Ceylon or Sri Lanka
stories in history
Major stages of history
from Sri Lanka
Sinhala Foundation
6th century BC: the island that Westerners in Antiquity will call Taprobane , is conquered by Aryan invaders from the center from India. They push back towards the forests of the interior the native population of Australoid origin, the Veddas ( photo at the end of the 19th century below, ; we still met their descendants towards the center of the island at the beginning of the 20th century).
The conquerors are the ancestors (ethnic and linguistic origin) of today's Sinhalese. Their leader is Vijaya, from northern India from which he has just been banned; their religion is Brahmanism (at the origin of Hinduism).
It was also probably in the 6th century BC that was born Sidharta Gautama, the Buddha, founder of Buddhism.
The descendants of Vijaya melt around -377 the future capital Anuradhapura , in the north center of the island.
Within oar range, Tamil farmers from the opposite Indian coast also come to settle on the north coast of the island.
The great trade routes and that of spices
The spice route has already existed for a long time, as has the silk route to the Persian Gulf, the Horn of Africa, Egypt and Europe, but is limited to caravans and cabotage. Not only is the island on this path, but it is one of the places major spices and precious stones production.
The major maritime routes that Portuguese navigators will develop first (in red on the map above in the left column) remain to be discovered.
The Greek Eratosthenes quotes Taprobane in the 3rd century BC.
Introduction and propagation of Buddhism
Dēvānampiya Tissa (-247 to -207) reigns on the island. Then came Mahinda (-282 to -222), son or brother of the Indian emperor Ashoka, converted to Buddhism, and some missionary monks. They make known the teachings of the Buddha. The island quickly becomes a stronghold of Buddhism .
The meeting between the Sinhalese king and the monk Mahinda is the founding event of Sinhalese history.
Since 4th century BC and for 14 centuries the capital Anuradhapura grows but is often undermined by the incessant conflicts with South India.
First real Tamil conquests ( also called "malabars" by mistake in the 18th and 19th centuries: region of southwest India )
Tamil King Elara of the Hindu Chola dynasty from Tamil Nadu state just opposite on the Indian coast of the South-East conquers the North of the island after encountering Sinhalese resistance. He reign from -204 to -161 before being defeated by a Sinhalese, Duttagâmanî who built superb constructions in particular in the capital Anurâdhapura.
A new Tamil offensive from the North, in -104 drives Sinhala King Vattagamani Abhaya from his capital, Anuradhapura. He took refuge in Dambulla, where he created a huge Buddhist monastic complex (vihara).
Ptolemy quotes the island on his world map around -150 (below in a reproduction published in 1535).
Rootedness and influence of primitive Buddhism, the "Theradava"
A unification council imposes in -25 the "Theravada Buddhism", one of the oldest branches of Buddhism; it is also called Southeast Buddhism because it is in these regions of Asia that it is most established.
For Buddhists around the world, Ceylon was (or still is?) The source of wisdom and faith .
Anuradhapura becomes and will remain the holy city of Buddhism for the Sinhalese.
Second Tamil wave, rooting and foundation of Jaffna
The Tamils of the Pandya Empire conquer the north of the island, not without Sinhalese resistance.
It is this Indian Empire, through its ethnic and religious ties, which will be "the tutelary power" of the Tamils of Ceylon, even until modern warfare. The Tamils develop Jaffna at the northern tip of the island, one of the stopovers on the "Silk Road".
The Sinhalese recaptured Jaffna in 480 and expelled most of the Tamils.
The two large ethnic groups come together and form small kingdoms which somehow coexist over the following centuries.
The Moors come here with Islam
Arab merchants, Moors, from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea come to settle in the ports of the island and introduce Islam. But the many raids they carry out are destructive and weaken the island.
They also marry Sinhalese women.
Then towards the years 750 deep-sea navigation developed, faster and avoiding the taxes and tolls of the caravan trade.
Third wave of Tamil invasion
Third great wave of Tamil invasion. The area they occupy remains unified and supported by the neighboring continent.
The Tamils of the Chola Empire (Rajaraja 1st) this time completely subjugate the island, which becomes possession of Tamil Nadu.
The golden century (s) of Buddhism; peaceful coexistence
Sinhala King Vijaya Bahu drives out Tamils and transfers capital to Anuradhapura towards Polonnaruwa ( remains of the vihara below ) in the south-central part of the island, which will remain so for two centuries.
It is the golden century of Buddhism whose capital shines with magnificent monuments, but also with superb Hindu temples.
Buddhist and Hindu rites, and populations coexist peacefully.
