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Hindus set to convert to Buddhism
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Shakti
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22 Nov 2006 12:41:49 GMT Report for Abuse
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Kula,
I have not followed the entire debate so I do not know who originally expressed this idea.
I took this from your post.
Tamils, as persons, like everyone else, is native while Tamil culture is not.
As I have told Lula many moons ago, there is no point al all in this debate WITHOUT DEFINING TERMS.
This sentence proves my point. I can write books either for or against this sentence. The reason is this sentence has so many UNDEFINED terms.
First, what is 'NATIVE'? Can anybody define 'NATIVE'? How many years exactly some feature should be there in a country to be considered 'NATIVE'?
Is Buddhism 'NATIVE' and Christianity is not? Is 'Osariya' native and frocks not? Is Sinhala Native and English Not? Is chewing beetle native and smoking a cigarette not?
All of above are meaningless questions simply because IT IS HUMANS DECIDE WHAT IS NATIVE AND WHAT IS NOT - purely ACCORDING TO THEIR POLITICAL AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS.
Let us say for some reason Christianity had arrived here BEFRO Buddhism. I am sure in that case, Mr. Medhananda and Nalin De Silva would have been arguing today the 'NATIVITY' of something should NOT be decided by the number of years that would have been here but by some other factor. (like it is attributed to the majority)
Do we recognize Veddah culture as our 'NATIVE' culture? (which should have been.) Do we let Veddhas do their traditional dances in front of foreign guests and say that is our NATIVE CULTURE?
No. Basically what is 'NATIVE' and what is not decided by the dominated group of people according to their political requirements. (Usually majority, but not necessarily.)
It is something highly SUBJECTIVE. (That is the simple reason, nobody will ever win this argument.)
All I can say about the above sentence is.
1) It is correct to say MOST OF THE TAMILS in Sri Lanka today (again when I say Tamils I do not mean Indian Tamils) are either direct or mixed decedents of the people who lived in this country for the last 2,000 years.
2) The culture they have is a mixed culture which had incorporated features from the Tamil cultures elsewhere, Portuguese, Dutch and English and also other ethnic groups in the island mainly Sinhalese.
3) The language they use is a mixture or Tamil used in Tamil Nadu and Malayalam used in Kerala. This is not a surprise because of the close proximity of Northern province of SL to South India.
4) The so called SINHALESE BUDDHIST culture today is also a mix of so many cultures. It has items taken from Tamil culture, Portuguese, Dutch, English and even Thai cultures. There is nothing ?PURE? about it.
I said this so many times before but let me repeat again ? Both the Sinhalese and Tamil cultures / identities as we know them today developed somewhere in late 1800s and early 1900s. It is not me who made this discovery but reputed historians mainly, Prof. Leslie Gunawardena and K. M. De Silva. So arguing about ?Sinhalese? and ?Tamil? identities before this period is simply meaningless. |
Kulakottan
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22 Nov 2006 12:44:04 GMT Report for Abuse
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Shakti,
Not to worry.
It is from one of your favourites!!
That is why I said that there is some improvement!
Edited By - Kulakottan - 22 Nov 2006 13:42:26 GMT |
LuLa
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22 Nov 2006 18:15:39 GMT Report for Abuse
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UlHaq
This is not the first lengthy debate on this forum; there were a series of them before. As you have noticed, Muchalinda is well read/knowledgeable and posses a good debating skill. It is quite worth spending some time in entering into exchanges with him. I enjoy arguing with him knowing very well that, even if he loses an argument, he would never admit it but turns adamant and twists his own word to try to prove that he is right. You would have also noticed that in this thread. At times, our exchanges have also been sarcastic, but still we maintain a friendship.
On the other hand, you would have also noticed that, nobody likes to engage in any arguments with this ModaRaala. Most of us have already had once and found that it is just a waste of time. He keeps on coming with questions, even after you answer them he will come again with the same questions with a slight variation. You can engage in an exchange with him only if you are jobless or you have plenty of time to waste. Right from the beginning of this thread, I have mentioned that I do not have time to feed punnaku to this stupid GonRaala. Without any shame, he continues to come up with his same old repeated questions over and over thinking that I will respond. It only makes me laugh at him. These are the reasons why I totally ignore him.
Since you are new to this thread, let me tell you that I have already answered all those questions, if you read the entire thread you will get to know, some of the additional answers are also found in the web, and for more details, the entire book written by this good old professor K. Indrapala is about Tamils in Sri Lanka from 300 BC to 1200 AD.
For your information, I?ll give you a few extracts from the book which I have already posted to this thread.
