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The Veddhas or Wanniya-laeto (‘forest-dwellers’) of the wanni (dry monsoon forest) are Sri Lanka’s indigenous inhabitants. According to scholars, the Veddhas of today perpetuate a direct line of descent from the island’s original Neolithic community that dates back to at least 16,000 BC.
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For the past eighteen centuries or more the indigenous Veddha communities have been forced to retreat deeper into the ever-shrinking forests pummeled by successive waves of immigration and colonization that began with the arrival of the north Indians in the 5th century BC.
According to their culture the Veddhas revere and venerate their ancestors. At present, the surviving dwindling Veddha communities still live in the dry monsoon forests with their uncanny knowledge of their jungle habitat. They still retain the memory of their prehistoric culture and preserve their cultural identity and traditional lifestyle, despite facing the many challenges and relentless pressure from the surrounding dominant Sinhala and Tamil communities.
In the North Central and Uva provinces of Sri Lanka, a few Veddhas have been absorbed into the mainstream Sinhala communities and on the East Coast into the Tamil communities.
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Ancient chronicles such as the Mahavamsa, relate the origin of the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka to the arrival of Prince Vijaya from an area either in the northeast or northwest India, and his later affiliation with people from south India. Students of Indian history argue that the lore of Vijaya should be interpreted to favour either one or the other of the northern origins, or a mixture of people from both areas.
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W. S. Karunatillake (late), Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, a Sinhala linguist, supported the hypothesis that the Sinhalese people originated in Eastern India because over 50% Sinhala words resemble words in the Bengali language. Even so, the question: “Did Vijaya and his companions migrate to Sri Lanka from Singhpur, Kalinga in northeast India, or from Sihor, Gujarat in northwest India?” still remains unresolved.
Some scholars identify the Lála country, where Sinhabahu founded Sinhapur, with the modern Rarh region of West Bengal, India that is still called Lala/Larh. Sanskrit texts refer to it as Lata-desa. Al-Biruni, a historian, chronologist and linguist of the medieval Islamic era calls it Lardesh in the extreme hilly west of Bengal where the Hooghly district and modern Singur is located. However, some scholars identify the region as modern Gujarat.
References weigh more in favor of Vijaya’s origin to lower Indus, and Sihor, which was officially known as Sinhapur in Kathiawar peninsula in ancient times. Also, the only home to Asiatic lions (locally referred as ‘Sinh‘ or ‘Sinha‘) is Gir Forest in Kathiawar peninsula in Gujarat and the approach to core Gir territory is just a few miles away from Sihor. In fact, to date, lions are sighted in rural areas adjoining Sihor.
According to the history chronicled in the Mahavamsa, Prince Vijaya and his wayward followers before landing at Tambapanni, first disembarked at the haven called Suppäraka, now identified with modern Sapporo, in the Thana district north of Mumbai. If Lála country was in northeast India, how could Vijaya and his companions dispatched from there, land at the port of Suppäraka in northwest India?
If we presume that the story of Vijaya narrated in the Mahavasa is historically correct, then, Prince Vijaya and his followers would have set sail from northwest India from a coastal harbour in Gujarat. Their contribution to the modern Sinhalese must have been erased by the long-standing interrelationship with people from Tamil Nadu for over 2,000 years.
According to the Mahavamsa, the population of Sri Lanka is heterogeneous – composed of diverse ethnic groups from India.
So far, most studies on the genetic affinities of the Sinhalese have been contradictory. Some investigators suggest a predominantly Bengali contribution and a minor Tamil and North Western Indian contribution, while others point towards a predominantly Tamil origin followed by a significant Bengali contribution with no North Western Indian contribution.
However, it is emphatically proved that the ancient ancestors of the current Sinhalese people came originally from northeast or northwest India as shown by genetic, linguistic and religious connections. After their arrival in Sri Lanka, the ancients intermarried to a minor extent with the indigenous Veddhas. Population genetic studies on the Sinhalese undertaken by various investigators show that they certainly intermarried extensively with Tamils of Southern India than with the Veddhas.
For the most part, according to the Mahavamsa, the modern Sinhalese are related to the Tamils as far back as 543 BC, with some elements of ancestry connected later with Bengalis, Gujaratis, Punjabis and Indian Moors. This is also supported by a genetic distance study, which showed low differences in genetic distance between the Sinhalese and the Tamil, Keralite and Bengali volunteers.
Because Sri Lanka lies on important sea trade routes, it has from ancient times received a constant influx of people from India and from various parts of the world, especially from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Europe, and the far-east. However, the genetic studies on the Sinhalese do not seem to show any ancestry from China or Southeast Asia.
