Fablewings › Sri Lankan history › Part 1

The Island Before Kings (prehistory to c. 500 BCE)

For tens of thousands of years before any king, people lived on the land we call Sri Lanka: rainforest hunters, coastal foragers, then iron-using farmers and potters. No year-by-year record exists for this era, so this part moves through dated phases, each with its margin of error. It also asks how we know anything at all: what the monk-chroniclers wrote, what the spade has found, and where the two disagree.

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How we know: chronicles, stones and spades

Sri Lanka is unusual in South Asia: it has long Pali chronicles that claim to tell its story from the Buddha's lifetime onward. Yet they were written many centuries after the events they describe. Historians weigh them against inscriptions, excavations and foreign texts.

4th century CE: the Dipavamsa

The oldest surviving chronicle is the Dipavamsa, the 'Island Chronicle', usually dated to the 4th century CE. It is short, repetitive and written in uneven Pali verse, which suggests it was stitched together from an older oral and commentarial tradition kept by monks.

Its author is unknown. It already contains the story of Prince Vijaya, in a simpler form than the version that became famous later.

5th–6th century CE: the Mahavamsa

The Mahavamsa, the 'Great Chronicle', is credited to a monk named Mahanama of the Mahavihara monastery at Anuradhapura. A later commentary, the Mahavamsa-tika, names him; little else is known.

It is usually placed in the reign of King Dhatusena in the 5th century CE, though some scholars prefer the 6th. Its first part runs from legendary beginnings to King Mahasena in the 4th century CE.

Why Mahanama wrote

Mahanama's preface says he wanted to remove the faults of an older work: its repetitions, gaps and excess length.

What the sources sayScholars are unsure whether he meant the Dipavamsa or older Sinhala commentaries. Either way, the Mahavamsa draws almost entirely on Mahavihara traditions and leaves out a rival monastery, the Abhayagiri. It is a monastic history written to edify, not a neutral record, and modern historians read it with that viewpoint in mind.

1837: the chronicle reaches Europe

George Turnour, a British civil servant in Ceylon, published the first printed edition and English translation of the Mahavamsa in 1837, covering its first 38 chapters.

L.C. Wijesinghe translated the remaining chapters and published a complete version in 1889. These colonial-era translations shaped how both British officials and Sri Lankan nationalists came to see the island's ancient past.

1912: Geiger's edition

The German scholar Wilhelm Geiger published his translation of the Mahavamsa in 1912. Mabel Haynes Bode translated it into English and Geiger revised her version; his English Culavamsa, made with C. Mabel Rickmers, followed in 1929–1930.

Geiger's critical work made the chronicle usable as a historical source. It also fixed a chronology, discussed below, that many textbooks still follow.

Do the chronicles stand up?

Some outside evidence supports the chronicle's broad picture of the Mauryan age.

What the sources sayExcavations at Sanchi and elsewhere support its account of Ashoka's empire, and Sri Lankan stone inscriptions confirm many later details. But Ashoka's Rock Edict XIII does not mention his son Mahinda's mission to the island, and it implies a missionary date about five years earlier than the Mahavamsa's. Agreement on the big picture does not prove the details.

The sceptics

Western scholars around 1900 were often harsh judges of the early chapters.

Myth and correctionOtto Franke rejected the early material as unreliable. Hermann Oldenberg called the Mahinda conversion story an invention, and V.A. Smith thought it absurd. G.C. Mendis judged the Vijaya story too remote and literary to be history. Today most historians take a middle path: legend for the earliest chapters, a usable but partisan source from the 3rd century BCE onward.

Inscriptions: the island's own documents

Thousands of short stone inscriptions in Brahmi script, many recording gifts of caves to monks, are the best written evidence for early Sri Lanka. They are contemporary with what they describe, unlike the chronicles.

Brahmi letters scratched on pottery at Anuradhapura are even older. Their dating, discussed in section 01.4, has changed the debate about when writing reached South Asia.

Archaeology and its dates

Most dates in this part come from radiocarbon tests on charcoal, bone or shell. Results are given as years 'BP' (before present, meaning before 1950) or converted to calendar years.