Jaffna, independent Tamil kingdom
The Tamils erected Jaffna and its region as an independent kingdom, which would last 400 years (until the destruction of their capital by the Portuguese in 1619). Jaffna, a major stopover city on the Silk Road, is enriched and reinforces its prestige. The Tamils probably introduced rice cultivation in the surrounding lowlands; and continue to fight the neighboring kingdoms.
New capital refuge of the Sinhalese: Kotte
Threatens by the Tamils in the north, a Sinhalese king founded a new city, Kotte , immediately south of Colombo. It is also a refuge against Tamil assaults, in marshy areas.
The Tamil dynasty of Jaffna recognizes the suzerainty of the Pandya Empire, then frees itself from it. Jaffna enters an era of prosperity and intense cultural influence.
Before the colonial period and the arrival of Christian missionaries, there was little antagonism between the different religious groups on the island. “Ethnic borders” are enough "Porous" and imprecise. Mixed marriages will have been frequent; for example, Sinhalese kings of the kingdom of Kandy in the center of the country married Tamil women in order to consolidate the bonds between the various ethnic groups.
But above all, in the south, the Sinhalese have no other support than themselves, while the Tamils in the north lean against the south of India.
Illustrious visitors explorers
Marco Polo (1254-1324) approaches the island and visits the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna to the north .
The extraordinary Moroccan Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta in the 14th century (1304-1377) completed a journey of 120 000 km between 1325 and 1349. When he come in Ceylon, he finds Colombo in the hands of Jalasti, a “vizier and king of the sea”, a Muslim who commands a garrison of Abyssinians .
He wants to visit Ceylon's second mountain, the adam's peak (2 243 m) which has a trace carved on a rock, that of Adam's foot for Muslims. He leaves Ceylon for India with gifts offered by the Sultan idolater of Ceylon, Airy Chacarouaty, of which Hindu pirates are going to rob him.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, while Tamils from India established a flourishing kingdom on the Jaffna Peninsula in the north of the island, Sinhala princes founded a whole series of ephemeral capitals.
First here are the Portuguese
1505 : a small Portuguese fleet led by Lourenço de Almeida ends up in Colombo, drossed by a storm on the way to the Maldives.
In the footsteps of Arab traders and Marco Polo , they set up a trading post for spices and cinnamon in Colombo and drove their Arab competitors from the city.
They there build a fort, but take Kotte, immediately south of Colombo as the capital of their colony ( Portuguese plan of Colombo fort below from 1650 ).
After transferring their capital from Kotte to Colombo in 1565, the Portuguese completed the fortifications of Colombo and Galle in 1578.
The Sinhalese coast is under their control. But outside of northern Tamil, a kingdom resists, that of Kandy .
An Englishman, Ralph Pitch, made a stopover in Colombo, learned about the country, and would inspire the future creation of the British East India Company in 1600.
From 1593 to 1638, the Portuguese tried to bring down the kingdom and burned and pillaged Kandy five times, but their troops always ended up being massacred.
Then come the Dutch
The 1st Dutch captain touches the island at Batticaloa in the east. Immediately, the king of Kandy offered him an alliance to drive out the Portuguese. It will not materialize until 50 years later.
The Portuguese take Jaffna, the Tamil capital North. In any case, they savagely destroy all the rich Tamil buildings in the city.
After having founded the fortified port of Trincomalee in the northeast, the Portuguese controlled the entire coast and consequently held the monopoly of its exported wealth.
But as soon as they reached their peak of power, their successive failures against Kandy signal the beginning of their decline, and announce the arrival of their successors, the Dutch.
After seizing Trincomalee in 1639, the Dutch finally responded to the request of the King of Kandy and drove the Portuguese out of Colombo in 1653.
The two ports of Galle and Colombo became relays for the Dutch East India Company.
Paradoxically, the Portuguese, in spite of their violence, will leave much more traces behind them than the Dutch will: the Protestant religion does not supplant the Catholic religion and many surnames still keep today the mark of the passage of the Portuguese.
In 1658, the Dutch brought the first coffee trees to Ceylon.
In 1659, Jaffna, the last Portuguese stronghold in the north of the country, 40 years after being conquered, fell into the hands of the Dutch.
These adopt a more cautious attitude than their predecessors towards the kingdom of Kandy. They do not attack it head-on and are content to trade on the coasts. They settled on the island for about 150 years.
At the same time, France, after having founded the French East India Company in 1642 (Richelieu), set up its counters on the east coast of India from 1668 (Colbert), but failed in its attempt to settle in Ceylon, though Suffren the Corsair later prowls around.
From the middle of the 18th century, the feudal system in force in Kandy degenerated. Tensions appear between the Sinhalese aristocracy and the kings, surrounded by Indians from the mainland.
At the same time, the Dutch embark on expeditions against Kandy. But their commercial decline has begun and England wants take advantage of the demise of the Mughal Empire to ensure its supremacy on the Indian subcontinent.