In the 1995 study, “Genetic affinities of Sri Lankan populations” by Dr. Gautam K. Kshatriya (Source: National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Munirka, New Delhi, India) published in Hum Biol. 1995 Dec;67(6):843-66, the author says:
Mythological and historical sketches of the Sri Lankan population indicate that it is heterogeneous and composed of diverse ethnic groups. Ancient chronicles of Sri Lanka relate the origin of the Sinhalese to the legend of Prince Vijaya, who arrived on the northwest coast of the island in 543 B.C. from northeast or northwest India. … Taking into consideration mythological, historical, and linguistic records of Sri Lanka, I attempt to study the degree of gene diversity and genetic admixture among the population groups of Sri Lanka along with the populations of southern, northeastern, and northwestern India, the Middle East, and Europe.
The genetic distance analysis was conducted using 43 alleles controlled by 15 codominant loci in 8 populations and 40 alleles controlled by 13 codominant loci in 11 populations. Both analyses give a similar picture, indicating that present-day Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka are closer to Indian Tamils and South Indian Muslims. They are farthest from Veddahs and quite distant from Gujaratis and Punjabis of northwest India and Bengalis of northeast India. Veddhas, are distinct because they are confined to inhospitable dry zones and are hardly influenced by their neighbors.
The study of genetic admixture revealed that the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka have a higher contribution from the Tamils of southern India (69.86% +/- 0.61) compared with the Bengalis of northeast India (25.41% +/- 0.51), whereas the Tamils of Sri Lanka have received a higher contribution from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka (55.20% +/- 9.47) compared with the Tamils of India (16.63% +/- 8.73).
In the 2009 study, “Prevalence of genetic thrombophilic polymorphisms in the Sri Lankan population–implications for association study design and clinical genetic testing services” by V.H. Dissanayake, L.Y. Weerasekera, G.G. Gammulla, and R.W. Jayasekara (Source: Human Genetics Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Kynsey Road, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka.) first published electronically on July 8, 2009, is consistent with the notion that Sinhalese are closely related to other Sri Lankans. The frequencies of the alleles observed were very similar between Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Moors and they were also similar to those in some ethnic groups from southern India. Excerpts from the Abstract:
“We investigated the prevalence of genotypes/alleles of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and haplotypes defined by them in three genes in which variations are associated with venous thromboembolism in 80 Sinhalese, 80 Sri Lankan Tamils and 80 Moors in the Sri Lankan population and compared the SNP data with that of other populations in Southern India and haplotype data with that of HapMap populations. … The frequencies observed were similar to data from other South Indian populations; […]”
Both the above studies present almost a similar picture. Genetic distance analysis, despite the limitations imposed by the data, shows that modern Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka are closer to the Tamils and Keralites of south India and the upper caste groups of Bengal. They are farthest from Veddahs and quite distant from Gujaratis and Punjabis of northwest India.
Similarly, the Tamils of Sri Lanka are closer to the Sinhalese because they were always and are near to each other historically, linguistically, and culturally.
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← Previous: Part 6 – Abhaya and His Sister Ummada Citta
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RELATED ARTICLES
- Genetic affinities of Sri Lankan populations. (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- Sinhalese Genetics: Abstracts and Summaries (khazaria.com)
- Genetic studies on Sinhalese (en.wikipedia.org)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Prelude (tvaraj.com)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 1 – Sinhabahu (tvaraj.com)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 2 – Vijaya (tvaraj.com)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 3 – Kuveni (tvaraj.com)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 4 – Tamil Brides from Madurai (tvaraj.com)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 5 – Panduvāsudeva (tvaraj.com)
- The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 6 – Abhaya and His Sister Ummada Citta (tvaraj.com)
- Mahavamsa: CHAPTER VI – THE COMING OF VIJAYA (lakdiva.org)
- Mahavamsa: CHAPTER VII – THE CONSECRATING OF VIJAYA (lakdiva.org)
- Mahavamsa: CHAPTER VIII – THE CONSECRATING OF PANDUVASUDEVA (lakdiva.org)
- Mahavamsa: CHAPTER IX – THE CONSECRATING OF ABHAYA (lakdiva.org)
- The History of the Sinhalese by John M. Senaveratna (books.google.co.in)
- Sinhalese Have This As Their Only Country- Vigneswaran (adaderana.lk)
Impressions 
I read your article and I respect you for denying that Sinhalese descend from Vijaya however all these genetic mixture I partially disagree. I kind of agree that there is some genetic mixtures with other countries but we can’t let go off the fact that Sinhalese people don’t intermix with other races, as it is part of their culture. Normal Sinhalese people in the olden days always married with Sinhalese people and not other, very few may have. Even most Sinhalese Kings married women from Sri Lanka for example Pandukabhya, Devanampiyatissa, Kavantissa, Dutugemunu,ect married Sinhalese women, native women. There were
few kings who married foreign queens, for example Vijayabahu the great and Parakramabahu the great, Vijaybahu being the first to do so (not Vijaya as he wasn’t Sinhalese, he wasn’t native). Rajasinghe II the first Kandyian King to take a foreign wife as randoli and thus the dawn of the fall of hela( Sinhalese) dynasty. No doubt the child that the foreign queen will bore will be Sinhalese like the last hela king Sri Weera Parakrama Narendrasinghe who was born to a foreign mother.