What the sources sayUncalibrated radiocarbon dates can differ from calendar dates by centuries, and newer calibrated dates are usually earlier. Some cave dates in this part have been revised as methods improved. Where published figures disagree, this book gives each figure with its source.

Foreign eyes

Outside accounts help check the chronicles, though most come after this era. Ashoka's edicts of the 3rd century BCE name the island's southern neighbours. The Chinese monk Faxian arrived in 411 CE.

The 7th-century pilgrim Xuanzang recorded a different version of the island's origin myth, with no mention of the Indian kingdoms the Mahavamsa names, showing that several versions of the story circulated.

The Buddha's death and the island's clock

The chronicles date everything from the Buddha's death, the parinibbana. Their tradition places it in 544/543 BCE, the basis of the Buddhist era still used in Sri Lanka.

What the sources sayOnce Ashoka's reign was fixed from Greek and Indian evidence, this long chronology was found to misdate Ashoka by about 60 years. Scholars therefore moved the Buddha's death later. The Mahavamsa itself puts Ashoka's consecration 218 years after the parinibbana.

Geiger's chronology: c. 483 BCE

Geiger and many 20th-century scholars accepted a 'corrected' date of about 483 BCE, linked to J.F. Fleet's work of 1906–1909, with nearby variants of 487–486 BCE.

What the sources sayThis kept the chronicle's interval to Ashoka but shifted it to match Ashoka's known dates. Heinz Bechert later called Fleet's reasoning extremely unreliable. The 483 date long dominated textbooks, yet it rests on trusting the chronicle's interval of years.

1988: the Göttingen symposium

In 1988 Heinz Bechert gathered experts at Göttingen to re-examine the question. The papers were published in several volumes, and a summary book followed in 1995.

What the sources sayProposals ranged from 486 BCE to 261 BCE. Many scholars now favour a 'short' chronology placing the death roughly 100 years before Ashoka. One recent survey suggests about 410–370 BCE. If so, the chronicle's early dates shift later by a century or more.

Why the date matters

The Mahavamsa says Vijaya landed on the very day the Buddha died.

The politicsMany historians think Vijaya's date was fixed artificially to match the Buddhist era, tying the island's people to the Buddha's last moments. If the parinibbana moved, so would Vijaya. The date of 543 BCE therefore belongs to sacred history. The archaeology of this era runs on a separate, radiocarbon clock.
Timeline: building the record
4th c. CE — Dipavamsa compiled from older monastic tradition
5th–6th c. CE — Mahanama writes the Mahavamsa at the Mahavihara
1837 — Turnour publishes first English translation (38 chapters)
1889 — Wijesinghe completes the translation
1912 — Geiger's German translation and critical chronology
1988 — Göttingen symposium reopens the Buddha's dates
1995 — Bechert's summary volume on the controversy

The chronicle in modern politics

The Mahavamsa is not only a historical source; it became a symbol.

The politicsIts story of the island as a land for Buddhism has been cited in Sinhala Buddhist nationalism since the colonial period. Critics, including Tamil writers, have attacked its use to justify political claims. Historians generally separate the text's value as evidence from the uses made of it, and read it alongside archaeology.

The land and the bridge

Sri Lanka's shape, climate and links to India set the terms for everything that followed. The island has been joined to the mainland and cut off from it several times as sea levels rose and fell.

Ice ages: a walkable strait

During the last glacial period global sea levels fell by up to about 120 metres. The shallow Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar shelf became dry land, and people and animals could walk between India and Sri Lanka.

This helps explain why the island's plants and animals are closely related to those of the Western Ghats in south India.

c. 14,000–7,000 years ago: becoming an island

As the ice melted, the sea rose. Archaeologist Kavan Ratnatunga summarises that about 14,000 years ago the island was still joined to the peninsula, and that over the next 7,000 years the sea rose to roughly its present level.

By about 7,000 years ago, rising Holocene seas had flooded the strait. Sri Lanka has been an island, in human terms, ever since.

