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Trincomalee, also known as Gokanna and Gokarna, is the administrative headquarters of the Trincomalee District and major resort port city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Located on the east coast of the island overlooking the Trincomalee Harbour, Trincomalee has been one of the main centres of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking culture on the island for nearly a millennium. With a population of 99,135, the city is built on a peninsula of the same name, which divides its inner and outer harbours. It is home to the famous Koneswaram temple from where it developed and earned its historic Tamil name Thirukonamalai. The town is home to other historical monuments such as the Bhadrakali Amman Temple, Trincomalee, the Trincomalee Hindu Cultural Hall and, opened in 1897, the Trincomalee Hindu College. Trincomalee is also the site of the Trincomalee railway station and an ancient ferry service to Jaffna and the south side of the harbour at Muttur.
Burgher people, also known simply as Burghers, are a small Eurasian ethnic group in Sri Lanka descended from Portuguese, Dutch, British and other Europeans who settled in Ceylon. The Portuguese and Dutch had held some of the maritime provinces of the island for centuries before the advent of the British Empire. With the establishment of Ceylon as a crown colony at the end of the 18th century, most of those who retained close ties with the Netherlands departed. However, a significant community of Burghers remained and largely adopted the English language. During British rule, they occupied a highly important place in Sri Lankan social and economic life.
In Sri Lanka, the names Mestiços or Casados ("Married") referred to people of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent. The names can be traced back to the 16th century.
Koneswaram Temple of Trincomalee or Thirukonamalai Konesar Temple – The Temple of the Thousand Pillars and Dakshina-Then Kailasam is a classical-medieval Hindu temple complex in Trincomalee, a Hindu religious pilgrimage centre in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The most sacred of the Pancha Ishwarams of Sri Lanka, it was built significantly during the ancient period on top of Konesar Malai, a promontory overlooking Trincomalee District, Gokarna bay and the Indian Ocean. The monument contains its main shrine to Shiva in the form Kona-Ishvara, shortened to Konesar.
Fort Fredrick, also known as Trincomalee Fort or Fort of Triquillimale, is a fort built by the Portuguese at Trincomalee, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, completed in 1624 CE, built on Swami Rock-Konamamalai from the debris of the world-famous ancient Hindu Koneswaram temple. The temple was destroyed by the Portuguese colonial Constantino de Sá de Noronha under Phillip III, occupier of the Jaffna kingdom and Malabar country on the island. On the Konamalai cape was also built a new village of Portuguese and Tamil people, 50 Portuguese soldiers and inside the fort, a church named after "Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe". The Fort of Triquillimale was dismantled and rebuilt by the Dutch in 1665, renamed Fort Fredrick.
The Jaffna kingdom, also known as Kingdom of Aryachakravarti, was a historical kingdom of what today is northern Sri Lanka. It came into existence around the town of Jaffna on the Jaffna peninsula and was traditionally thought to have been established after the invasion of Kalinga Magha from Kalinga in India. Established as a powerful force in the north, northeast and west of the island, it eventually became a tribute-paying feudatory of the Pandyan Empire in modern South India in 1258, gaining independence when the last Pandyan ruler of Madurai was defeated and expelled in 1323 by Malik Kafur, the army general of the Delhi Sultanate. For a brief period in the early to mid-14th century it was an ascendant power in the island of Sri Lanka, to which all regional kingdoms accepted subordination. However, the kingdom was overpowered by the rival Kotte kingdom around 1450 when it was invaded by Prince Sapumal under the orders of Parakramabahu VI.
Koviyar is a Tamil caste found in Sri Lanka. They are traditional agriculturalists and temple workers but also included merchants, landowners and temple patrons. Kattavarayan as caste deity is observed by the Koviar. They are reputed as a ritually dominant caste and regarded as the "cousin" caste of the more numerical dominant caste, Sri Lankan Vellalar.
Karaiyar is a Sri Lankan Tamil caste found mainly on the northern and eastern coastal areas of Sri Lanka, and globally among the Tamil diaspora.