This was a problem which many nobles didn’t like because if the King didn’t have an offspring then who will rule the country, and that’s what happened to this King although he did have 2 sons from his yakadadoli
Unambuwe was one of the sons. And I have to admit because of our stupid law the throne was passed onto the Nayaks and the country which has resisted many invasions, indian, indian tamil, portugese and dutch fell to the British because the ruling dynasty wasn’t a hela dynasty, it was a foreign dynasty. If ruling dyanasty was a hela (Sinnhalese) then the country would never have fallen to the British.
Now to my point many people don’t look further than the edge of their noses, like Mr.Jayasinha, who saw Wikipedia saying “Sinhalese descend from Vijaya so we are Indians” well no because just like he hasn’t read your article, he hasn’t read wikipedia. Wikipedia says, ” they are the descendants of the exiled Prince Vijaya who arrived from East India to Sri Lanka in 543 BCE” and then it says” Kuveni bears him two children, a son and a daughter…. her children did not, in fact, flee to Malaysia, but instead remained in Sri Lanka’s jungles and became the Veddas” Now where is the sense. Even you have said it in one of your articles THE SINHALESE TOO MIGRATED TO SRI LANKA FROM INDIA: PART 3 – KUVENI. Now something really important Angampora, it is told that the helas practiced this(yakkas) but if the veddhas are native then why don’t they practice this and the Sinhalese do? I posted this on a previous comment THE SINHALESE TOO MIGRATED TO SRI LANKA FROM INDIA: PRELUDE. Sinhalese are native and they don’t descend from Indians but Veddhas do according to history. Mr Jayasinha hasn’t researched Sinhalese history properly but I agree that most Tamil are anti-Sinhalese and that you can’t really trust them. I’m not being disrespectful but that’s the truth. Plus you can’t determine a race from a language, what kind of evidence does that give. French is a Roman language but does that mean French people are Italians? So what I am saying is that Sinhalese aren’t Indians, but most of all please do look beyond the edge of your nose especially Mr Jayasinha, everyone should look at many sources before determining something, not just one.
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There are inaccuracies in this article. The more accurate recent studies on sinhalese are posted below. Sinhalese are predominantly of North-East indian origin. Please check the link below.
(And specially you cannot trust what tamils say about sinhalese origins because the majority of them are anti-sinhalese. )
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Thanks Mr. Jayasinha for your comment.
If you read my article word to word you will note that I have not said anywhere that the forefathers of the Sinhalese people whom I admire and have lived along with for more than four decades did not originate from North-East India.
I vehemently oppose your statement: “And specially you cannot trust what tamils say about sinhalese origins because the majority of them are anti-sinhalese.”
Nowhere have I cited any Tamil authors in my article. The pie chart that I reproduced in my article is from the 1995 study titled “Genetic affinities of Sri Lankan populations” by Dr. Gautam K. Kshatriya, a non-Tamil.
You have to accept the fact that after the first few exodus of the north-east Indians like Vijaya there has been a mingling of Tamils and Keralites from the South Indian coasts that gave rise to the present Sinhalese population. You cannot change history.
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“majority of them are anti-sinhalese”
like how you are anti-Tamil..
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Please read my comment above and the other comments I’ve posted on other articles by Mr.Tvaraj. Two of the articles mentioned in my comment have the comments I’ve posted about Sinhalese origin. Sinhalese are native and not north indian like others say.
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My comments on the these articles:-
The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 6 – Abhaya and His Sister Ummada Citta | Impressions
The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 4 – Tamil Brides from Madurai | Impressions
The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Part 1 – Sinhabahu | Impressions
The Sinhalese Too Migrated to Sri Lanka from India: Prelude | Impressions.
Read my comments and you’ll understand why Sinhalese are native
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