07/03/2024
A BRIDGE THAT LINKED LANDS AND TIMES
An article written by . Ananda Ariyarathne
For LANKA GEOGRAPHIC JOURNAL
( Geological facets of Sri Lanka and how important they had been in providing a ‘ Home ’ for a kind of people who belong there and to no other place in the world. The theme of the article is to show that the differences some try to find, having almost no idea about the length of the history of mankind in the special location known as Sri Lanka now and as Lanka in Hindu chronicles, while others had different names like Taprobane, Serendib, Zeylan, and Ceylon, in relation to what really happened )
Sri Lanka, known as large island, is located within the Latiitudes-6 -54’ 0” and 6.9 North with the Longitudes 79-54’ -0” and 79.9 East, globally. Its landmass is a result of a combination of forces that shaped it into what it is now, over billions of years from the unimaginable beginnings.
As it is known now, it was affected by the presence of the Indian Plate The Indian Plate includes most of South Asia, forming a land mass which extends from the Himalayas into a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean.
Landmass of Sri Lanka in Gondwanaland
In geological history all the land of Earth was in one large mass or super continent and it is known as Pangaea , meaning "all lands" in Greek.
When the land began to drift apart, bout 200 million years ago it broke into two main pieces, and scientists called the continent in the north Laurasia and the continent in the south Gondwanaland. And that included what we now know as Antarctica, and it was joined to South America, Africa, India, and Australia.The landmass of Sri Lanka had been bordered by Africa,Madagascar, Indian Sub-continent and Australia
It is this breaking and drifting of landmasses
( See the area located within the circle ) identified now as ‘Continental Drift’. It was an Austrian Scientist a geologistby Eduard Suess who named it as Gondwanaland He put the name after the District in India where he found the fossil plant Glossopteris . He reasoned out that the presence of those fossil plants in India, South America, Southern Africa, Australia, and Antarctica, that all the lands must once have been together.
The Northern Parts of Sri Lanka show very clear signs that the area was once under the sea and it is proved by the presence of the Limestone base which stretches up to Mannar Region and the Island of Mannar also shows signs of being submerged in its geological history. During the geological movements that affected the area it indicates the possibility of a very narrow stretch of sea bottom rising up between Indian landmass with the Mannar Island which was also an extended part of the landmass of the main island of Sri Lanka.
Courtesy:Sri Lanka–Madagascar Gondwana Linkage: Evidence
for a Pan-African Mineral Belt
C. B. Dissanayake1 and Rohana Chandrajith Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Erlangen, Schlossgarten 5, D-91054
Over the years of wave movements, the sand could have been pushed toward the higher areas in the sea bed creating shoals while the solid landmass which was already there could have been expanded in extent. The obvious result was a narrow stretch land extending from Mannar Island to Dhanushkodi. It became something like a ‘ Bridge ’ between India and Lanka.
By the time human beings started walking around, there had been a land Bridge between India and Sri Lanka. That land bridge had been there identified by sailors and according a record that belongs to the early part of developed global navigation, it had been there till a cyclone changed the picture. Such a disturbance could have been made by a very powerful cyclone and the strong wave action that could have come behind.
That land bridge which was known by the European sailors as Adam’s Bridge and by the Hindu devotees as Rama’s Brisge, the land connection to the Indian mainland which the latter believe that it was constructed by Rama, became mostly submerged leaving only a chain of shoals with limestone bases remaining above sea level after a violent a cyclone in 1480, just about twenty years before the ships of Portuguese came into the area. Up to that time it served as a natural causeway, till it was believed to have been breached by shifting the sand dunes that were there..The significanceofthatbridge or the natural causeway is definitely connected to the human history of the region.
Adam’s Bridge / Rama’s Bridge linking Sri Lanka with India as seen by a NASASpace Craft
History of mankind started around Five Million Years BC. It has now been established that, around Five million years ago, Human-like Apes lived in Africa. It is believed that it was the beginning. Scientists say that it took about 2-3 million years for them to develop. During the ice age which began around 2.5 million years BC, those humans started to walk over the frozen landscape, looking for food.