Adam's Bridge: the sandbank chain

The chain of shoals between Dhanushkodi in India and Talaimannar in Sri Lanka is called Adam's Bridge or Rama Setu. Reporting on a study by India's National Remote Sensing Centre gives a length of 29 km; other sources give about 48 km.

What the sources sayThe difference lies in where the ends are measured. The ridge is mostly sandstone, conglomerate and coral shoals in water 1–3 metres deep.

Was the bridge walkable until 1480?

A popular claim says people could walk across until the 15th century.

Myth and correctionRecords of the Rameswaram temple say storms broke the link in 1480, and this is often repeated. Geologists have not confirmed a recent continuous land path; the shoals have risen and been submerged with sea-level change. In 2007 the Archaeological Survey of India told India's Supreme Court there was no evidence the structure was anything but natural.

The first people: the Stone Age

Sri Lanka holds some of the oldest securely dated evidence for modern humans in South Asia. Almost all of it was found by the island's own archaeologists, above all Siran Deraniyagala, later working with international teams.

c. 125,000–75,000 BP: Patirajawela, Bundala

The oldest evidence of human activity comes from coastal gravel deposits near Bundala in the south. Deraniyagala dated a small-flake stone industry at Patirajawela to about 125,000–75,000 years ago.

What the sources sayA second site, Bundala-Wellegangoda, gave comparable tools from about 80,000 years ago. These dates come from the geology of the deposits, not from bones. Who made the tools, and whether they were modern humans, is unknown.

c. 48,000–45,000 BP: Fa-Hien Lena

Fa-Hien Lena, a cave in Kalutara District in the south-west, has the island's longest record of rainforest life. A 2019 study led by Oshan Wedage in Nature Communications showed people there hunting monkeys and squirrels by at least 45,000 years ago.

This was specialised forest hunting, not opportunistic scavenging, and it challenged the idea that early humans avoided tropical forests.

c. 48,000 BP: the earliest bows outside Africa

In 2020 a team led by Michelle Langley reported in Science Advances 130 bone projectile points from Fa-Hien Lena, about 48,000 years old.

Their size, shape and damage suggest arrow tips used against small, quick tree-dwelling animals. The authors called them the earliest known bow-and-arrow technology outside Africa. The team also found bone tools that may have been used for making nets or working skins.

How old is Fa-Hien Lena really?

Published dates for the cave have moved over time.

What the sources sayEarlier summaries gave occupation from about 37,000 or 33,000 BP until about 4,750 BP. Deraniyagala, writing in 2001, called it the earliest modern-human evidence in South Asia at about 37,000 BP. The 2019–2020 studies, with new dating, pushed the start to about 48,000–45,000 years ago.

c. 30,000 BP: the oldest human remains

The oldest human remains from Fa-Hien Lena, of three children and an adult woman, have been dated to about 30,000 years ago.

It is among the oldest reliably dated remains of anatomically modern humans in South Asia. The cave also has burials from about 6,850 and 4,750 years ago, showing use over a vast span of time.

Pahiyangala and the name of Faxian

Both Fa-Hien Lena and nearby Pahiyangala, a huge rock-shelter temple in the Bulathsinhala area, take their names from the Chinese monk Faxian.

Myth and correctionLocal tradition says Faxian stayed there in the 5th century CE, but no contemporary evidence confirms it; Faxian's own account does not describe the cave. A popular heritage site reports skulls from Pahiyangala dated to about 37,000 years ago. The names are often confused, so readers should check which cave a figure refers to.

c. 31,000–28,500 BP: Batadombalena

Batadombalena, a cave near Kuruwita in the foothills of Sri Pada (Adam's Peak), was first dug in 1938 and again in 1979–1981. Its lower layers yielded geometric microliths, tiny shaped stone blades set into handles.

What the sources sayDeraniyagala gave about 31,000 BP for these microliths; other summaries give about 28,500 BP. Dated finds from the cave span roughly 31,000 to 18,000 BP. Human skeletal remains were also recovered; published dates for them vary.

