Where is Ceylon?

Ceylon Island (which was renamed as Sri Lanka in ancient times 1975) is separated from the southern tip of India by the shallow Pok Strait, which is about 20 miles wide. There are several isolated islands in the Strait. However, the two countries have always been politically independent from each other. Although Ceylon has developed its own unique culture and gained an independent sense of identity, there is no doubt that it is still a part of the larger Indian culture. Sometime in the 6th century BC, Viktor, a Sanskrit or Aryan-speaking monarch, led a large group of followers to sail from northwest India to Ceylon and established a kingdom. Indian businessmen may have arrived in Ceylon earlier and settled there, but we have no record of such early contact. Wei Yeyue's followers called themselves Sinhalese ("lion people") and later became the main ethnic group in Ceylon. Sinhala is also the name of an Indo-European language related to the Hindi language. They not only brought the culture, writing system and religion of late Vedas in North India, but also brought many other components and technologies of culture, including rice irrigation and knowledge cultivation. They may soon unite and assimilate the second batch of immigrants from Bangladesh. Although in the first few centuries, Sinhalese intermarried with the indigenous Vader, who was still in the Neolithic age and was far behind in technology, the former quickly crowded out the latter, and few of the surviving Vader still lived in remote jungles.

By the 1 century and the following centuries, the Sinhalese people had established a large-scale rice agricultural system with artificial irrigation, and the population was mainly concentrated in the northern half of the island, with anurak Depreux as its capital, and established a second central city-Naruwo, Bronn. This area is a part of the so-called arid area of Ceylon. Without irrigation, there would be no fixed farmland agriculture. The soil here is fertile, the terrain is flat, there is almost uninterrupted strong sunshine and high temperature growth period, which can ensure the high yield of crops under artificial irrigation conditions. There, a lot of rain is concentrated in the short three-month period of northeast Asian monsoon winter, and the rest months are basically dry. The kingdom of Sinhalese built large reservoirs to intercept winter rain and water in streams, and then transported them to rice fields through a complex ditch system. Sluices have been built on several rivers that flow through the area all the year round to intercept irrigation water. The population in arid areas has greatly increased. At the peak of 10 century, the residents of Anura Depreux reached more than 654.38+million, while the total population of Ceylon may reach 3 million or 4 million. It is precisely because the country has mastered such a huge population through labor that it has been able to build and maintain large-scale irrigation projects and build many large palaces and temples in Anula Depreux. Before modern times, no place in the world has seen such intensive and highly skilled irrigation projects, and all these depend on the state's control over the mass labor force.

Dajia Block Wave (stupa) in Anura Depreux; It was restored in the 20th century, and there are many similar pagodas nearby. (R？ Murphry)

Ceylon was the first place outside India to contact Buddhism. There is a legend in religious circles that Ananda, a disciple of the Buddha, personally conveyed the teachings before the death of the Buddha. But before Ashoka sent missionaries to Ceylon and Myanmar in the 3rd century BC, Buddhism probably didn't spread beyond North India and certainly didn't spread to Ceylon. Ashoka's emissary made the Sinhalese people quickly accept Buddhism and keep their faith to this day. They created beautiful Buddhist sculptures and traditional Indian architecture, including the world's largest mound stupa (or Buddha Wave) and huge statues of the Buddha and his disciples. The great pagoda in Anula Depreux is bigger than all the pyramids in ancient Egypt except one. There are many pagodas of similar size within a few miles around, as well as a large group of beautiful memorial stone buildings and large baths. All these gorgeous buildings show that Ceylon's agricultural economy provides a large number of stable surplus products to pay for construction and art, and there is surplus labor to invest in these activities. The chronicles of the classic Sangha Tam compiled and preserved by Buddhists and monks mainly record the pious behavior of kings in past dynasties, especially their building of pagodas or subsidizing temples, which indirectly reflects the prosperity of economy and the orderly state of society as a whole.

Considering the convenience of travel between South India and Ceylon, their communication may have started before the 5th century BC. Before the Christian era or earlier, Tamil speakers from Dalopita, South India, had settled in the northern end of Ceylon, and they brought their own agriculture irrigated by wells. They became the main residents of Jaffna Peninsula and the neighboring areas in northern Ceylon, but they maintained cultural ties and Hinduism with South India. Immigrants from South India lasted for centuries and intermarried with Sinhalese to some extent. For most of the history of Ceylon, Sinhalese and Tamil, the two main Indian immigrant groups, have been at odds, but their differences eventually turned into fierce political disputes in AD 1950.

Ancient Ceylon Art: The beautiful fairy in the 5th century painting on the pillar of Sigiriya fortress in the south of Ganqu is spreading flowers on the ground. This painting is better preserved than most very similar Indian murals of the same period. (Stella Snead/Indian Archaeological Survey)

The Sinhalese kingdom based in Anura Depreux often suppresses Tamil areas in the north, but it must protect itself from the intermittent attacks of the larger Tamil kingdom in South India. When rival Sinhalese who advocated kingship allied themselves with invaders, especially after the 6th century, such attacks often stimulated or aggravated internal discord between them. The Juro Empire, which rose in South India a few centuries ago, launched a particularly fierce invasion of Ceylon in 1 1 century, and plundered Anura Depreux in10/7. So the Sinhalese people moved their capital to Naruwo, Bronn. From there, with the help of local forces, the Juros were finally deported in 1070. In the next century, King Boroga Ramabahu (reigned1153 ~1/86) unified the whole territory of Ceylon, ruled from Naruwo, the capital of Tsukagoshi Hirotaka, invaded South India and Myanmar, and built huge new irrigation projects and public buildings, making the capital almost the same as anurak. However, after his death, the civil war broke out and a new devastating invasion from South India broke out. By the13rd century, the dry areas had actually been abandoned, and the efficient irrigation projects there could no longer be maintained. Since then, the greatly reduced population has been sheltered by the hills and mountains in central Ceylon, living around the medieval capital Kandy, and later moved to the lowlands around Colombo Port.