The village of Thunnalai (Tamil: துன்னாலை) is near the lagoon called Thondaman Aru. It is also in close proximity to This place is settled by migrants from a town called Vallipuram near Namakkal which is near Coimbatore. Naga names are found in India. Nagpur, Nagar Kovil, Nagapatnam and Nagaland are examples. Nair, nayakkar, naidu are remnants of Naga heritage. Tamils are a linguistic name; but Nagas are more of a racially based line. Nagas are now integral part of all linguistic tribes.
Thunnalai and Vallipuram formed the north-eastern complex of various ruling empires such as Cholas, Pandyas, Sinhalese, Thai, Javanese and Malays. Most of these invaders are pirates or princes who made use of the island status of Jaffna to settle and control international trade.
The following sections deal separately with the changing rulers of Thunnalai.
Overview
Location: 9.784801° N 80.239207° E
Part of Thunnalai was under the sea for a long time and seashell deposits can be seen in the rice fields as the evidence of such occurrences. Some of the Ganesh Temple walls are built from these seashells. The soil in these areas are bleached of mineral colour due to inundation with sea water. The northern part of Thunnalai has calcic red latosols used for making pottery which was a cottage industry during the 20th century.
Kaddaiveli Temple and Kaddaiveli Parish are the remnants of the colonial rule. An ancient Sivan temple was demolished before the church was erected.
Thunnalai has ward named Glen which means valley in Welsh language. Vallipuram which is part of point pedro is closest village of Thunnalai.
Thun means fresh water in Nordic languages. Tonlé Sap means fresh water lake in Cambodian languages. With historical links to Thai and Cambodian kingdoms Thunnalai may be name of South East Asian origin.
Place names like Kaligai comes from the original invader's name of Kalinga Magha.
Vallipuram (Sandy City) has a recorded history from the 2nd century BC, in the gold inscription of King Vasabha, where the local ruler is named as "Asagiri", a name confirmed in the Nelugala stone inscription (2nd century BC) as well. The Buddhist list of holy places ("Nampotha") names it as "Vaelipura" or sand city. The exact details of the temple complex are not known, and the famous 'Vallipuram" Buddha statue was found in excavations below a subsequent Hindu Temple. Peter Schalk, a distinguished Swedish Tamil scholar, writes "Vallipuram has very rich archaeological remains that point at an early settlement. It was probably an emporium in the first centuries AD. […] From already dated stones with which we compare this Vallipuram statue, we can conclude that it falls in the 3rd-4th century AD period. During that period, the typical Amaravati-Buddha sculpture was developed."[1] The Buddha statue found here at the Buddhist site was gifted to the King of Thailand by the then British Governor Henry Blake in 1906. The descendants of Arya Chakravarti married into Kalinga Magha family and created a dynasty of Singai-Aryans and ruled from Vallipuram and renamed it as Singai Nagar. However, no historically useful objects, e.g., inscriptions, art or literary works were left by these rulers, and Paranavithana and other historians claim that they paid tribute to the main ruler of the country. See also S. Paranavitana, ``Vallipuram Gold-Plate Inscription of the Regin of Vasabha. Epigraphia Zeylanica, 4 (1936) 229-236. A full discussion has been given recently by Karthigesu Indrapala, Evolution of an Ethnic Identity,(2005), and in an earlier work, 1965 where Dr. Indrapala argued for a flourishing pre-Christian Buddhist civilization in Jaffna, in agreement with Paranavithana, and Mudliyar C. Rasanayakam, Ancient Jaffna.
This place is similar to Nagapatnam where all Asian vessels used it as a stopover point and the Buddhist and Hindu Dagobas are just a resting and worshipping places for the sailors and international traders. Both Nagapatnam and Vallipuram served the powerful kingdoms of China, Siam, Cambodia, Champa (Vietnam) and Java.
