Note: A number of maps of Ceylon can be found at http://www.ceylon-online.com/info_map_page.html. The 1914 map shows all of the places mentioned below.
Beginnings | The Portuguese | The Dutch | The British | Independence | Kandy
BEGINNINGS
The pear-shaped island of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, lies thirty
miles off the tip of India. Nothing is known of the earliest Stone Age inhabitants
who may have reached there from India over 'Adam's Bridge' which, according
the Ramayana then connected it to the mainland. In about the sixth or fifth
century BC, Indo-Aryan people came to the island from northern India, the precursors
of the present-day Sinhalese. According to legend, they were led by King Vijaya
who was born of a lion (simha) and a princess. The word simha
became their name, the Sinhalese. From the third century BC on, waves of Tamils
arrived from southern India.
The second century BC epic, the Ramayana, tells how Rama conquered the island. More on this may be found at http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/maxpages/special/ramayana/. In Book 10 we read how Rama crossed over with his army from India to Ceylon. The town of Lanka, the capital of Ceylon, was invested, and war followed. Every chief was killed, except the king, Ravan. He and Rama fought, Ravan was killed and the war ended.
King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba knew the island as the source of gems. Some believe that Galle in the south is the site of the seaport of Tarshish from which King Solomon drew his "ivory, apes and peacocks". The Greeks and Romans believed the island was an utopia at the eastern end of its world; Ptolomy called it Traprobane. Sinbad the Sailor was shipwrecked there on his sixth voyage and told of the many jewels. The Arab traders called it Serendib and in a Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Seredip" made many discoveries on the island and led Horace Walpole to coin the word serendipity.
The Polos stopped there on their way back from China, and Marco called it the finest island of its size in the world, producing superb jewels, especially rubies. He does not mention pearls. He also told of a very high mountain called Adam's which some believe is his grave. (Buddhists believe that a depression at the top of Adam's Peak is a footprint of Buddha, Hindus think it is Siva's and Moslems say it is Adam's.)
By the tenth century AD, Tamils had settled most of northern Ceylon, and they destroyed the ancient capital, Anwarhapura in the eleventh century. (There is a 2,250 year-old sacred bo tree in Anwarhapura, supposedly from a branch of the tree under which Buddha found enlightenment.) By the thirteenth century, the Tamils had conquered the Sinhalese and taken control of the pearl fisheries.
THE PORTUGUESE
In 1505, news quickly spread among the inhabitants of the island of the arrival
of strangers who "eat hunks of white stone and drink blood [probably bread and
wine]...and have guns with a noise louder than thunder...". These were Don Laurenço
de Almeida and his men from Portugal who had been forced ashore during a storm.
At that time, the island was divided into four parts: Kandy
in the mountains and Kotte in the south were Sinhalese, while Sitawaka and Jaffna
in the North were Tamil. The Portuguese made a treaty with the King in Kotte,
and in 1518 a fleet landed and built at fort at Colombo. They wrote the name
of the island as Ceilão. The Sinhalese and the Moslems tried to win the
Kingdom of Kotte back but they were defeated by the Portuguese who took control
of the pearl fisheries in 1561. In 1587, the King of Kandy and Sitawaka began
a siege of Colombo but failed to capture it. When the King of Kotte died without
heirs in 1597, he left the kingdom to the King of Portugal who, at the time,
was Philip II of Spain . All of the island except the Kingdom of Kandy was now
under Portuguese control. Since there were few Portuguese women there, the men
married women from Ceylon and created the first permanent European settlement.
THE DUTCH
In 1602 the first Dutch arrived, allied themselves with Kandy and, in 1658,
added Ceylon to Dutch East India. By the eighteenth century there was a growing
European community consisting of Portuguese, Dutch and those Sinhalese and Tamils
who dressed like Europeans and who spoke Dutch or Portuguese.
THE BRITISH
In 1796, the British conquered the island and named it Ceylon. Although the highlands were still under the rule of the Sinhalese king at Kandy, he was cruel and his people appealed to the British. For the first time the island was under one rule. The British established coffee, tea and rubber plantations. The Sinhalese did not want to do the menial work these required, and thousands of new Tamils was brought in from southern India to work on the plantations, leading to problems besetting the island to this day. These newly arrived Tamils became 'stateless' people, citizens of neither India or Ceylon.
