A composite vision of history
A. R. VENKATACHALAPATHY
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A history of Sri Lanka beyond the competing call of ethnic nationalism and myth making
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THE EVOLUTION OF AN ETHNIC IDENTITY — The Tamils in Sri Lanka, C. 300 BCE to c. 1200 CE: K. Indrapala; Kumaran Book House, Chennai-600026.
Rs. 350.
Reading this important book by the well-known historian and archaeologist K. Indrapala, which charts a history of Sri Lanka beyond the competing call of ethnic nationalism and myth making reminded me of a beautiful poem by the noted Sri Lankan Tamil poet Cheran. Written as `A Letter to a Sinhala Girl Friend' after a few months of working together at the archaeological excavation site at Mantai, the poem makes a poignant, if romantic, plea for understanding between the two warring ethnic communities.
Ernest Renan once remarked that "Forgetting, even getting history wrong, is an essential factor in the formation of a nation." Reading this book one is tempted to believe that it has nowhere been more so than in war-torn Sri Lanka.
Shared history
Traditional histories have portrayed the two ethnic communities, Tamil and Sinhalese, forever at war. Indrapala locates the origins of such invidious history writing to colonial historiography, which was based mostly on narrow interpretations of Sinhala chronicles that fed the theory of `Aryan' invasion.
He strongly believes that the two communities have `a shared history and culture' and refuses to see the historical evolution of Sri Lanka in ethnic terms. Instead he relates it to wider historical changes and interaction with South India; this historical region he calls the SISL (South India-Sri Lanka region). By demonstrating the absolute lack of evidence of any large-scale migration from the Indian mainland, he argues that both the Tamil and Sinhala communities emerged from indigenous Mesolithic peoples of pre-historic times. He then argues for language replacement, that is language change occurring without any corresponding population change, as the cause for the emergence of Tamil and Prakrit speaking peoples in the proto-historic period. Political change, and religious, economic and technological interaction between south India and Sri Lanka fuelled cultural change leading ultimately to the rise of ethnic identity.
Interpenetration
Based on a reading of Sinhala chronicles, which flies in the face of popular conceptions about them underpinning ethnic exclusivity, he shows the interpenetration of politics in south India and Sri Lanka. Both Tamil and Sinhala kings sought help from across the strait. Tamil soldiers fought in the armies of Sinhala kings who also hired Tamil bodyguards. There were even sections of the army organised under Tamil officers. Pallava and Pandya kings sided with one group or the other. Some Tamil kings win the adulation of the chronicles for their just rule while a Sinhala king banishes Sinhala Buddhist monks and replaces them with pious Tamil Buddhist monks in an act of purification.
This `harmonious' situation led to significant achievements, for instance, in architecture. Pallava artisans introduced the Tamil or Dravidian style of architecture to Sri Lanka which is manifest in the Mahayana Buddhist structures. Tamil traders also played a big part in this interaction. Quoting Joesph Needham, the outstanding historian of science and technology, he points out to the spectacular feats of hydraulic engineering where "the fusion of the Egyptian and Babylonian patterns achieved the most complete and subtlest form" were to be found in Sri Lanka and not in the Indian mainland.
Evolution of ethnicity
Thus, in the early historic and medieval periods, there was a great amount of cultural diversity and the coexistence of the two yet-to-be fully formed ethnic communities. But what played a decisive role in the evolution of a Tamil ethnic community was the rise of Saivism from about the eighth century and the distinctiveness that the Tamil language gave to the people in the north and northwest of the island. The final seal was put by the century of Chola influence ending in 1070 A.D. On the other side, gradually the Tamil-speaking people in the central and southern parts were assimilated into the Sinhalese.
This is the burden of Indrapala's story. He argues his case through a rich summary of existing and new research in the fields of archaeology, epigraphy and historical linguistics. Apart from his own research he draws substantially from the work of R.A.L. H. Gunawardana and Sudarshan Seneviratne. Even though his writing style is loud at times, he succeeds largely in conveying his argument clearly even if at the cost of some nuance.
One can only speculate on the course of Sri Lanka's recent politics if such a non-sectarian and composite vision of history had been accepted by the post-colonial Sri Lankan state and had been incorporated in school textbooks and official history. A little knowledge is dangerous. And a little historical knowledge is even more so. Historians are at best conscience-keepers and alas, can scarcely undo the injustice done "to the innocents who lost their lives as a direct consequence of misinterpretations of history" to whom this book is dedicated.
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