Introduction
From time immemorial India was the source of people who settled in Thunnalai. As people came in for the new lands beyond India, they found Jaffna as a place of peace and serenity and void of religious clashes which waged over the centuries. They brought various religions at various times. As Jains, Buddhists, Vaishnavaites, Saivaites and Muslims became the victims, they chose the shores of Jaffna as a refuge.[2]
Rajarata and the Sinhalese had a long history of cultural, religious, and indeed genetic exchange with the kingdoms of southern India; the royal families of the island had, for example, consistently married into the royal families of the Pandyas and Cheras. Invaders such as Anikanga (in 1209) and Parakrama Pandu (in 1212) were often welcomed and accepted. Perhaps the most famous invader had been Elara, around a thousand years previously, who despite conquering the island by force had earned the title of 'dharmaraja' ('Just King') even amongst monks and was regarded as one of the best examples of governance in the history of the country. All these monarchs had incorporated the local nobilities into their rule and shown respect and deference towards the native faith, Buddhism. Thus one of the chief reasons for the particular loathing held by the Culavamsa for Magha was his utter refusal to accommodate either the faith or the culture of the native Sinhalese population.
The Culavamsa provides Kalinga Magha with an impressive and detailed introduction, something which the normally laconic text very rarely does. In Chapter LXXX, we are told that
in consequence of the enormously accumulated, various evil deeds of the dwellers in Lanka, the devatas who were everywhere entrusted with the protection of Lanka, failed to carry out this protection, [so] there landed a man who held to a false creed, whose heart rejoiced in bad statesmanship, who was a forest fire for the burning down of bushes in the forest of the good...who was a sun whose action closed the rows of night lotus flowers [that represent] good doctrine...and [was] a moon for destroying the grace of the...day lotuses that...[represent]peace... (a man) by [the] name [of] Magha, an unjust king sprung from the Kalinga line...'.[3]
Nothing is known of Magha before his arrival in Rajarata with an army of 24,000 from Kalinga, nor on what basis he claimed the throne of Lanka. Certainly in the years before his arrival the Sinhalese kingdom had progressed into an advanced state of political decay, making its way through more than nine monarchs in twenty years and suffering at least three invasions. It has been speculated that Magha may have had a claim through the Kalingan dynasty established by Nissanka Malla in 1187.[4] Whatever his pretext however he swiftly lost any potential support amongst the populace by the sheer violence of his invasion.
King Chandrabhanu was a straits Malay chief/pirate/king who stormed the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee with Malay foot soldiers from both sides of the straits to get the `tooth` of Buddha to legitimize his claim to a kingdom back in his country. Chandrabhanu was defeated, but then sent for mercenaries from South India and wrestled the northern half of Sri Lanka away from the Sinhalese kings. However Chandrabhanu was able to establish an independent regime in the north of the island, but in 1258 he was attacked and subjugated by Pandya.
Tamil trade
Between the 2nd and 12th centuries AD, the Cholas and Pallavas did extensive sea trade throughout Southeast Asia and China. Various countries periodically came under Tamil rule. At the beginning of the 2nd century AD, Pallava prince Kaundinyan of Kanchipuram became the first king of Cambodia. Much of the historical accounts of the time can be seen in bas reliefs (carvings on walls similar to Mamallapuram wall carvings) at sites like the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. The fighting arts and styles can be clearly seen on these walls. At the Prambanan and Borobodur temples of Java Indonesia the same can be seen in the bas reliefs of the Tamil martial arts fighting skills used by ancient warriors. During the 10th century AD the Chola Empire was at its peak with their expansion in Southeast Asia. Under king Raja Raja Chozhan parts of Burma, Isthmus of Kra, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Java were under his rule. Much of the elements of Tamil culture introduced there were dance, cuisine, writing, literature, architecture, and the martial arts.
Chavakam
Chaavakam is the Tamilized name for the Island of Java which is a part of Indonesia today. Yaava-dveepa or Jaava-dveepa is the Sanskrit name for that island. The name, which means The Island of Millets, is found in early literature like Ramayana. For a long time in history, Java remained the political and cultural centre of maritime Southeast Asia. Hence, the word Chaavakam stood for the entire region that included today's Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines and East Timor. Chaavakar, which originally meant the people of Java, was also a collective term for all who were later identified as Malays. Javanese is the language of Java. Malay (modern day Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia) was historically the language of the Straits of Malacca and is the official language of present day Malaysia and Indonesia
Chandrabhanu
From the Sri Lankan materials, this Chandrabhanu was a Javakan king from Tambralinga who had invaded Sri Lankan in 1247. His navy launched an assault on the southern part of the island but defeated by the Sri Lankan king. However Chandrabhanu was able to establish an independent regime in the north of the island, but in 1258 he was attacked and subjugated by Pandya. Chandrabhanu Sridhamaraja was the king of Patama vamsa (lotus dynasty). He began to reign in 1230, he had the Phrae Boromadhatu reparation and celebration in the same year. Chandrabhanu Sridhamaraja brought Tambralinga reached the pinnacle of its power in the mid-13th century. Tambralinga is identified with Ligor, which is in the Isthmus part of Thailand, close to Kedah (Kadaaram) of Malaysia. The capital was Pattani (pronounced Paddani). In Tamil, Paddinam means city, especially a coastal city.
