Peter Peiris Fortnight- Luxury Sri Lanka Holidays

Sri Lanka Holidays: Adam's Peak, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Holidays: Buddha Footprint 1

Sri Lanka Holidays: Wild Life 1

Tamils (Malabars) in Ancient Lanka

“Notwithstanding their numbers & their power, it is remarkable that the Malabars were never identified with any plan for promoting the prosperity & embellishment ofCeylon, or with any undertaking for the permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were the earliest colonists, & with whom originated every project for enriching & adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify or enrich, but to impoverish & deface;- & nothing can more strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single fact that everything tending to exalt & to civilize, in the early condition of Ceylon, was introduced by the northern conquerors, whilst all that contributed to ruin & debase it is distinctly traceable to the presence & influence of the Malabars”
Ceylon An Account of The Island Physical, Historical & Topographical by Sir James Emerson Tennent,  K.CS. LL. D &c. 1859 London

Malarbars – Maruading Dravidian invaders from Southern India to Sri Lanka.
Southern race - Maruading Dravidian invaders from Southern India toSri Lanka.
Gangetic race - Aryan Sinhalese settlers of the island of Sri Lanka from East India.

... Tamil (whose forebears in ancient Sinhalese history played a part analogous to that of Attila's Huns), perperated  an amusing wriggle when pressed by his critics to produce Litera scripta in proof of his claim that the ..

Cinnamon & Frangipanni: Ashely Gibson  Year 1923 London, U.K.

Here at last, we have restored to the Orient that which even tradition had lost: for upon the proud civilization of Ceylon remorseless Tamil raiders had ‘let in the jungle’:& the lowlands, which had once blossomed like a garden, were engulfed by forests that encumber it to this day.

“Ceylon Past & Present” by Major C. M. Enriquez, F.R.G.S Year 1812

Sri Lanka Holidays notes 1, 2 & 3 supporting the extract are made by bunpeiris.

1. Sri Lanka Holidays take you to coastal cities of colonial heritage: Colombo, Mount Lavinia & Galle.

2. Sri Lanka Holidays take you to VOC Galle Dutch Fort of Dutch colonial heritage.

3. Sinhalese History web page of Sri Lanka Holidays enlighten you of the murder & mayhem, destruction & devastation, rack & ruin perpetrated by the marauding Dravidian invaders from Southern India.

Serendipity Post 3 by bunpeiris, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Posted by courtesy of Dr. Ananada W. P. Guruge, U.S.A.

Serendipity of Andrew Geroge by Dr. Anada W. P. Guruge

Chapter 1

Unraveling a Mystery

Unconsciously, I was counting days. Each sunny day was a harbinger of the warmth of my still little known destination. As I snoozed under my favourite hanging willow tree, I dreamt of the sunny beaches of the far-off island.

That day my dream was real. It was a scene from my past-my childhood. It was of my mother sunbathing under the same willow tree. She was with a friend whom I could not recall. They were speaking of their success in acquiring a tan to last the on-coming winter of southern Canada.

“I haven’t to bother about it,” my mother was telling her showing her tawny arms & legs. “I am lucky I have a tan from the day I was born.”

‘How come?” queried her friend.

‘My father comes from an island near India,” said my mother.

I got up with a jerk. Was it a figment of my imagination, heightened by my preoccupation with Ceylon? Or could it really be that my grandfather was from Asia & even possibly from Ceylon. I had to find out. All I needed was to write to my mother who lived in a suburb of Toronto on Lake Ontario.

I could not recall my grandparents. Had I seen either of them as a child? I had no recollections whatsoever. It was a further matter on which my mother might enlighten me.

I spent the rest of the afternoon writing a long letter to my mother literary with a score of questions. I concluded it with a query: “Mom, am I on the threshold of discovering my lost identity & legacy?”

On my return to the University, I began to read on Ceylon. At first, the encyclopedias. They gave me some basic information.

Ceylon was a Crown Colony of the British Empire (1) from 1802 to 1948. Before that for three hundred years parts of it had been under the Portuguese & Dutch (2). Now it was a Dominion of the British Commonwealth, similar to Canada. It was a sovereign state & not a part of India. The Queen of England was also the Queen of Ceylon. But the British Parliament had no legislative control over Ceylon.

It had a Governor-General, who represented the Queen & assented to Acts of Parliament in her name. Its constriction provided for a bi-cameral system of government; a Senate & a House of Representatives. Legislation to abolish the Senate was pending. Several political parties had come into existence & the general elections had been both orderly & decisive.

The people of Ceylon had enjoyed universal franchise from 1931 onwards & everyone-males as well as females, over the age of eighteen-had the right of voting. They had used it to change their central government & their local governing bodies peacefully.

The leader of the party with the largest number of seats in the House of Representatives became the Prime Minister & he or she appointed ministers. Together they formed the Cabinet that was collectively responsible to the Parliament & to the people for all executive functions of the country. Ceylon had earned the unique credit of electing by popular vote the world’s first women head of government.

The question hour with which every parliamentary session began was an opportunity for a Member of Parliament to ask ministers of anything that happened in their ministers. So ‘the smiling brownies’ of our small town grocer were an enlightened lot, I concluded.

I also began to look for such bits of information as were relevant to my proposed research project. The Island was separated from the Indian Sub-Continent by the Palk Strait which at the narrowest stretch was about eighteen miles wide. The nearness to India determined the character & the diversity of the population. The earliest recorded waves of migrations were from the northwestern & northeastern regions of India. They constituted the majority who spoke an Indo-European or Aryan language & formed the Sinhala Kingdom that had an unbroken history of over twenty-four centuries of independent existence.