The migrations of the humans from Africa started around one million Years BC to the rest of the world About They went from Africa to Asia including the islands like Indonesia and Europe over frozen landscapes. Up to that time early humans had lived only in Africa. Archaeologists believe that it was during that migration the humans inhabited Sri Lanka. 700,000 BC - Humans in Lanka. Sri Lanka was definitely inhabited by the humans by 700,000 BC, the archaeologists say and by 500,000 BC – They knew how to use fire.
The land bridge which became popularly known as Adam's Bridge, that facilitated such developments in the history now can be seen as a chain of shoals from the tip of India's Pamban Island and known as Dhanushkodi ends at Sri Lanka's Island of Mannar. Pamban Island is connected to the Indian mainland by the two (2) km long Pamban Bridge and Mannar Island is connected to the mainland Sri Lanka by a causeway. The border between India and Sri Lanka is said to pass across one of the shoals constituting one of the shortes land borders in the world.It is interesting to note that various legends in Ramayana mention the place known as Adam's Bridge and neighbouring areas like Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi, Devipattinam and Thirupullani.
Adam’s Bridge seen from another angle
The humans who crossed the land bridge entered a lush area with better hunting grounds.The Land offered them a vast plain covered by good vegetation as the climatic patterns had already set in. Rest of the landmass of Sri Lanka was already formed. In the interior,the humans found more natural habitats that were to their liking.
Most of the landmass of Sri Lanka which is more than 85% of the surface lies on a Precambrian layer and it is said that some of it, dating back to two ( 2 ) billion years. The granulite facies rocks of the Highland Series such as gneisses, sillimanite-graphite gneisses, quartzite, marbles, and some charnokites m make up most of the island and the amphibolite facies gneisses, granites, and granitic gneisses occur in the eastern and southeastern lowlands. Jurassic sediments are present in very small areas near the western coast and Miocene limestones underlie the northwestern part of the country and extend south in a relatively narrow belt along the west coast. It is to that sector, the Island of Mannar belongs The underlying limestone formations became the base for the other rocks that developed later. The metamorphic rock surfaces were created by the transformation of ancient sediments under intense heat and pressure during mountain-building processes that continued in the region. The theory of Plate Tectonics suggests that those rocks and related rocks that formed most of South India were of a single southern landmass identified by the geologists as Gondwanaland.
According to geological calculations it happened about 200 million years ago, when the forces within the Earth's mantle began to crack and separate the lands of the Southern Hemisphere. That was when a ‘ crustal plate ’ supporting both India and Sri Lanka moved toward the northeast, about forty five ( 45 ) million years ago,
That Indian Plate collided with the Asian landmass, and it was due to that force,the Himalayan Mountain Range in Northern India was formed or raised, a movement which is believed to have been continuing in the same direction. Even with such an activity Sri Lanka does not experience earthquakes or major volcanic events because it rides on the center of the plate and not at the edge where the turbulence is. In other words, the locations are more or less fixed. Rising sea level has taken over from that point.
Adam’s Bridge as seen from a spacecraft
Nine tenths ( 9/10 ) of Sri Lanka is made up of highly crystalline, non fossiliferous ( No Fossils ) rocks , meaning rocks which were formed very much before the life started.
Precambrian age The rest, north western region, Jurassic, Miocene and Quaternary sedimentary formations belonging to Jurassic Period and examples can be found in Thabbowa, Andigama, and Pallama while it was during Miocene Period Jaffna limestone was formed. Followed by Quaternary Deposits.-Beach sand deposits found in the areas which were in contact with the sea movements.
It is important to know at this point that the island of Sri Lanka contains relatively a very limited strata of sedimentary rocks around its ancient highlands apart from the more recent deposits along river valleys ,The only exceptions are two small instances of sedimentation during the Jurassic Period which was about 140 to 190 million years ago, and those can be identified in Puttalam District compared to the more prominent belt of Miocene sedimentation which had taken place 5 to 100 million years ago, causing the limestone which is found along the northwestern coast. Those layers had been overlain by Pleistocene deposits, about 1 million years ago.
Actually, the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka is a part of the deep Cauvery ( Kaveri ) River Basin of South Eastern India, which has been accumulating sedimentary deposits from the highlands of India and Sri Lanka from the time the region shifted during the Continental Drift.