Invasion
From the Sri Lankan materials, this Chandrabhanu was a Javakan king from Tambralinga who had invaded Sri Lankan in 1247. His navy launched an assault on the southern part of the island but defeated by the Sri Lankan king. However Chandrabhanu was able to establish an independent regime in the north of the island, but in 1258 he was attacked and subjugated by Pandya. In 1262 Chandrabhanu launched another attack on the south of the island, his army strengthened this time by the addition of Tamil and Sinhalese forces, only to be defeated when Pandya sided with the Sri Lankan side Chandrabhanu himself was killed in the fighting. Chandrabhanu's son retained control over the northern kingdom, though subservient to Pandya, but this regime too had disappeared by the end of the 14th century.
Tooth Relic
Parakramabahu II brought down the Relics from Beligala in a procession with great veneration and placed them in a shrine built near the palace at the Damabadeniya rock According to the text Dalada Pujavaliya, Parakramabahu conducted the Relics to Srivardhanapura, the city of his birth, and held a great ritual worship. He was responsible for the building of the Tooth Relic shrine at the Vijayasundararama at Dambadeniya, where the Relic was deposited and the king conducted festive rituals. The peaceful and prosperous time under Parakramabahu was disturbed by the invasion of Chandrabhanu of Java. However, the king was able to expel the enemy and bring back the country to a stable status again. Chadrabhanu of Java invaded the country for the second time and after defeating the local sub-ruler at Yapahuva, demanded the Tooth Relic from Vijayabahu of Dambadeniya. Yet, the Sri Lankan ruler was able to defeat him and bring peace to the island again.
Assimilated Javanese
This is a leftover from the fact that the town was a `Javaka Kottai` - `Chavaka Kottai` - `Chavaka Cheri` (founded as fort of Malay/Javanese soldiers during King Chandrabhanu's days) during the pre-colonial times. Those Malay/Javanese who assimilated to become Tamils just maintained their age-old traditions even during the colonial and postcolonial time frame.
Arya Chakaravarthi
After Chandrabhanu, the area was passed on to a Pandyan deputy. Mahawamsa tells about several children of Chandrabhanu who became the rulers of the Sinhala section of Sri Lanka. It looks as though the children of Chandrabhanu finally became the kings of Sri Lanka (under different names) even though the father could not achieve it.
Jaffna went to a Brahmin ruler from Rameshwaram in the service of the Pandya king named Arya Chakaravarthi (a name of a family). That family managed to create and hold on to Jaffna and its environs as a separate kingdom for almost 400 years.
Future Plan for Thunnalai
As the War Relief Fund from International donors reaches Sri Lanka there are some plans to rebuild the broken infrastructure of Jaffna. Thunnalai may benefit from it by having a university campus build in its Vallipuram Temple area with the ancient holy sites.
Poḷonnaruwa is the main town of Polonnaruwa District in North Central Province, Sri Lanka. Kaduruwela area is the Polonnaruwa New Town and the other part of Polonnaruwa remains as the royal ancient city of the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa.
Batticaloa is a major city in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, and its former capital. It is the administrative capital of the Batticaloa District. The city is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka and is a major commercial centre. It is on the east coast, 111 kilometres (69 mi) south of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island. Pasikudah is popular tourist destinations situated 35 km (22 mi) northwest with beaches and flat year-round warm-water shallow-lagoons.