South Indian invaders had ruled parts of the Island from time to time.  The northern region was a part of the Cola Empire of the tenth century only for a brief period of fifty-even years (3). Since then a substantial Tamil population had settled down in northern & eastern parts of the island. Arab traders & Muslims from South India had migrated & formed the second minority. The latest segment of the population comprised South Indian indentured labor that the British imported to develop their plantations. Scattered about in urban areas was also a small population of descendants of European powers- especially the Dutch.

Unraveling a Mystery will be continued by Sri Lanka Holidays

Serendipity Post 2 bunpeiris,Moratuwa

Serendipity of Andrew George by Dr. Ananda  W. P. Guruge

Chapter 1

A Voyage of Discovery

It was the summer of 1964 & I was in my cottage on Varney Point Road by Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. A slight drizzle had compelled me to abandon my usual siesta on the beach.

“A message for Professor Andrew George,” the Western Union Clerk announced over the telephone. “Congratulations. Fulbright Research grant for eighteen months awarded to Ceylon-Bureau of Education & Culture.’

‘Ceylon –did you say? I asked her.

“That’s right, sir. ‘C E Y L O N.’ She spelled it for me.

I had applied for a research grant under an International Cultural Relations Project. All I wished was to study the process of cultural interaction & assimilation in any country emerging from a pre-industrial culture to one of modern technology.

My research with the tribes in conflict in the Amazon Basin in Brazil had been recently upheld as innovative & trail-blazing. I was being credited to have ventured into a new field that I tentatively called Anthropological Futurology. I had developed a method to project anthropological indicators to foresee possible multidimensional trends in nascent conflicts. I was keen to test my method & conclusions in a country where the internecine conflicts were historically deep-seated & complicated recently by economic & political developments. I had indicated that a pluralistic society emerging from Colonialism would be ideal. Apparently some knowledgeable person in the bureau of Education & Culture had found Ceylon to suit my need.

Where is Ceylon

I vaguely remembered Ceylon as an island close to India. But that was about all I knew of it. I was not sure whether it was a state or province of India or not. Being a Professor, held in high esteem by many undergraduate & graduate students, I felt a bit ashamed that I should know nothing about a country that the Fulbright Commission in Washington DC has thought to be important enough for a research project of eighteen months. The fault, if any, was in the system of education that laid little emphasis on the study of the world outside Europe. I tried to see how many others in the neighborhood were in a similar position.

In the small town of Gilford where I was at the time I received the message, others knew even less, I thought. But I ventured to ask a few persons whether they had heard of a place called CEYLON. I had a number of surprising answers.

The man who sells stamps at the Post Office said that he came from Ceylon. But that turned out to be Ceylon, Minnesota, a small community of barely a thousand people. But they had a newspaper that according to my informant was known as the ‘CEYLON GAZETEER.” He showed me the latest issue, which, of course, shed no light on my search.

Several people had heard of Ceylon as an active supporter of the Western Bloc about a decade or two ago. One had heard of the assassination of a Prime Minister. Two women were sure it was a land governed by a woman president or prime minister.

The only person who had been to Ceylon was our grocer, John. He was there during the 2^nd World War. He was posted to a Naval Base on the northeastern coast of the Island. All he remembered were the jungles where he had gone deer hunting on his off-days. John spoke of wild elephants & leopards, bears & antelopes, sambhur & deer. He did not like the giant pythons, cobras or, as a matter of fact, any snakes or crawling creatures. He hated the viper that he called the most vicious of all creatures he knew. He had vivid memories of colorful birds; the peacock with its shiny blue-green & gold plumes, the variegated wild fowl, the green parrot & the black mynah with golden beak & feet. He simply loved Ceylon & her flora & fauna, selectively, of course.

Once I gave him a chance to speak on Ceylon, I could never get him stop even if I had anything very urgent. He came out with exciting accounts of his own experiences in the jungles: how he lost his way & walked into remote villages where he was received with cordiality & given a whole quart of bees’ honey to drink. He described his night vigil near a waterhole. He could scarcely conceal his excitement as he gave a vivid account of animals as they came for their nightly drink of water: their wariness & cunning, their system of protocol, the fear & instinct which were the only protective armor of the smaller species; the daring audacity of the leopard; & the majestic pride of the elephant. By morning, the jungle sky was literary covered with flock after flock of migrant birds, which had flown several thousand miles to avoid the winter of their original homes. He also remembered the exotic orchids, specially fox-tails, almost a yard in length.

John had met only a few people. He said that they were generally friendly & helpful. He called them ‘the smiling brownies.’ He seemed to like the little kids he met around the camp. He spoke gratefully of the villagers who had, on several occasions, helped him to find his way back to the camp. They were poor & eked out a bare existence fro the dry, dusty fields in which they worked for hours in the scorching sun. But they would not accept any payment for a favour done. They were hospitable too. He described how the village folks once cooked a meal for hi & two friends; they had lost their way in the jungle & had no food for a whole day. It was the most delicious dinner he had eaten in his life, he swore. Our grocer’s information & moreso, his enthusiasm, made me look forward to my assignment in Ceylon with a rare degree of anticipation. Even if Ceylon could offer only these exciting jungles & ‘the smiling brownies” of the villages, it was worth a visit. In any case, I had wanted a change from my hectic life in the States. A change of scene would also soften the blow of broken relationship. So I said to myself, ‘This is it.”

Visit Pinnawela Elephant Orphange, close to Kandy, Sri Lanka with Sri Lanka Holidays.