1955–1989: naming 'Balangoda Man'

The name comes from sites near Balangoda where the culture was first identified. In 1955 the zoologist P.E.P. Deraniyagala proposed a separate subspecies name, Homo sapiens balangodensis.

Later work by his son Siran Deraniyagala and the American anthropologist Kenneth Kennedy described the remains as fully modern humans. Their 1989 paper in Current Anthropology spoke of fossil remains of 28,000-year-old hominids from Sri Lanka.

Microliths: earlier than Europe

Sri Lanka's geometric microliths appear about 19,000 years before similar tools in Europe.

Myth and correctionIn Europe such tools mark the 'Mesolithic' from about 12,000 BP, so the label once implied a late date. Deraniyagala pointed out that Sri Lanka's microliths begin around 31,000 BP, comparable only with some African sites older than 27,000 BP. The European term 'Mesolithic' therefore fits Sri Lanka poorly, though it is still widely used.

c. 31,000–7,880 BP: Beli-lena, Kitulgala

Beli-lena, a rock shelter near Kitulgala, was used by microlith-making hunter-gatherers from about 31,000 to 7,880 years ago, according to a 2009 study by Nikos Kourampas and colleagues, including Deraniyagala.

Remains at the site have been read as signs that salt was carried up from the coast. Human skeletal fragments were also found; summaries give differing dates for them.

How they lived

Deraniyagala's synthesis describes small bands whose camps rarely exceeded 50 square metres.

They hunted monkeys, deer and smaller animals, collected snails and plant foods, and buried their dead in the camp floor, often as secondary burials after the flesh had gone. Red ochre was used in burials at Fa-Hien Lena and Ravanalla cave. In some samples men averaged about 174 cm in height and women about 166 cm.

Farming on Horton Plains?

Pollen cores from Horton Plains, studied by T.R. Premathilake, have been read as evidence of very early herding and plant management.

What the sources sayDeraniyagala's summary cites signs of incipient barley and oat management before 15,000 BC and herding and cultivation by about 8,000 BC. These claims are striking and rest on pollen and burning signals rather than excavated grain. Many archaeologists treat them as possible but unproven.

No Neolithic phase

In much of the world, farming villages with polished stone tools came between foragers and metal users.

Myth and correctionAt a 1970 seminar, P.E.P. Deraniyagala summarised that excavations at Kantarodai and Anuradhapura showed Sri Lanka's Iron Age was not preceded by a Neolithic or Copper Age phase, unlike south India. Siran Deraniyagala later added that the shift from microlith users to Iron Age life is still not clearly defined.
Timeline: the Stone Age
c. 125,000–75,000 BP — Flake tools at Patirajawela, Bundala coast
c. 48,000–45,000 BP — Bows and monkey hunting at Fa-Hien Lena
c. 31,000 BP — Geometric microliths at Batadombalena (Deraniyagala)
c. 31,000–7,880 BP — Beli-lena rock shelter in use
c. 7,000 years ago — Rising sea makes Sri Lanka an island
c. 6,500 BP — Burials at Bellanbandi Palassa
c. 1,800 BCE — Microlith layer at Mantai

Fa-Hien Lena's bone arrowheads

Tiny bone points from Fa-Hien Lena, about 48,000 years old, are the earliest known arrow tips outside Africa, according to a 2020 study.

Iron, rice and the first town

Between about 1000 and 500 BCE, Sri Lanka changed fast. Iron tools, rice farming, cattle, horses, fine pottery and burial monuments appeared, and Anuradhapura grew from a village into a town. Deraniyagala calls this the protohistoric Early Iron Age.

c. 1000–800 BCE: the earliest Iron Age dates

Deraniyagala placed the earliest Sri Lankan Iron Age dates at about 1000–800 BCE, at Anuradhapura and at the Aligala rock shelter near Sigiriya.

What the sources sayOther summaries round the start at Anuradhapura to about 900 BCE. The difference reflects how individual radiocarbon dates are grouped and calibrated, not a dispute over the evidence itself.

c. 900 BCE: Anuradhapura begins

In 1988 Deraniyagala excavated deep in the Citadel of Anuradhapura, reaching layers almost 9 metres down. The lowest settlement was radiocarbon dated to about 900 BCE.