Why did the folklore choose that narrow stretch of land that linked India with the unknown Lanka ? It is obvious that its narrowness preserved the independence of Sri Lanka as a region as it was almost an Island that had only the ocean as its boundary. The depth of this stretch ranges from just about three (03 ) feet, roughly a meter to thirty feet roughly about ten (10) meters. The present position is the result of the increasing Sea water Level, caused by the Global Warming that kept on melting ice in near polar regions. While the wave action in the area kept on building sand dunes, some destructive waves breached certain parts making them deeper and that way causing gaps.
Dr. Badrinarayanan, a former Director of Geological Survey of India and a former Coordinator of the Survey Division of the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) of the Ministry of Earth Science, in Chennai. NIOT had recently drilled boreholes and recovered cores along the island chain. The cores were found to be of more than 10 metres thickness and according to him;
"We found marine sands on top and below that was a mixed assemblage of corals, calcareous sand stones, and boulder like materials. Surprisingly below that up to 4-5 metres, again we found loose sand and after that, hard formations were there".
By the time Indian Sub-continent got populated as far back as 10,000 B.C., the real development could have started with the agro-based culture in the Northern Regions where the origins of Rama can be safely based. He was a person who became a God in the eyes of common man and the Hindu Mythology also could have had its origins in the same background. The stories that could be partly true and latter strengthened with imagination became a religion to many.
It could have been true that his queen was Seetha and she was abducted by Rawana of Sri Lanka, but the story that he took her away in some kind of aerial vehicle sounds illogical and it could be a symbolic expression to describe the swift action by Rawana. If such a thing was really there, it could not have simply disappeared. The story that Rama had to get the help from the Apes also is something that could have been an exaggeration. Those apes could have been a tribe that had Ape as their symbol, or they could have been a warring tribe who had features of apes and it has a remote possibility that they could have been some unique kind of humans.
As Rawana was too powerful, Rama needed such support and together they could have crossed the narrow stretch using the sand banks grown on limestone bases underneath. It could also have been possible that Hanuman’s Armies filled some of the parts which were too deep to cross on foot, sparking the idea that Hanuman built that as a bridge for their armies to cross. As Ramayana stories can be linked to a time this side of 10,000 years B.C. it tallies with the global warming that reduced the ice-caps and increased the sea level.
Therefore, Adam’s Bridge is partly mythological while mainly being geological as there is ample proof now that living beings could have crossed over to the land now known as Lanka. Today,Adana’s Bridge is a land connection to the Indian mainland which is now mostly submerged with only a chain of limestone shoals remaining above sea level. According to records this natural causeway was already there as a complete structure earlier but was breached by a violent storm around 1480.Dr. Badrinarayanan was puzzled by the inter-layering of sand, boulder and coral. He formed the opinion that the boulders ought to be artificially placed there, since there is no way they can appear on top on a marine sand layer. It sounds more like a justification in support of the belief that Hanuman and his armies placed those boulders.
In such a case, from where could the boulders have been brought there and how could it have been done? Easiest way is to find out whether the rocks with the same composition can be found within a reasonable distance. The other explanation is that the boulders that could have been already there on the Tectonic Plate that was shifting could have been already there and that it could have been the remnants of a narrow ridge that stretched from the Sri Lankan landmass towards the Indian land.
It is an accepted fact that the coral can develop on hard surfaces just below water level and the skeletons of coral worm could have been deposited over the years forming structures just like in Coral Reef Formation. Over the time, coral got geologically changed to become limestone layers, in the same manner it happens even now.
The movement of sea sand can create covers over the fallen pieces and therefore It is natural for reefs to have layers of debris consisting of small and large boulders resting on top of the sandy sea floor. And as we can see in a living reef, sand can be found everywhere. The naturally disintegrated coral formations can get mixed with sand. Then the erosion by waves which produces sand can cause deposits while additional sand can be transported by the currents from the surrounding continental shelf. Therefore, the sand found along the extraordinary geological formation could have formed by the sand brought by currents from coastal areas of India, from Rameshwaram to Vedaranniyam Coast on the Indian side while the same process could have taken place from the Sri Lankan side, from Jaffna peninsula. It is natural for the sand to infiltrate through the cracks in the coral structures finally spreading over the area covering other features on the sea floor.