As a sidelight, the British brought in ice from the United States. They also gave Ceylon its first parliamentary constitution in 1920. In 1931 the Sinhalese and Tamils were given a greater role in government and finally, in 1948, Great Britain granted the island independence.
To Europeans, Ceylon was known for its jewels and its elephants. It was reported that very few of these elephants had tusks, just short, foot-long 'sticks' one or two inches in diameter. After the pearl fisheries gave out, the island's chief exports became tea and spices.
INDEPENDENCE
In 1972, the name of the island was changed to Sri Lanka after the ancient
Lanka named in the Ramayana. (The Sri
is an honorific.) But it has become an island divided. About 74% of the population
is Sinhalese, 18% Tamil and the rest of European extraction. While the Tamils
who came over from India in the early centuries were assimilated into the rest
of the population and spoke Sinhalese (which was made the official language
in 1956), those who were brought in by the British during the nineteenth century
became a people apart. As mentioned, they and their descendants were not citizens
of the country, living without passports or birth certificates. (Tamils who
are descendants of those who migrated to Ceylon earlier on their own are citizens.)
Only centers with large Tamil majorities could use the Tamil language in the
schools. But these people did not learn Sinhalese and are at a great disadvantage
in competing with the Sinhalese. They have their own caste system and most are
of a very low caste, looked down upon by the higher caste Tamils from the old
families. In addition, most Tamils are Hindus, while the Sinhalese are Buddhists.
For twenty years there was a state of war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the government forces. 65,000 people were killed and the countryside is still littered with land mines. Most of the Tamils live in the northern and eastern part of the island and this has become an almost separate nation. People traveling between sections of the country must pass by 'border' check-points and pay taxes on goods they are bringing into Tamil territory. Two years ago the Norwegians brokered a cease-fire. The Tamils have been given some self determination with their own judiciary and police forces. Peace talks were started, and legislation has given the Tamils the ability to start applying for citizenship. Until recently, things looked hopeful.
However, conflict between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has thrown the government into chaos. They were elected separately and come from different political parties. She (the President) thinks he (the Prime Minister) is too soft on the Tamil Tigers, and she fired three of his ministers, taking over their duties herself. She also threatened to dissolve parliament. One of those fired was the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister declares his office no longer has the power to uphold the cease-fire. The President doesn't thinks it does, and this truce does not have to be amended. As a result, the Norwegians have brought a halt to negotiations until things stabilize. As of this writing (January 19, 2004) the Prime Minister has issued an ultimatum to the President: either redo the cease-fire agreement or give up control of security and defense. She has also made an agreement with the Marxist political party, creating even more stability. The Marxists strongly oppose the Tamil Tigers. Although the tamil Tigers have pledged to stay with the peace agreement, anarchy threatens.
KANDY
For many years the mountain town of Kandy was the capital of Ceylon and it is
still its most sacred site, being the location of the Dalada Maligawa
or Temple of the Tooth which contains a relic supposed to be a tooth
of Buddha. This temple is small and badly preserved and was built no earlier
than 1600. The tooth is a finger-shaped piece of ivory, about two inches long
and one inch thick. Kandy also has two monasteries, many other temples, an elephant
bath and the palace of the former kings.
NOTE: While the setting of the The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) is in "ancient times", it had to be after the invention of the hand-gun and before the conquest by the Portuguese. Under the early native kings, each village had a large measure of autonomy and chose its own headman or 'king' like Zurga in the opera. The first handguns were used at the end of the fifteenth century and would have taken a while to reach this remote island in the Indian Ocean. Thus, if the librettists had paid any attention at all to historical accuracy, the events of the opera must have taken place about AD 1500. However, the opera was originally set in Mexico and moved to Ceylon shortly before its première. There was no time for research. The temple at Kandy is the country's most famous shrine, so it is there that Zurga and Nadir swear their friendship. The temple did not exist at the time and is about 200 miles from the pearl beds. Most important, it is a Buddhist shrine while Zurga and Nadir are Hindus. But historical accuracy is unimportant in the context of one of the most beautiful male duets in all opera.