Finally the English opportunists arrive
The great European affairs attribute with the Treaty of Paris in 1763 India to England , which in the process wants to monopolize Ceylon.
Declaring war on Holland, England takes Trincomalee. But King Suffren's privateer passing by beats the English off the same port (picture below ). He must however withdraw to avoid the Monsoon after having linked up with the Dutch.
These recovered Trincomalee by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783.
During all this time, under the English impulse, the Tamils of the north, the "Sinhalese Tamils", became this English speaking elite, placed at the administrative and judicial cogs of the country.
In this role, quite naturally they end up dominating and imposing themselves on their Sinhalese Buddhist compatriots, however in the majority.
The latter feel strong resentments, a complex of persecution, humiliation without recourse, and consequently a fierce desire for revenge.
The very large numbers of the most recent immigrant "Indian Tamils" are concentrated in the north and center.
The context already carries, because of this "industrial" way of colonial agricultural production imposed by the English, and their way of creating this local framework for their management, all the seeds of bloody conflicts between Tamils and Sinhalese.
They will scour the island from the independence of 1948, until the final confrontations which know their apogee of the years 1983 to 2009.
During the Revolutionary Wars in Europe, France (the Directory) occupied the Netherlands. Refugees in London, Dutch officials allow England to take control of Ceylon (1796).
The Treaty of Amiens confirms this donation in 1802. Ceylon is attached to the English Crown and will be until 1931.
The exactions of the king of Kandy are a good pretext for the British, who launched in 1803 a first expedition against his kingdom. Finally, in 1815, Kandy fell into their hands. Ceylon is therefore entirely under their domination.
The English revive and develop the coffee culture introduced by the Dutch and set up the system of large farms, large consumers of labor.
From the 1820s, the English had a privileged relationship with their Indian colony and its elites. They transpose it to Ceylon, and entrust the administration of their colonies to a local Tamil framework. There are few British staff on site and they need their decisions to be effectively relayed. For this, they facilitate the access of northern Tamils to higher education
This local, minority fulcrum leaves the Sinhalese Buddhists of the rest of the island who are majority, out of the game and left to fend for themselves.
Around 1867, the cultivation of tea greatly developed in the central mountains where the climate is the most favorable, to the point of becoming one of the main resources of the colony.
The English developed the cultivation of hevea for rubber.
From their industrial revolution, they also create the infrastructure of railways which surround 3/4 of the island and reach the central areas from the middle of the 19th century, major levers of colonial developments and productions.
In 1869, the disease of the rust of the coffee completes to ruin this production on the island.
The two very large productions of Ceylon, tea and rubber, on large farms, but also rice cultivation led the English to resort en masse to cheap labor from their large neighboring colony, India. : they are Tamils of South India, but of low caste, often untouchables, who will be called "Indian Tamils", to differentiate them from ancestral Tamils, called "Sri Lankan Tamils" from the former conquering generations of Tamil Nadu.
From the years 1873, with James Taylor , the development and the notoriety of the Ceylon tea are considerable. Production is reaching global export proportions. the famous Lipton invests here in 1890.
To the detriment of that, ancestral and traditional of cinnamon (the "cinnamon").
Two cities, Galle and Kandy,
with intertwined spells
Galle, the ancestral
Since -1400, cinnamon is exported by the port of Galle ; the name of this plant would be original Hebrew. However the Portuguese say in 1685 that the Latin name "cinnamonum" which gives "cinnamon" in English, would be of Chinese origin "Sin & Ha Mama" which would mean "dove or pigeon foot".
Around -950, Galle could be (this is not the most frequent hypothesis) the ancient biblical Tarshish (Tarsis) from the time of King Solomon. This king of Israel came to Tarshish to fetch ivory, peacocks and other precious commodities.
At that time, this kind of Indonesian outrigger boat (+800 approximately) could be a good example of those which were then used along the coasts of the Indian Ocean as far as Africa.
Buddhist law, "the wheel of Dharma", which has become the symbol of Buddhism, and the lotus, are two important symbols among the 8 symbols of Buddhist teaching.
Medieval ages
545 : Galle housed one of the oldest " Levant ladders », A privileged commercial stopover (but this notion does not appear however that from the 16th between Europe and the Ottoman empire).
The Moors are the first to invest the rocky peninsula of Galle , which they make a key port on the route of spices, silk and precious stones. They practice cabotage with other nations of the Indian Ocean, which is very long and as expensive as caravans by land ( plan below in 1784 ).
Before the Portuguese, Galle was the most important port on the island. He traded with the Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Malaysians, Indians and Chinese.