Now, here is the crucial property of such very shallow water systems. They produce such vast amounts of sediment that they force a local change in sea level along with changes in currents. This means a certain type of sedimentary environment may be caused in response to a shift in sea level encroach upon and bury an adjoining sedimentary environment. Corals can encroach and bury sand, just as sand can shift and bury adjacent coral and boulders. Over long periods of time such migrating and shifting environments will create a geological section, such as the one observed in Dr. Badrinarayanan's cores, a complex sequence of inter-layered sand, coral and boulders.
The presence of the sand shoals and the coral formations represent a geologic history spanning two main epochs, the late Pleistocene to Holocene , the last hundred thousand years.
During the Pleistocene "Ice-Age" period when the glacial buildup was on, the bridge could have been dry and passable. It was when the great melting started fluctuations in sea-level , which are believed to have been by about ten meters , it could have been inundated creating an environment for coral to exists. That could have been followed by coral reef and sand shoal formation. During periods of lowered sea-level in the Pleistocene period , there would have been an uninterrupted land connection between India and Sri Lanka.
With the continuous Global warming towards the end of the last Glaciation identified as Wisconsin Glaciation , the sea-level began to rise worldwide, again. It happened about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and it indicates the beginning of Holocene Epoch. Up to that point of time, migration of people from India could have continued. That way, it was natural for people to migrate in large numbers and they naturally had their own leaders who became legendary .Folklore took over from there and the struggles of the people for domination over each other naturally became epic stories. Rama Story and other legendary figures in Maha Bharatha could have had their origins then. That way even after the sea level in the Palk Strait rose , the route remained known. One possibility of Rama going on his rescue mission with the help of Hanuman and his Army also knew the route to Lanka and when they found un-passable gaps, such places could have been filled enough to make their armies pass. That way, the whole picture falls into place. It was true that there was a person by the name Rama and his beloved Queen was abducted by a Powerful king known as Rawana.
The rescue mission needed more manpower and that could have been the reason for Rama seeking help from Hanuman who could have been the leader of a tribe of people who believed in a Monkey God.
A Map of Adam’s Bridge
Even in Sri Lanka it is believed that before Prince Vijeya came with his seven hundred followers there were people who worshipped Demons and were known as Yaksha Tribe. It is believed that even Lord Buddha came to Sri Lanka to bring peace among people who worshipped Cobras and were known as Naaga Tribe. According to the legends, Singhalese belong to a tribe that believed that it was started by a lion. Therefore, having a kind of people who were mentioned as Monkeys could be some people who worshipped some Ape God. They could have been some nimble footed warriors.
As it is a proved fact that the Sea Level rose with the Ice caps melting and the increased volume of water could have covered a larger area and that way some of the narrow ridge that extended between Sri Lanka and India could have got submerged leaving only a few higher sectors, which now remain as sandy islands. The assumption that the sea level had risen by thirty feet tallies with the deepest areas along the Adam’s Bridge.
It is interesting to note that the land covered by ice at present is about 10% of the earth's landmass and at the height of the last Ice Age of the world which is technically identified as Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was there till 15,000 to 20,000 years ago and the landmass covered by ice then was almost 30% or in area covered in ice sheets was about 44 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth. What has to be grasped at this point is the fact that the ‘Sea Level’ was at a lower point as it had to be the same water from the oceans that had to be frozen into ice. It is also an indication that two thirds ( 2/3) of those ice sheets got melted and became water filling the oceans. That explains how the sea level increased after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Now touching again on the presence of human beings in the region, compared to the time the humans were roaming around, the maximum limit of 20,000 years prove a ‘land bridge’ there.
Elaborating further on that, it should be noted that due to the quantities of water which was locked up in vast quantities on landmasses and lowered sea levels during the coldest period of the LGM, the world had smaller oceans and seas and the sea levels were about 120 metres or 394 feet lower than now.
When the ice started melting and the volume of oceans also increased the submerged area also became deeper during the early part of the Holocene Period. By mid-Holocene , the ice melting became slower and sea-levels also became more or less stabilized globally.
It is important to understand where the Ramayana stories fit in within the context of all this history of sea-level changes. Majority of the historians place the Ramayana around 100-500 B.C. and the related technological aspects blend more easily with such a period as the sociological and cultural aspects denote more recent images. The smaller number of historians who try to justify an era of more remote past do not sound convincing as the development by the time of Lord Buddha should have been more advanced if the region had that kind of development as far back as 3,000 years B.C.
