Everyone thinks the north of Sri Lanka was always the same. But before the Chola invasion of the 10th century changed the linguistic landscape forever, the north was a Sinhala Prakrit powerhouse. Let’s look at the evidence.
First exhibit A, the Valapuram gold plate. This is actually the longest inscription found in the north before the 10th century. And it’s written in Sinhala Prakrit.
Here is the actual text from the 2nd century CE. Siddha. What does it mean? Well, it translates to Siddha, hail.
In the reign of the great king Vashabha, and when the minister Isagiriya was governing Nakadiva, Nagadipa, Piyaguka Tissa caused a vihara to be built at Badakarastana. This clearly proves that the Sinhala king Vasava in Anuradhapura was, in fact, the central authority in the north. But here’s where it gets interesting.
The Nagas were the bridge. In the Tamil epic Manimekalai, they are even called non-Tamil speakers. Consider the story of the Tamil Chedi Shaduvan from modern-day Tamil Nadu, who mastered the Naga language during his time in Nagadipa, northern Sri Lanka.
This happened after his ship was caught in a storm, carrying him to a land of what were described as naked nomads in Nagadipa. The Tamil epic Manimekalai reveals even more. It describes King Vallai Vanan, a powerful Naga king who ruled Nagadipa with great Buddhist splendor.
He wasn’t an outsider. Rather, he was a local Naga ruler who truly turned the north into a Buddhist hub. However, they were also masters of Tamil.
Great poets like Putan Ilanaganar and Marudan Ilanaganar, hailing from Jaffna and Manor, wrote in the Tamil Sangam. And even the Sinhalese king Ilanaga himself is said to have contributed to the Sangam. The single Sinhala Buddhist nation-state was partly a Naga dynasty.
The Nagas were likely one of the clans that resided in Sri Lanka. Before state formation leading to the Sinhalese identity, it started with Mahasiva, Devanampiya Tissa’s brother, one of Sri Lanka’s most important kings, and continued with Kalatha Naga, Kora Naga, Ilanaga, Mahalakanaga, Sirinaga, and Abhayanaga. The Naga suffix was the mark of the royal bloodline that ruled from Anuradhapura.
And at the heart of it all for the Sinhalese Anuradhapura kingdom, the central authority was their most important port for trade, Mahatita, known today as Manor. It was indeed the most important port for the Sinhalese kings. While the king ruled the land, Tamil traders lived in Mahatita, much like the Naga Tamil poets, running the international trade that made the kingdom rich.
Before the Cholas arrived, the north of Sri Lanka was a bilingual zone of Sinhala Prakrit laws and Tamil poetry. Time to reclaim our shared history my fellow Sri Lankans.