Not only Prof. Indrapala, but many other renowned Sri Lankan historians and archeologists have said that Sri Lanka has been multi-ethnic and multi-cultural from prehistoric times, establishing who was present first was seen as crucial in these claims. While rejecting the mass migration or invasion theory so popular among colonial and post-colonial historians, they say that both the Sinhalas and the Tamils are from the same South Indian-Sri Lankan gene pool, and what took place in Sri Lanka was only a cultural transformation including language, religion, etc.
They say that the present-day territories of Sri Lanka and South India comprised a single region in which the pre-historic ancestors of the modern Sri Lankans and South Indians moved freely along with their cultures, languages, religions, artifacts and technologies with the sea dividing the two land masses acting as a unifier rather than a divider. There is ample archaeological evidence for the cultural interaction between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka from PREHISTORIC times.
Where as, according to Prof. Leslie Gunawardena, an unbiased researcher and a leading Sri Lankan academic at the Peradeniya University, a well respected historian and archeologist who have done an extensive research on both Sri Lankan and Indian history, there NEVER was a Sinhala race/ethnic group or a Sinhala Kingdom before the 13th CAD. What existed was ONLY a Sinhala dynasty, a ruling linage group. There is NO evidence whatsoever (stone inscriptions, chronicles, etc) to prove that an ethnic group/race or a kingdom by the name Sinhala existed in Sri Lanka before the 13th CAD. The concept that the Sinhalas were indigenous people or the first to arrive in the island originated only during the colonial and post-colonial period.
Other than the dynasty that ruled Sri Lanka (Sinhala), the dynasties that ruled South India (Chola, Pandiya, Chera, and others) also ruled Sri Lanka from time to time. When ever the ruling dynasty in Sri Lanka (Sinhala) was replaced by a ruling dynasty from South India, the Pali chronicle written by the Buddhist monk Mahanama calls it an invasion. Even if you call it invasions, it was not the dominant mode of movement of people says the historians.
Prof. Indrapala in his book (pg.19) says, the assumption forming the basis of Prof. Paranavitana?s statement is that the people of the kingdom ruled by the Anuradapura kings and the inhabitants of Rohana and other southern chiefdoms were all Sinhalese and that any ruler other than a Sinhalese in control of Anuradapura or other chiefdoms was a foreigner. As will be seen later in this book, such an assumption is not supported by archeological or epigraphical evidence. In the centuries before the Common Era, there were many ethnic groups in the island and one of them was the group known as the Damedas in inscriptions and Damilas in the Pali chronicles, identified without any controversy as the Tamils. Sena and Guttaka, the first Tamils mentioned in the Pali chronicles as having gained power at Anuradapura were from a merchant family and are not even described as invaders.
Indrapala also says, as per the earliest Brahmi inscriptions and the early Pali chronicles the Damedas/Damelas (Tamils) have been in the island of Sri Lanka since many centuries BCE (Before Common Era or AD). They need not be considered as outsiders. The idea that the Demela were foreign intruders and the Sinhala fought to liberate their people is nonsensical (there NEVER existed a race called Sinhala until 13th CAD). The earliest evidence regarding the presence of Tamils in Sri Lanka is well established with native Tamils such as Sena and Guttaka from a merchant family gaining power at Anuradhapura.
Further, he says (his book pg 4), a section of the population of Sri Lanka in the historical period has been designated as Demala or Damila in the major Sinhalese and Pali chronicles respectively. Scholars have also accepted that the prakrit form of this name is Demada, occurring in the Brahmi inscriptions of Sri Lanka datable to about the 2nd CBC.
The origin of a separate Tamil ethnic group in Sri Lanka, whatever its characteristics over the centuries, will have to go back to this early Demeda group. He also says, Sri Lanka has been, from time immemorial, the home of various ethnic groups. (pg. viii).
By the time of Kassapa, there are definite references in these epigraphs (sinhala inscriptions) to Tamil villages and lands. Demel-kaballa, Demelat-valademin and Demel-gam-bim which have been translated as Tamil-allotment, Tamil-lands, and Tamil-villages and lands. The interpretation of these terms and the provenance of the inscriptions referring to these terms are of great significance for the study of the Tamil population in the Anuradapura kingdom in the period under discussion.
The Sinhala identity emerged by the assimilation of various tribal, linguistic and ethnic communities that lived in the island from about five to six centuries Before the Common Era (BCE) and emerged as an ethnic group/race only after the 13th CAD.
The Sri Lankan Tamil identity also emerged as a result of the assimilation of many local linguistic and ethnic groups including the Damedas/Damelas (Tamils) who have been in the island of Sri Lanka since many centuries BCE.
It was only after the 13th CAD, that the two communities emerged as two separate ethnic groups with separate territories and kingdoms - the Tamils identified with the North and the East, and the Sinhalas with the rest of the island.
In conclusion, there existed an ethnic group known as Demala/Damila/Demada (TAMILS) in Sri Lanka right from the beginning of history, even before Vijay was born, who assimilated with other linguistic and ethnic communities living in the North and evolved into a separate nation within a separate land with a separate kingdom only after the 13th CAD. |
tigeress19
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22 Nov 2006 19:09:36 GMT Report for Abuse
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Not only Prof. Indrapala, but many other renowned Sri Lankan historians and archeologists have said that Sri Lanka has been multi-ethnic and multi-cultural from prehistoric times, establishing who was present first was seen as crucial in these claims. While rejecting the mass migration or invasion theory so popular among colonial and post-colonial historians, they say that both the Sinhalas and the Tamils are from the same South Indian-Sri Lankan gene pool, and what took place in Sri Lanka was only a cultural transformation including language, religion, etc.
thank you lula, it says a lot!
Edited By - tigeress19 - 22 Nov 2006 19:10:11 GMT |
LuLa
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22 Nov 2006 20:01:13 GMT Report for Abuse
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Muchalinda / Ariyalai_SB,
Let me correct what this ModaRaala has written.
The West is neither the mother land nor the father land of both Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka.
The mother/father land of Sri Lankan Tamils who lived in the island long before Buddha was born and later got separated (after the 13th CAD) into a land area (NE) with their own language, religion, culture and separate kingdom is Tamil Eelam and NOT the West.
The mother/father land of the Sinhalese who evolved in Sri Lanka after the 13th CAD by assimilating various tribal, linguistic and ethnic communities that lived in the island from about five to six centuries Before the Common Era is the rest of Sri Lanka and NOT the West.
The western Constitution does not recognize all its citizens equally, even though no one find it a problem. They tell you that 'you are equal', but they NEVER give EQUAL STATUS to Sinhala/Tamil Language or Buddhist/Hindu Culture in the West.
Those Sinhalese/Tamils who live in the West, serving the West, while their Sinhala/Tamil culture is being DISCRIMINATED by the very same Western Masters they serve!.
There are no Sinhala/Tamil Medium Public Schools nor Vesak, Poson, Sinhala/Tamil newyear, Thaipongal or Deepwali public holidays (unlike X-mass or Easter).
It is no wonder that you cultivate a feeling of insecurity when you and your children's Sinhala/Tamil culture is given SECOND CLASS treatment in the West, everyday!
As a guesture of compassion, I can remind you that you can relocate to Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam and enjoy the better rights for Sinhala/Tamil Culture. Imagine this, you can send your children to a Sinhala/Tamil medium public school in Sri Lanka. Vesak, Poson, Sinhala/Tamil newyear, Thaipongal, and Deepawali are a Public holidays as much as X-mass, Good Friday, and Eid-ul-Fitr -- how does that sound?
The only hiccup is, in Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese, due to their bigger size (majority) are behaving like those westerners and due to that the whole country has lost its peace. |
LuLa
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22 Nov 2006 20:20:00 GMT Report for Abuse
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UlHaq
The book mentioned here is 'The evolution of an Ethnic Identity' by Prof. K. Indrapala, available at the Lake house book shop or at the Wijitha Yapa book shop in Colombo. Its Rupees 1400/=.
You can also order thro' the web at http://www.srilankanbooks.com/preview.php3?ID=22601
PS: FYI, I do not believe in a Separate state of Tamil Eelam under the control of the LTTE, it will be a total disaster for the Tamils. On the other hand, I also do not believe in this totally failed unitary state under the Sinhala leadership.
I still follow SJV's principles. |
LuLa
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22 Nov 2006 20:23:08 GMT Report for Abuse
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Tigeress,
Yes, you picked up another important point.
Cheers |
LuLa
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22 Nov 2006 21:19:02 GMT Report for Abuse
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Kula,
Tamils, as persons, like everyone else, is native while Tamil culture is not.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, the modaRaala is committing Hara-kiri.
Buddhists, as persons, like everyone else, is native while Buddhist religion/culture is not.
Sinhala Christians, as persons, like everyone else, is native while Sinhala Christian religion/culture is not.
The list is endless. |
tigeress19
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22 Nov 2006 21:37:34 GMT Report for Abuse
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Lula
from your quote
they say that both the Sinhalas and the Tamils are from the same South Indian-Sri Lankan gene pool, and what took place in Sri Lanka was only a cultural transformation including language, religion, etc
only a cultural transformation including language and religion??
1)so the present Tamils are a mix of malayalis and tamils of TN .the language is tamil and the religion never changed?
2) the present day sinhalese are one time tamils or malayalis or mix of both. the religion is Buddhism and the language is sinhala because of their adopted religion? |
Mucha-linda
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22 Nov 2006 22:17:41 GMT Report for Abuse
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MURU,
Thanks for your reply. I am bit busy right now, and will surely reply at the earliet possible time.
-Mucha
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