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Glory of Anuradhapura and Sinhala

Jayantha Ahangama

Indeed Anuradhapura should be the capital, no doubt. It is most certainly where the Sinhala civilization sprung up now forgotten in decadent Colombo, but somehow remains in minds of people like Sunil Vijayapala as it appears. My memory goes back when thinking of the efficacy of moving the capital to A'pura. My school chum Nihal Muthuthanthiri said one day that if you don't want your enemy to hit you, stand as close as possible to him and he'd have to step back to hit you. The notion that Buddhism is a colored Hinduism is no mystery. People worship idols and trees and hold noisy gala-like ceremonies while monks seek doctorates, not meditation during at least the rainy season as Buddha advised.

Sinhala did not come from India. The proof is simple and direct. If Sinhala descended from ANY Indian language, we should have received the word for water from one of them. Instead, when at home we call it (pardon my Romanized Sinhala) vaþura, though we are ashamed to use it in writing. Vaþura has cognates in all Germanic languages, Russian, Swedish etc. (water, wasser, voda, vetter etc.) No Indian language has a word for water that even comes close to this sound.

The question is, if Sinhala came from India, then did we discover water later brought by some European? As that is an absurdity, and because we have Indo-European cognates exclusively with Pali and Sanskrit as well as cognates exclusively with European languages, where is the origin of Sinhala? For the benefit of those who are mathematically challenged, Sinhala is older than all the Indo-Aryan (North Indian) languages including Sanskrit .

Thonigala inscription does not have Sanskrit, but It is in Brahmi. That was 2nd century BC. The oldest scientifically verified (carbon dated) Brahmi is as old as 600 BC and was found in Anuradhapura. Next oldest Brahmi is in India 300 hundred years later. Brahmi is a misnomer. It is the original Sinhala script. It was perhaps like Latin character set today used by all neighboring languages.

Sinhala script had to be reconstituted in 92 BC when it was adapted for writing on soft palm leaves and acquired a rounded form. The truly venerable monks wanted to make a 'time capsule' to preserve the Buddhist oral tradition by writing it down. They feared the destruction of the knowledge due to the famine weakening the memory power of the monks that had all of it memorized. (Thanks to them we have Tripitaka preserved even if Buddhism wanes in Lanka).

This script traveled as far as Bali. The Pallavas or Pahlavis, an Iranian tribe, was quite close to the Sinhalese. (It is an Iranian that designed the Sigiri "fortress on a cloud" - mahavamsa). They took it with them and that is how their former colony has letters that resemble Sinhala.

There's another proof that Sinhala did not come from India. The signature sounds of all Indian speech are the retroflex t, d and l. You make a retroflex sound by turning up the tip the tongue or even curling it backward bringing it close to the roof of mouth. The manner Indian Tamils (perhaps Lankan Tamils too) pronounce their t and d is impossible for the Sinhalese. By the way, this inadequacy in Sinhalese is so acute that they cannot 'hear' the English 'r' in words like north and mistake o + retroflex r as aw and pronounce the word nawth.

Pardon my romanized Sinhala but, "lañkaapaþi raavaµa kûþa arka prakaazam" is a name of a Sanskrit medicine book. It means, "Written and so published by Ravana, king of Lanka". Here's another story about the glory of past Lanka: In the wee history of India, the Hindu Vedas were compiled by a man called baaðrinaaþ veeða vyaasa. (Badrinath Vedavyasa, sig. May I tell you, Anglicizing is bad for Sinhala). This man was a dark skinned man who came from an island in the South. Show me an island in the South from the vantage point of Himalayas. Did I hear Maldives? Well, they were Sinhalese before the British left and DSS said no thank you to the British.

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