The geological significance of the formation known as Adam’s Bridge or Rama’s Bridge which is popularly known as Sethu Ram in India is with its impact on the current socio-political between Sri Lanka and India. For the Hindus of India as well as of Sri Lanka, it is a ‘holy’ matter as the solid fact that Hinduism and Rama cannot be separated. The issue is the dependency of concepts and those who are guided by such concepts which becomes a psychological aspect that binds people emotionally, reducing avenues for more rational approaches. That affects even the issues like the countries’ territorial integrity making issues more complicated. In other words, it has become a severe constraint in a way to people who try to be more realistic and rational, rather than trying to live in a past which sounds more mythological than logical.
The hard facts are that the first human beings were not created and planted in Sri Lanka taking it as the location which some people try to compare to the paradise mentioned in the Bible. Unless some spaceships brought different kinds of people from some other planet in the universe to colonise various regions of the Earth, it points towards only one possibility and that is the Evolution.
Archeologists claim that Sri Lanka was definitely inhabited by the humans by 700,000 BC and that they knew how to use fire by 500,000 BC.Whether it was the creation or introduction of humans from some other planet in the universe the fact remains that the living standards were not advanced in the past. Man as a hunter and a gatherer took thousands of years in drifting from one region to another looking for food. The distances covered by those primitive people are unimaginable even by the most modern standards for travelling. But again, it can be easily understood by considering the life span of a human being against the length of the history of human beings found in various parts in the world.
It has been proved that the first people of American Continent came from Asia across Bering Strait which was a continuous hard surface that linked Asia with North America.. When Spaniards found America there were already people there who led very primitive lives. Later with further investigations they found ancient civilizations like those of Aztecs and of Incas.
Geological developments as well as the Climatic Conditions which prevailed created the base for the biological environment. When it was colder and the world was going through an Ice Age , it had far reaching effect on the geology as well as on the formation of relief. Ice Ages had direct effect on the oceans and therefore, the volume of water in the oceans and seas was reduced bringing down the ‘ Sea Level ’ and in other words, the land area under water was less.
In the map shown above, it is indicated that the Land of Sri Lanka as one of the places where the ‘fossils of human species were found. Leaving aside the uncertain beginning of the presence of Human Species within the Island of Sri Lanka, it is a very clear picture that the people of the country have a very deep historical background of evolution from a kind of beings who were the ancestors who kept on surviving while facing the two eventualities of either being vanquished or by blending with the newer and more advanced migrants who kept on moving in.
The evidence found in the ancient caves in Sri Lanka shows that the earliest inhabitants also lived in communities, sticking together for protection, the picture becomes clear how the earliest man developed with the advanced knowledge filtering through those who came into contact. While the inevitable aspect of sticking together as friend, created the emergence of communities, better became identifiable as tribes.
Similar groups which fought to acquire and preserve the resources for their use became enemies. The struggle continued and it was always those who had better knowledge who survived.
The peak of lat Ice Age was around 20,000 years ago and that was the time the migration of humans became more. It happened so as the sea level dropped by at least 20 feet below from the sea level of today.
By that time the predecessors of the Homo Sapiens- the modern human beings had already reached all the reachable corners of the world. Going back towards the early developments, it can be observed that the Eastern Homo Erectus, lived in parts of Asia where ecology varied much less with climate than it did in Africa and Europe.
By that time modern humans had radiated out of Africa into Europe and most of Asia, including Australia. Climate affected vegetation and rainfall to a considerable degree, and these wide variations stimulated human evolution through human migration. The backwater of human evolution,
It is interesting that several fossil sites from Homo erectus up to modern humans were located near seacoasts at the time of their habitation. There is good evidence that oceangoing boats were constructed by humans by 60,000 years ago. We tend to think of early humans as hillside "cave dwellers" and in inland areas they often were; but they were also early seafarers who moved on the waves too.
By the time it was 10,000 B.C. Sri Lanka definitely had better social organizations and it is naturally logical and possible that they were linked to communities which had their established bases in the neighboring land of India.
The physical presence of the special landform that is connected to the Indian mainland and the island of Sri Lanka, which had been completely dry during the peak of the last Ice Age due to the lowered sea level could have been a real bridge that encouraged the migrating groups of people who kept on wandering , looking for better places to live.