It covered an estimated 35–65 acres, a large village. The people used iron tools, grew rice, made high-quality pottery and kept cattle and horses. This was centuries before the date the chronicles give for Vijaya.

c. 800–600 BCE: a growing settlement

Deraniyagala estimated the settlement exceeded 10 hectares by about 800 BCE and reached at least 50 hectares by about 700–600 BCE.

What the sources sayA 2015 newspaper summary of his work gives over 125 acres by 700 BCE and about 180 acres by 500 BCE. Such estimates come from test pits across the Citadel, and so are approximate. All versions agree that Anuradhapura was growing rapidly before 500 BCE.

Archaeology versus the chronicle

The Mahavamsa says Anuradhapura was founded by a minister of Vijaya named Anuradha, and later made a capital.

Myth and correctionThe excavations show a substantial settlement centuries before the chronicle's Vijaya. That does not disprove every element of the legend, but it means the town was not founded from nothing by newcomers in the 6th century BCE. Many archaeologists now see gradual local growth fed by contact with India.

The 'megalithic' label

Large stone burial monuments of this period closely resemble those of peninsular India, and are usually called 'megalithic'.

Myth and correctionDeraniyagala argued it is misleading to speak of a 'Megalithic culture', because the burial custom was not necessarily tied to the Early Iron Age way of life as a whole. The label survives but now describes a burial custom, not a separate people.

c. 750–400 BCE: the Ibbankatuwa tombs

Ibbankatuwa, about 5 km south-west of Dambulla town, was identified in 1970 and excavated in 1983–1984 and 1988–1990. Deraniyagala called it Sri Lanka's only radiocarbon-dated megalithic cemetery, at about 750–400 BCE.

What the sources sayOther published figures are 700–450 BCE and 700–400 BCE. Accounts also differ on the number of tomb clusters: 42 in one source, 46 in another. The broad picture is the same: a cemetery in use for several centuries before and around the chronicle's date for Vijaya.

What the Ibbankatuwa dead took with them

Each cist tomb was made of four stone slabs with a fifth as a lid. Inside or beside them were clay urns holding cremated remains, along with grave goods.

Finds include pottery, iron, copper and gold objects, and beads of carnelian, onyx and agate. Some gemstones do not occur naturally on the island, suggesting long-distance trade, possibly through India.

1970: the Pennsylvania excavations

In 1966 Vimala Begley of the University of Pennsylvania Museum surveyed northern Ceylon for sites of the pre-Buddhist past. In 1970 a Penn team, with Bennet Bronson as field director, Begley as assistant field director and Mohamad Mauroof, excavated at Pomparippu and at Kantarodai in the Jaffna Peninsula.

Pomparippu had been found by A.M. Hocart in 1923–1924 and partly dug by Raja de Silva in 1956. Begley estimated it held about 8,000 urn burials, or 10,000–12,000 individuals.

Dating Pomparippu

Pomparippu remains hard to date.

What the sources sayRaja de Silva proposed about 200 BCE to 200 CE. Begley, comparing south Indian burial sequences, argued for a date only a few centuries before the Common Era. No radiocarbon date has been possible because no charcoal was found and the bones are too fragile. It may therefore be later than this era.

Who were the urn-burial people?

The burial urns and black-and-red pottery are closely related to south Indian Iron Age burials.

What the sources saySome archaeologists see this as evidence of Dravidian-speaking settlers. Begley noted differences, such as unburnished local pottery. Sudarshan Seneviratne linked the custom to the urn burials of the Vaigai and Tamraparni river plains, the Pandyan homeland. Ancient pottery does not reveal the language its makers spoke.

c. 600–500 BCE: letters on pots?

Deraniyagala reported potsherds from seven vessels at the Anuradhapura Citadel scratched with early Brahmi letters, dating them to about 600–500 BCE.

He suggested that some of the names might match figures in the chronicles, including Anuradha. If correct, this would make Anuradhapura one of the first places in South Asia where writing was used.

