:04:23 GMT Report for Abuse
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WIKIPEDIA???????????????????????????
Kula,
Oh yes, regarding King Mahasena destroying the Siva temple, another important point I missed.
Thanks a lot kula for that information.
Edited By - LuLa - 3 Nov 2006 09:05:21 GMT |
Kulakottan
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3 Nov 2006 12:48:08 GMT Report for Abuse
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Lula,
'Thangal siththam en pAckiyam'.
Edited By - Kulakottan - 3 Nov 2006 12:48:53 GMT |
Muru
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3 Nov 2006 17:49:27 GMT Report for Abuse
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That is not all. There are truck loads of other inscription discovered in the so called native Tamil Homeland belonging to the period before 13th CAD and almost all of them are written in early forms of Sinhala. The inscriptions are in Prakit, not the Sinhala language we identify with today. When did Prakit become Sinhala? Where do you draw the line? What is beyond reasonable doubt is that the dominant ethnic group of Jaffna at the time of 300 AD were the Nagas - a group who regarded themselves distinct from both the Ila and Demala people. According to K.Indrapala between 300 AD-900 AD they had lost their distinct identity and became Tamils or Sinhalas depending on where they lived. The Nagas of Tamil Nadu had also assimilated by this time in places like Nagapattinam. The Nagas were the first people to settle in Jaffna, according to both Siran Deranyigala and K.Indrapala in the EIA. The area was not settled in the mesolithic era due to its arid environment.
The CLASSIC EXAMPLE to this effect is the Vallipuram Gold Plate inscription which is about a Buddhist Vihara at Piyanguka (aka Puwangu Dweepa which is present day Punguduthivu) built by a Minister of King Vasabha (67-111 AD)
Therefore, around 100AD the main inhabitants of Jaffna were not the Tamils or the Ila people, but the Nagas. At that time there were no doubt Ila and Demala people residing in the peninsula, but neither group were the dominant ethnic group. It is not historically sound to make assumptions that all Buddhists and Prakit speaking people are equivalent to the Ila people of that era, or indeed the Sinhala people of today. The minister of King Vasabha mentioned in the inscription has the Tamil name Isiki-rayan. 'Rayan' means chief in Tamil (equivalent of Raja). In the inscription there are also crude Prakritisations of Tamil words and a clear Tamil substratum. This indicates that there was a significant Tamil component in Nagadeepa at the time. I advise everyone to read Indrapala's book, it is without doubt the most authoritative book that has been ever written on the NE of SL to date. Sadly, you can only get hold of it in SL, so you may want to import it:
http://www.srilankanbooks.com/preview.php3?ID=22601
Edited By - Muru - 4 Nov 2006 13:51:22 GMT |
shan
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4 Nov 2006 00:35:29 GMT Report for Abuse
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Hello Maru
I hope you may have the answers to my doubts. Some thing is quite obvious that ethnic problem in SL is not 50 years old history. The 1st recorded ethnically motivated problem was in BC and happened in the heart of NC province. Do you think it was a myth or an epic? I dont think so because there was evidence to it.
Vijaya took the power marrying the tribal Queen.He stayed back In SL because he was chased out and has no place to go. Was Ellala also chased out of Tamil nadu with his friends? How many of them crossed the sea and who was the King in India organised that invation? If Vijaya and his friends were speaking of the language of the land ie the ancient Sinhela obviously that would have happen to Ellara and Co.
Then comes the Northern province. Was it under Sinhala Kings and speaking the same language as their neighbours in NC province. Here comes a reasonable suggestion by some experts.
The inscriptions are in Prakit, not the Sinhala language we identify with today. When did Prakit become Sinhala? Where do you draw the line? What is beyond reasonable doubt is that the dominant ethnic group of Jaffna at the time of 300AD were the Nagas - a group who regarded themselves distinct from both the Ila and Demala people. According to K.Indrapala between 300AD-900AD they had lost their distinct identity and became Tamils or Sinhalas depending on where they lived. The Nagas of Tamil Nadu had also assimilated by this time in places like Nagapattinam. The Nagas were the first people to settle in Jaffna, according to both Siran Deranyigala and K.Indrapala in the EIA. The area was not settled in the mesolithic era due to its arid environment.
1# The people belong to the land became the current population as SL Tamils or Sinhala
2# Sinhala kings and Southerners has little influence over this community.