The Jaffna Kingdom, also known as Kingdom of Aryachakravarti, of modern northern Sri Lanka was a historic monarchy that came into existence around the town of Jaffna on the Jaffna peninsula. It was traditionally thought to be established after the invasion of Magha, who is credited with the founding of the Jaffna kingdom and is said to have been from Kalinga, in India. Established as a powerful force in the north, north east and west of the island, it eventually became a tribute-paying feudatory of the Pandyan Empire in modern South India in 1258, gaining independence in 1323, when the last Pandyan ruler of Madurai was defeated and expelled in 1323 by Malik Kafur, the army general of the Muslim Delhi Sultanate. For a brief period, in the early to mid-14th century, it was an ascendant power in the island of Sri Lanka when all regional kingdoms accepted subordination. However, the kingdom was eventually overpowered by the rival Kotte Kingdom, around 1450 when it was invaded by Prince Sapumal under the Kotte Kingdom's directive.
The Arya Chakravarti dynasty were kings of the Jaffna Kingdom in Sri Lanka. The earliest Sri Lankan sources, between 1277 and 1283, mention a military leader of this name as a minister in the services of the Pandyan Empire; he raided the western Sri Lankan coast and took the politically significant relic of the Buddha’s tooth from the Sinhalese capital city of Yapahuwa. Political and military leaders of the same family name left a number of inscriptions in the modern-day Tamil Nadu state, with dates ranging from 1272 to 1305, during the late Pandyan Empire. According to contemporary native literature, such as Cekaracecekaramalai, the family also claimed lineage from the Tamil Brahmins of the prominent Hindu pilgrimage temple of Rameswaram in the modern Ramanathapuram District of India. They ruled the Jaffna kingdom from the 13th until the 17th century, when the last of the dynasty, Cankili II, was ousted by the Portuguese.
Queen Lilavati was the fourth woman in Sri Lankan history to rule as sovereign in her own right. Lilavati rose to prominence as the wife of Parakramabahu I, king of the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa. Being of royal descent herself, she then ruled as sole monarch on three occasions in the near-anarchy following Parakramabahu's death, with the backing of various generals. The primary source for her life is the Culavamsa, specifically chapter LXXX.
Kalinga Magha also known as Magha the Tyrant and Kulankayan Cinkai Ariyan, is identified as the founder of the Jaffna kingdom and first king of the Aryacakravarti dynasty. According to the Segarāsasekara-Mālai the first Aryacakravarti king of Jaffna belongs to the Eastern Ganga dynasty of Kalinga. His family was connected to the rulers of Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu. Kalinga Magha’s relatives of Ramanathapuram administered the famous temple of Rameswaram. He usurped the throne from Parakrama Pandyan II of Polonnaruwa, in 1215. His reign saw the massive migration of Sinhalese to the south and west of Sri Lanka, and into the mountainous interior, in a bid to escape his power. Magha was the last ruler to have his seat in the traditional northern seat of native power on the island, known as Rajarata; so comprehensive was his destruction of Sinhalese power in the north that all of the successor kingdoms to Rajarata existed primarily in the south of the island.
Chandrabhanu or Chandrabhanu Sridhamaraja was the King of Tambralinga Kingdom in present-day Thailand, Malaysia and Sumatra and the Jaffna Kingdom in northern Sri Lanka. A Javaka, he was known to have ruled from during the period of 1230 until 1263. He was also known for building a well-known Buddhist stupa in southern Thailand. He spent more than 30 years in his attempt to conquer Sri Lanka. He was eventually defeated by the forces of the Pandyan Dynasty from Tamil Nadu in 1263 and was killed by the brother of the south Indian Emperor Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan.
Tambralinga was an Indianised kingdom located on the Malay Peninsula, existing at least from the 10th to 13th century. It was under the influence of Srivijaya for some time, but later became independent from it. The name had been forgotten until scholars recognized Tambralinga as Nakhon Si Thammarat. In Sanskrit and Prakrit, tām(b)ra means "copper", "copper-coloured" or "red" and linga means "symbol" or "creation", typically representing the divine energy of Shiva.
Vallipuram is a village in Vadamarachchi, near Point Pedro in Northern Province, Sri Lanka. The village is an ancient settlement with rich archeological remains. The village is home to the Vishnu temple Vallipuram Aalvar Kovil.