While the land bridge connected the continent , Sri Lanka remained a land that was always less known and that in turn could have created an ideal environment for it to develop separately.
The evidence that comes up related to Indus valley Civilisations with the more prominently known locations like Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa and the findings like fabric made in the Indus Valley being used in such a far away place like Egypt to wrap the mummies hint about a well established trading.
Compared to a period like 60,000 years being recorded as a time when people were known to have used vessels to move around, the legendary Prince Vijeya and his seven hundred followers coming to Lanka in their sea worthy vessels during the 05th Century B.C. need not be treated as unbelievable..
Considering the chronological order, stories mentioned in Ramayana could have originated very much before, and could have been well within the 5000.B.C. Around that, Vedic Religions were already practiced and the Deities found in Hinduism were already there. That links the Ramayana stories to a great extent.
The advanced settlements in the Northern India evolved into Kingdoms and it was in the Kingdom of Kosala, the capital City of Ayodhya is mentioned. That was where King Dasharatha ruled and Rama was destined to be his son.
The fast developing Kingdoms would have proved to be insufficient for ambitious kings and it was a natural development for groups to go out looking for new places. By the very fact that Lanka was mentioned in Ramayanaya, it is established that Lanka was a name already known in India. Although Rawana was mentioned as a it could have been that King Rawana was a person who was a strong rulers and therefore he could have been a separate power base during that time. The possibility is that King Rawana was linked to the early North Indians who came in waves into the present day Lanka. But he would have become a part of the locally present people who were a blend that descended from the prehistoric people and those who came with advanced knowledge.
He could have become the undisputed ruler in Lanka and the people here were known as Yaksha Tribe,a kind who believed in Demons or more specifically, they were known as Yaksha. That way, he came to be known as a Demon King. However, according to the same sources, Hindus believe Ravana was a Brahmin, and according to the legend , it was his mother who was connected to the Yakshas, and Ravana was also known as a very strong devotee of Lord Shiva and all those mean that he also had his origins in India.He ruled Lanka and the fact that he was in and out of India proves some kind of effective communication that existed between the two regions.
The Indian influence was very strong due to that proximity and it is clear that the role played by Adam’s Bridge cannot be just shrugged aside and that the relevance was not only for Ramayana. Even the first settlers of Sri Lanka should have come through India. During the prehistoric era, the primitive people who lived naturally selected safe locations like large caves which gave them protection. Such places were located in the hilly regions of Sri Lanka with only a very few rock outcrops found in the Northern, Eastern and Southern plains.
Agricultural History of mankind indicates that by about 9000 - 7000 B.C. grain crops like wheat and barley were grown in South Western Asia and the migrating people could have carried the knowledge wherever they went. It is said that the animals like cattle, sheep and goats were already domesticated by then. Proof was found about grain being cultivated in Egypt by the year 7000 B.C. Between 7000 and 3000 B.C. Mankind knew about other crops that gave them food. By 5000 B.C. millet was already known and as far as China, people were growing rice which is believed to have been first found in India.
The first signs of man learning to control the environment to suit his needs can be seen ina place like Mesopotamia where crop cultivation was practiced with irrigation as far back as 5000 B.C. With the growth of population, they needed more food and naturally imaginative man could have thought of irrigation to have two crops in one year. A Grain Cultivating region like Mesopotamia became a great civilization.
Grain Cultivation based Mohenjo- Daro and Harappan Civilisations were already in place by 2500 B.C, in the valley of River Indus, in an area shared presently by both India and Pakistan now. By 3500 B.C. water buffalo was known to the Indian farmers.
The first agrarian settlers who came to Lanka would have come with their knowledge in agriculture and the lush environment here compared to the arid plains in North India would have made them feel more comfortable. Their superiority in skills might have developed them into greater tribes and they in turn might have subdued the primitive aboriginal groups who came from the migrants who moved into Lanka thousands of years before. The friction between the more intelligent and developed settlers and the more primitive local tribes would have decimated the latter slowly in numbers as well as by way of peaceful blending. With the agrarian settlers establishing themselves in the Northern and Southern Plains they became the foundation for a great agrarian civilization in Sri Lanka, developing a nation that had become a blend of the pre-historic people and the more advanced people who came through India over thousands of years crossing ,the Palk Straight as well as by sea worthy vessels.