Foundation of the Independent Kingdom of Kandy
In the same period, from the village in altitude (500m) in the center-south of the island, a city develops, and will become the capital of an independent kingdom of the center, which will resist the Portuguese conquerors. It is Kandy (above its small lake in 1870), protected from invasions thanks to its relief, the ravining monsoon rains and the well-kept secret of its accesses.
Its fabulous gardens date back to 1371.
The first kings of Kandy are of local origin, but kings from South India succeed them. A feudal administration was set up, well suited to the context of frequent wars against the kingdom's neighbors.
The prosperity of the kingdom allows a religious renaissance. High dignitaries come from Siam to restore the tradition of original Buddhism.
1411 : meanwhile in Galle , a raised stone commemorates the 2nd visit here of Chinese Admiral Zheng-He ; the message is written in Chinese, Tamil and Persian. Zeng-He is a Chinese Muslim eunuch, famous explorer, who became admiral of the Chinese imperial fleet; curious fate.
Colonial period
Europeans to conquer Ceylon
Portuguese establish in Galle a trading post (1507) and built the small rudimentary fort of Santa Cruz. Traders, soldiers, Lusitanian Jesuits set up and developed the counter.
The Portuguese indeed allied with the king of Kotte, Dharmaparakrama bahu, who authorized them to build in particular a church inside. Supposed to ensure the safety of the Sinhalese, this fort will become the prison of opponents to the Portuguese.
After settling in Colombo, they built on the north side of Galle , on the isthmus, a rampart of earth and palisades with a moat. ; they are convinced that the coast to the south, not very accessible with its shoals, protects them from attacks by sea. Below, Portuguese maps of 1650 .
The King of Kandy launches a first unsuccessful assault on the Portuguese.
All the Sinhalese opposition to the Portuguese is given for the capital Kandy (below the temples around the lake in the 19th century).
1625 : at Fort de Galle , faced with the growing Dutch threat, the Portuguese add 3 bastions to north rampart.
1640 : without great effort, in Galle , the Dutch take the small Portuguese garrison-redoubt, coming in support of King Rajasinhe II.
Then they built around the peninsula a powerful fortress between 1663 and 1669, the current imposing ramparts made of granite stone and corals, with 14 bastions, and organized the city in a checkerboard pattern. Below is a Dutch illustration from 1672 .
In 1667, the Dutch north of Galle destroy the rampart, widen the Portuguese moat and instead build the 3 bastions baptized " Sun "," Moon " and " star "By doubling the wall on the side of the isthmus. The fort had two gates, the main one of which was to the north. In 1669, they reinforced the north gate with a drawbridge. Below is an illustration from 1754 .
The bastion " Flag Rock »Warned boats entering Galle harbor from the dangers of the bay reefs, by musket fire from nearby Pigeon Island ( possibly in the English illustration below from 1807 ). Further on we find the bastion " Trion Where a windmill lifted water from the sea to water the dusty city streets.
A sewer system gravitated the wastewater to the sea, taking advantage of the tidal cycle. Muskrats in the sewers, they exploited scented oil, musk.
Of This period dates from the Dutch Reformed Church (1640) in Galle with its belfry (1709) but modified between 1752 and 1755, its Dutch cemetery, its organ from 1760, its lectern in Malaysian calamander, the old governor's house, the residence of the Commander.
The large store near the old gate, built around 1669, stored spices and boat equipment.
On the Kandy side, at the beginning of the 19th century century, the last and weak king Sri Wickrama, leads a policy of terror led by his close court: his subjects are impaled, tortured; he loses the support of the people as well as of the aristocracy. The barbarism, which was not the prerogative of Asia, is not not a rare thing in these times with its refinements in horror ( Dutch illustration of 1672 above ).
The first tea tree was planted by the English in 1824 (or 1836?) In the Botanical Gardens of Kandy.
Barbarism and refinements, the King of Kandy also leaves sumptuous buildings in the city and welcomes the Dutch for example (below).
The temple of the Tooth of the Buddha was built during his reign (illustration below from 1865 ).
Meanwhile, Galle knows a new prosperity with the English.
The port is the most important of the island and accomodates in the 19th all the large Shipping companies.
But the nature in the surroundings remains intact; below an engraving "near Point-de-Galle" in 1847.
The ramparts bear in frontispiece " God and my right », The English motto, in French as we know. The moat to the north was removed, the north gate was widened in 1897 to facilitate traffic to the old town. They build houses, erect the lighthouse and a gate between the strongholds of the Moon and the Sun. A tower was built in 1883 for the jubilee of Queen Victoria.
But the English built an artificial port on the Colombo site and made it the new capital.
From there, Galle's activity declines inexorably.
Kandy for its part will become the capital of the tea and coffee trade under English rule, then today that of Sri Lankan Buddhism with its temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha.