In its recent article, TamilNet gives enough focus on factual history of Elangai or Sri Lanka with support data. Parts of article below.
“Sri Lanka was not an island when the first human beings inhabited it. There was a land bridge in the Cetu or Adams Bridge region, linking today’s Tamil Nadu with Sri Lanka, through which humans and animals walked to and fro. Geological evidences suggest that the land bridge disappeared just few thousand years back.”
“The exact time of the first human habitations in Sri Lanka is yet to ascertained precisely, even though dates have been suggested going back to 70,000 years or more. But an obvious fact repeatedly pointed out in the objective researches starting from 19th century, is the striking affinities between the prehistoric red soil and gravel mounds of the southeastern tip of Tamil Nadu with that of Sri Lanka. (Noons, Zeuner, Deraniyagala and a host of other scholars)”
“The alphabet of Brahmi inscriptions of Sri Lanka has both traits: Tamil Brahmi as well as Asokan Brahmi. The language of these inscriptions is largely Prakrit, intermixed with Dravidian terms. Sinhalese at this stage was yet to evolve as an identifiable language.”
“There is no mention of the word Sinhala or Sinhala ethnicity in the thousand odd short inscriptions that come to us from this time. On the contrary, a vast majority of the host of clan names and titles that we come across in these inscriptions only show affin
RE:TamilNet Spotlights Factual History of Sri Lanka
by kullaa on Jul 08, 2008 01:09 PM Permalink
...On the contrary, a vast majority of the host of clan names and titles that we come across in these inscriptions only show affinities with the clans of the ancient Tamil country (Sudharshan Seneviratne and Indrapala).”
“A person who caused the writing of a Tamil Brahmi inscription, dateable to the dawn of the Common Era, at Thirupparangkun’ram in Tamil Nadu styled himself as Eezha Kudumpikan (the house-holder from Eezham). Another, a poet of the Changkam literature also was titled as Eezhaththu Poothan Theavanaar (the Poothan Theavan of Eezham). The need for these Tamils to assert to their Eezham identity in Tamil Nadu is significant in perceiving the parallel development.”
“Tamil and Saivism received patronage even in the Sinhalese kingdoms without any animosity. The king of Kotte, Bhuvanehabahu VII, signed the treaty with the Portuguese in Tamil. At the fall of the last kingdom of Kandy to the British, one of the Kandian Chieftains, Ratwatta Disawa, the ancestor of Srimao Bandaranayake, signed the treaty in Tamil.”