It is very possible that the early settlers who came like that came from same areas of India and therefore they had common features. One significant feature is that the majority of the people in Sri Lanka are known as Singhalese and their language is closer to North Indian languages mainly of course with the influence from Tamil language to a minor extent, indicating a smaller scale influence. The argument that Lanka was a region dominated by Tamil culture cannot hold as the Northern and eastern Regions of Lanka which were more open to Indian influence could have shown wider and deeper pe*******on. But that does not mean that Tamil influence was not there. All those belong to more recent history and the first wave of intensified Indian influence is felt after the legendary arrival of Prince Vijeya and his seven hundred followers, which can be taken as more factual with the names of the key persons in the group starting settlements in their own names.
That indicates a period with more seafaring and the timing also shows logical as it is around 500.B.C. By that time the stage was already set and there were already people living in Sri Lanka who had their own governments and security systems. The disappearance of the seven hundred followers of Prince Vijeya can be seen in a different light Those followers would have been disarmed by Princess Kuweni’s guards, turning Prince Vijeya harmless.It was through the love of Kuveni for Vijeya, the land was conquered by the outsiders.
According to one theory, Prince Vijaya came from a region in Western India. Near Gujarat they would have sailed along the Western cost of India for guidance and it is logical and possible that they moved , sailing having the Indian Coast in sight up to Adams Bridge before turning towards East, and reaching the coast of Sri Lanka in no time. Or they planned to reach only that area where it could have been known to be inhabited.
The visitors soon found that their feet and hands which touched the land became copper coloured, possibly caused by some minerals which were there, probably by the red dust that could have been deposited by winds.. The meaning of the word ” Thamravarni” in Sanscrit is ‘Copper Coloured’, and the First Kingdom that commenced with Vijeya lineage came to be known as ‘ The Kingdom of Thambapanni ’. It is believed that the Greek word “ Taprobane” was a derivative from Thambapanni which is how “ Thamra Varni” in Sanscrit is pronounced in ‘ Pali
Although it is believed that the real Sri Lankan Civilisation from North India, it can also be believed that the North Indian influence could have come earlier into Lanka with the groups of migrating people who could have selected the western seaboard of India as the guidance. They would have migrated with their knowledge in agriculture.
According to the legend, Princess Kuweni was spinning cotton and that indicates two things. One is that the people who were already in Sri Lanka knew how to weave fabrics and that the yarn needed for fabric weaving came from cotton. The obvious possibility is that the people knew the cotton plant and that it could also have been that it was cultivated.
It can be believed that Princess Kuweni knew how to make cotton cloth and that was why she was spinning yarn when Prince Vijeya arrived.
In Mohenjo Daro Civilisation people had fabric weaving well established. It has been established that fabric used in wrapping mummies in Egypt was taken there from Larkana a settlement that specialized in fabric making.
Produce material would have been taken by the traders and it is quite possible that some such traded their merchandise even in Lanka. Over the years, first seeds of cotton also could have reached Lanka and behind those, weaving skills were destined to follow. It is not difficult to believe that the settlers in Lanka knew the skill, by the time Prince Vijeya came to Lanka.
The cotton plant is an indication of the level of knowledge in technology. The cotton plant had been domesticated in different parts of the world at different times. The fact that cotton grows wild in the hinterland closer to Mannar indicates the possibility of cotton being cultivated by the tribes in Lanka then.
The history of cotton cultivation may start either at a point of the domestication of cotton plant or at a possible point where it was introduced. The most logical explanation is that the seeds spread with the help of traders and the technology also followed.
It has been satisfactorily proved that people in Mohenjo Daro knew about cotton and they knew how to spin cordage and to make fabrics using such, sat least by 3500 BC, as indicated by the ruins there.
The recorded history of Lanka with more evidence that can be illustrated and supported starts more or less with the emergence of the Kingdom of Thambapanni. It is linked to Mannar and it is the gateway to Adam’s Bridge.
If a Time Machine can take us backward into the Pre History and have the Adam’s Bridge focused , it would prove to be one of the busiest tracks, the early mankind took, starting from the earliest hominids to the more developed Homo Sapiens. It was that continuous movement that inhabited the land first and then helped in forming a unique nation of people who have their identity as can be seen even today.
If Adam’s Bridge was not there, the history of this land would have been different