3# Re; Having a Buddhist temple and some inscriptions
How many Buddha statues been erected in NE by the Govt over the last 20 years period?
If you see the SL parliament hansard in 200 years time it will give Sinhala names as Govt agents and govt in the NE.
When Indian Red Cross brought relieve material SLN stopped them in the mid sea. Officers involved in that incident would have been 100% sinhalese name.
So in 200 years time some can conveniently argue that NE population were Sinhalese!
Given the animosity between the Ethnic groups over two millennium finding some inscriptions and temples here and there alone and extrapolating to an extraordinary extent is not acceptable and wont reflect the ethnicity of land.
Edited By - shan - 4 Nov 2006 08:44:02 GMT |
LuLa
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5 Nov 2006 15:11:56 GMT Report for Abuse
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Mucha,
You must be the first person to come up with this as a Theory.
WHAT THEORY???
About Tamil Buddhists living in the country from 3CBC to 12 CAD???
Or, about those Tamil Buddhists living in the country getting converted into Tamil Hindus after the 12 CAD???
From 9 CAD on wards, the Chola influence in the Island was well recognized. If the Sinhala Buddhists who lived in the North got converted into Tamil Hindus and adopted the castes such as Koviars, Nallawas, and Tanakaras, and if the Sinhala King Sena 1 got converted to Saivism, don?t you think that the Tamil Buddhists living in the country would have also got converted to Hindus (Saivism)?
I have explained in my last post, who are the people responsible for the evolution of Sri Lankan (Eela) Tamils. The coverts of those Tamil Buddhists who worshipped those Buddhist Temples since antiquity were only a part of the modern day Tamil Hindus, but there are many others including Sinhalese and Malabars. (Its not my theory, please read some latest books on Tamil history such as your former and my present favorite professor).
As far as I know, the first person who made few rants to this effect is Appapillai Amirthalinkam. What he in fact said was that the people who worshipped numerous Buddhist Temples that existed in North **AND** East are Tamil Buddhists.
What Appapillai Amirthalingam said was not correct because, before the 12th CAD, the people who worshipped numerous Buddhist Temples that existed in the NorthEast were not only Tamil Buddhists but also Sinhalese Buddhists.
Lula, it is true that there were Tamil Buddhists in Sri Lanka in the past
Yes, it is true, from 3CBC (after Devanampiyatissa) to 12 CAD (before the Chola conversion to Saivism).
However Lula, there is a little problem. Almost all the ruins so far discovered in North **AND** East have somehow been identified to have built by Sinhala Kings.
I cannot see any problem here, from 3 CBC to 12 CAD, the North-Central Kingdom was ruled from time to time by both Sinhala and Tamil kings, most of them were Buddhists or patrons of Buddhism and there subjects who were living in the North-Central and the North-East (Tamils and Sinhalese) were mostly Buddhists.
It makes no difference to the Tamils during that period even if there places of worship were built by the Sinhala Kings. The people in the north (Tamils and Sinhalese) would have had no objection what so ever to the benevolent and accommodating rule of the Anuradhapura kings whether they were Sinhalese or Tamils.
Also, there may have been many native Tamil Buddhist Kings (not invaders) out of the many rulers of Anuradhapura whose ethnic identities the chronicles may not have mentioned at all and therefore we will never know.
Lula, I know that the above is not going to prove that there were no Tamil Buddhists among the worshippers of those temples.
Absolutely, you are very correct.
However the fact it proves is that those areas (i.e. Peninsular Jaffna) were under the exclusive control of Sinhala Kings at the time and that there wasn't any independent Tamil Kingdoms in that part of the country at that time.
NO, (Peninsular Jaffna) were under the exclusive control of Anuradhapura Kings (NOT just Sinhala Kings). Of the twenty nine rulers of Anuradhapura listed in the chronicles from 250 CBC to 1 CAD, nine are described as Tamils.
Remember, it was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society according to K Indrapala, Siran Deraniyagala, Leslie Gunawardena and Sudarshan Seneviratne.
Peninsular Jaffna got separated geographically with independent Tamil Kingdoms only after the 12 CAD.
The problem is all most all the inscription belonged to the times these temples were built were written (carved) in the early forms of Prakit Sinhala using early forms of Sinhala Syllables. Dont forget that this was a time Tamil syllabary had already started its own course of development from Brahmi and was well into that. The fact is none of those characters have no relation to Brahmic Tamil syllabary whatsoever.
Here also, you are somewhat correct.