Parākramabāhu I was king of the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa from 1153-86. During his reign from the capital city of Polonnaruwa, he unified the three lesser kingdoms of the island, becoming one of the last monarchs in Sri Lankan history to do so. He oversaw the expansion and beautification of his capital, constructed extensive irrigation systems, reorganised the country's army, reformed Buddhist practices, encouraged the arts and undertook military campaigns in South India and Burma. The adage "not even a little water that comes from the rain must flow into the ocean without being made useful to man" is one of his most famous utterances.
The Kingdom of Polonnaruwa was the Sri Lankan kingdom from which Sinhalese kings ruled the island from 1055 until 1232. Pollonnaruwa was the second administrative center of Rajarata.
Bhuvanekabahu VI of Kotte, known also as Sapumal Kumaraya and Chempaka Perumal, was by self admission an adopted son of Parakramabahu VI whose principal achievement was the conquest of Jaffna Kingdom in the year 1447 or 1450. He ruled the kingdom for 17 years when he was apparently summoned to the south after the demise of his adopted father. According to a primary source Rajavaliya, he killed the grand son of Parakrama Bahu VI namely Vira Parakrama Bahu or Jaya Bahu but Do Couto, however, who was well-informed, says after a few years' reign the king died and his half-witted son was put on the throne by his aunt, who two years later finding herself unable to rule sent for Sapumal Kumaraya from Jaffna.
Sri Lankan Malays (Sinhala: ශ්රී ලාංකා මැලේ, romanized: Ja Minissu, lit. 'Javanese'; Tamil: இலங்கை மலாய், romanized: Ilaṅkai Malai are Sri Lankans with full or partial ancestry from the Indonesian/Malay Archipelago. The term is a misnomer as it is used as a historical catch-all term for all native ethnic groups of the Malay Archipelago who reside in Sri Lanka; the term does not apply solely to the ethnic Malays. They number approximately 40,000 and make up 0.2% of the Sri Lankan population, making them the fourth largest of the five main ethnic groups in the country.
Kavan Tissa, also known as Kavantissa, Kaha Wan Thissa,(that means who has the color of golden body). was the king of the Kingdom of Ruhuna in the southern part of Sri Lanka. He ruled Ruhuna, in the same time as Keleni Tissa of Maya Rata and the usurping Tamil king of Anuradhapura, Ellalan of South India, expanding and beautifying the city, and projecting the power of his native Rajarata region across the island of Sri Lanka. Kavan Tissa was a great-grandson of King Devanampiyatissa's youngest brother Mahanaga, and also the father of the great Sinhalese King Dutugemunu.
The Anuradhapura period was a period in the history of Sri Lanka of the Anuradhapura Kingdom from 377 BC to 1017 AD. The period begins when Pandukabhaya, King of Upatissa Nuwara moved the administration to Anuradhapura, becoming the kingdom's first monarch. Anuradhapura is heralded as an ancient cosmopolitan citadel with diverse populations.
Savakanmaindan was a monarch of the kingdoms of Tambralinga and Jaffna. He was the son of the Savakan king Chandrabhanu of Tambralinga who usurped the Tamil throne in 1255 AD. During his rule of Jaffna, the Venetian traveller Marco Polo visited the northeastern Tamil country.
When to date the start of the history of the Jaffna kingdom is debated among historians.
Rajarata [rā dja ra tə] was one of three historical regions of the island of Sri Lanka for about 1,700 years from the 6th century BCE to the early 13th century CE. Several ancient cities, including Tambapanni, Upatissa Nuwara, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, were established as capitals within the area by successive rulers. Rajarata was under the direct administration of the King. Two other areas, Malayarata and Ruhunurata, were ruled by the king's brothers "Mapa" and "Epa". The Magha invasion in the 13th century brought about the end of the Rajarata kingdom.
The Transitional period of Sri Lanka spans from the end of the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa, in 1236, to the start of the Crisis of the Sixteenth Century. The period is characterised by the succession of capitals that followed the fall of the Polonnaruwa Kingdom and the creation of the Jaffna kingdom.
References
↑ Schalk, Peter; Uppsala University. "The Vallipuram Buddha Image". Tamilnation.org. Retrieved 2013-01-10. Vallipuram has very rich archaeological remains that point at an early settlement. It was probably an emporium in the first centuries AD. […] From already dated stones with which we compare this Vallipuram statue, we can conclude that it falls in the 3rd-4th century AD period. During that period, the typical Amaravati-Buddha sculpture was developed.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
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