Kayts, is one of the important small island off the coast of the Jaffna Peninsula in northern Sri Lanka. There are a number of other villages within the Kayts Island such as Allaippiddi, Mankumpan, Velanai, Saravanai, Puliyankoodal, Suruvil, Naranthanai, Karampon and Melinchimunai.
Sri Lankan place name etymology is characterized by the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the island of Sri Lanka through the ages and the position of the country in the centre of ancient and medieval sea trade routes. While typical Sri Lankan placenames of Sinhalese origin vastly dominate, toponyms which stem from Tamil, Dutch, English, Portuguese and Arabic also exist. In the past, the many composite or hybrid place names and the juxtaposition of Sinhala and Tamil placenames reflected the coexistence of people of both language groups. Today, however, toponyms and their etymologies are a source of heated political debate in the country as part of the political struggles between the majority Sinhalese and minority Sri Lankan Tamils.
Dutch Ceylon was a governorate established in present-day Sri Lanka by the Dutch East India Company. Although the Dutch managed to capture most of the coastal areas in Sri Lanka, they were never able to control the Kingdom of Kandy located in the interior of the island. Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 until 1796.
British Ceylon, officially British Settlements and Territories in the Island of Ceylon with its Dependencies from 1802 to 1833, then the Island of Ceylon and its Territories and Dependencies from 1833 to 1931 and finally the Island of Ceylon and its Dependencies from 1931 to 1948, was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between 1796 and 4 February 1948. Initially, the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka.
The Vanni chieftaincies or Vanni tribes was a region between Anuradhapura and Jaffna, but also extending to along the eastern coast to Panama and Yala, during the Transitional and Kandyan periods of Sri Lanka. The heavily forested land was a collection of chieftaincies of principalities that were a collective buffer zone between the Jaffna Kingdom, in the north of Sri Lanka, and the Sinhalese kingdoms in the south. Traditionally the forest regions were ruled by Vedda rulers. Later on, the emergence of these chieftaincies was a direct result of the breakdown of central authority and the collapse of the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa in the 13th century, as well as the establishment of the Jaffna Kingdom in the Jaffna Peninsula. Control of this area was taken over by dispossessed Sinhalese nobles and chiefs of the South Indian military of Māgha of Kalinga (1215–1236), whose 1215 invasion of Polonnaruwa led to the kingdom's downfall. Sinhalese chieftaincies would lay on the northern border of the Sinhalese kingdom while the Tamil chieftaincies would border the Jaffna Kingdom and the remoter areas of the eastern coast, north western coast outside of the control of either kingdom.
The Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom occurred after Portuguese traders arrived at the rival Kotte kingdom in the southwest of modern Sri Lanka in 1505. Many kings of Jaffna, such as Cankili I, initially confronted the Portuguese in their attempts at converting the locals to Roman Catholicism, but eventually made peace with them.
The Kingdom of Kotte, named after its capital, Kotte, was a Sinhalese kingdom that flourished in Sri Lanka during the 15th century.
Portuguese Ceylon is the name given to the territory on Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka, controlled by the Portuguese Empire between 1597 and 1658.
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna District located on a peninsula of the same name. With a population of 88,138 in 2012, Jaffna is Sri Lanka's 12th most populous city. Jaffna is approximately six miles from Kandarodai which served as an emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical antiquity. Jaffna's suburb Nallur served as the capital of the four-century-long medieval Tamil Jaffna Kingdom.
The Dutch Burghers are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka, of mixed Dutch, Portuguese Burgher and Sri Lankan descent. However, they are a different community when compared with Portuguese Burghers. Originally an entirely Protestant community, many Burghers today remain Christian but belong to a variety of denominations. The Dutch Burghers of Sri Lanka speak English and the local languages Sinhala and Tamil.
This is a bibliography of works on Sri Lanka.
Siviyar is a caste found in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. They were traditionally palanquin bearers. They are a single community in Sri Lanka, but are however a subcaste of the Idaiyar caste in Tamil Nadu. According to Srinivasa Aiyangar “The Siviyar and the Agattu-Charna sub-division of the Tamil ldaiyan caste are note-worthy, as affording a connecting link between them and the Samantas and Nayars of Malabar.