Since Buddhism was the major religion and Prakrit (spoken by Buddha, was considered to be the sacred language of the Buddhists) was the lingua franca and presumably the language of the elite, records left by different ethnic groups, including the Demedas, are in this common language. Sri Lankans and the people of South India were able to communicate with each other and cooperate because of the use of Prakrit, a language used by the traders of South Asia in ancient times. The spread of Prakrit in both South India and Sri Lanka had brought about major cultural changes in both places.
Even the Tamil Buddhists were NOT identifiable as Tamils by their names as their names were also in Prakrit. They can only be identified as Tamils if they had used the ethnic description Demada, but at that time, most of them would not have felt the need to use the ethnic description (we only know about the ones who used).
That is why, if the chronicles did not mention about those Tamils including the Tamil Kings of Anuradhapura and if our historians were to depend only on the Prakrit inscriptions, we would not have known that they were Tamils. With those Prakrit inscriptions (only), if there were no chronicles, Prof. Paranavithana would have come up with a completely different version of history and Muchalinda will be arguing that Sena, Guttaka and most others (Tamils) were Sinhalese.
It is an established fact that Tamil originated from Brahmi. Prakrit may have been the main contributor in developing the early forms of Sinhala or the Hela language but none of the renowned linguistics or epigraphists have proved or confirmed yet that the early or the present Hela/Sinhala characters are from Prakit and there was nothing called Prakit Sinhala.
It was Wilhelm Geiger who first came up with the term Prakrit-Sinhala (3rd CBC - 4th CAD) when he divided the Sinhala language into many phases. What he called as Prakrit-Sinhala is the Prakrit, the sacred language of the Buddhists, and the most common language of the elite, spoken by many in South Asia in ancient times. It was introduced to the Island along with Buddhism.
He also came up with terms such as Proto-Sinhala (4th CAD - 8th CAD) and proper Sinhala (after 8th CAD) for the developing stages of the Sinhala language.
(Our friend Sakthi aka Naleen has inspected some of those prakrit inscriptions, he says those characters have no resemblance or similarity what so ever with the present day Sinhala and he could not read a single word, an eye witness account).
That is not all. There are truck loads of other inscription discovered in the so called native Tamil Homeland belonging to the period before 13th CAD and almost all of them are written in early forms of Sinhala.
The Buddhist shrines of Nagakovila (Nagakovil), Telipola (Tellippalai), Mallagama (Mallakam), Minuvangomu-viharaya (Vimankamam), Tanni-divayina (Tana-tivu or Kayts), Naga-divayina (Nayinativu), Puvangu-divayina (Punkututivu), and Kara-divayina (Karaitivu) in the North (Which territory, when this list was composed, was recognized as a Tamil region by the usage of the name Demala-pattanama or Tamil city to describe it) were included in the popular Nampota or book of names (of holy places).
Inscriptions discovered in these areas belonging to the period before the 13th CAD, that is, before the separate Tamil homeland was created and Hinduism (Saivism) was fully installed, were written in Prakit (Of course, the sacred language of the Buddhists). The Sinhala language, which developed over time, was a mixture of several local languages and Prakrit.
What I am saying is that there is no scientific evidence to prove the presence of any permanent Tamil settlements in the Peninsular (and its surroundings) before the 11 th CAD.
You are totally wrong.
In his book, Prof. Indrapala has given a load of information (including Tamil inscriptions) regarding the Tamil settlements in North & East and North-central parts of the Island before the 11th CAD.
Do mind that presence of Tamil speaking Tamils alone is not going to make this a homeland of anyone.
But the presence of Tamil speaking Tamils for almost a millennium in a geographically separated land known as Tamil Eelam will definitely make it their homeland.
Edited By - LuLa - 6 Nov 2006 13:29:26 GMT |
LuLa
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5 Nov 2006 15:14:41 GMT Report for Abuse
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Shakti
I had to quote you in my above post to Mucha, I hope you have no objections. |
Mucha-linda
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6 Nov 2006 04:11:49 GMT Report for Abuse
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Lula,
Please give me till Wednesday to reply to you. I have become bit busy with my livelihood. As usual, enjoy your presence.
-Mucha
. |
LuLa
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6 Nov 2006 19:21:57 GMT Report for Abuse
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Mucha,
No problem, take your own time and come up with something 'really nasty' at least this time.
BTW, where is your side kick, the one who gives you moral support? I think I can feed him some punnakku. |
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