Who wrote first?

The early Brahmi dates are hotly debated.

What the sources sayRobin Coningham, Raymond Allchin and colleagues, excavating at Salgahawatta in 1989–1992, published in 1996 that inscribed sherds dated to the beginning of the 4th century BCE. Some Tamil Nadu sites have early uncalibrated dates too, such as 490 BCE at Porunthal. Most scholars now agree Brahmi existed before Ashoka; exactly where it began is still argued.
Timeline: the Iron Age
c. 1200 BCE — Iron working established in south India
c. 1000–800 BCE — Earliest Iron Age dates: Anuradhapura, Aligala
c. 900 BCE — Anuradhapura village of 35–65 acres
c. 750–400 BCE — Ibbankatuwa cemetery in use
c. 700–600 BCE — Anuradhapura reaches about 50 hectares
c. 600–400 BCE — Earliest Brahmi on Anuradhapura pottery (dates debated)

The Ibbankatuwa stone tombs

Slab-built cist tombs at Ibbankatuwa near Dambulla held urns of ashes, beads and iron tools, about 750–400 BCE.

Peoples and legends

The chronicles fill this era with yakkhas, nagas, a lion-born prince and the Buddha's magical visits. These stories matter because generations of Sri Lankans have understood their origins through them. This section sets each legend beside what scholars make of it.

The Buddha's three visits (legend)

The Mahavamsa's opening chapters say the Buddha visited the island three times. First he came to Mahiyangana and drove out the yakkhas; then to Nagadipa to settle a quarrel between two naga kings; and finally to Kelaniya.

Myth and correctionNo other early source mentions these visits. Historians treat them as sacred legend that presents Lanka as a land destined for Buddhism.

Yakkhas and nagas: who were they?

In the chronicles, yakkhas are demon-like beings and nagas are serpent beings. Both lived on the island before Vijaya.

What the sources saySome writers read them as real early peoples, perhaps the ancestors of the Veddas or of groups in the north. Others see them as mythic figures borrowed from wider Indian lore. Archaeology shows long-settled hunter-gatherers and Iron Age communities, but it cannot attach chronicle names to them.

The lion's grandson (legend)

The Mahavamsa tells how a princess of Vanga (Bengal) ran off and was carried away by a lion. Their son Sinhabahu killed his father and founded the city of Sinhapura in Lala.

Sinhabahu married his sister Sinhasivali. Their eldest son was Vijaya. The name Sinhala, 'of the lion', is traced in the story to this lion ancestor.

c. 543 BCE (chronicle date): Vijaya lands

The chronicles say Vijaya was banished for violent behaviour and sent to sea with 700 followers. After touching at Supparaka, usually identified with Sopara on India's west coast, they landed at Tambapanni.

The Mahavamsa says they arrived on the very day of the Buddha's death, and that the dying Buddha asked the god Sakka to protect Vijaya and Lanka.

Kuveni (legend)

In the Mahavamsa, Vijaya meets the yakkhini Kuveni, who helps him defeat the yakkhas of Sirisavatthu. They have two children, Jivahata and Disala.

When Vijaya needs a queen of royal birth, he sends Kuveni away, and she is killed by her own people. The chronicle says her children fled and became ancestors of the Pulindas, whom many later writers identify with the Veddas.

Two versions of the founding

The Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa tell the story differently.

What the sources sayThe older Dipavamsa has the core of Vijaya's voyage but omits Kuveni, the yakkhas and the south Indian princess. Xuanzang's 7th-century version has a princess from south India and no yakkhas. The Ajanta cave paintings in India (Cave 17) show a related tale, the Simhala Avadana. The legend grew over time.

Where was Sinhapura?

Scholars have searched widely for Vijaya's homeland.

What the sources sayH.C. Raychaudhuri placed Lala in the Rarh region of Bengal, with Sinhapura at Singur. Others point to Kalinga in Odisha or Singupuram in Andhra Pradesh. A.L. Basham and S. Paranavitana read Lala as Lata in Gujarat, near Sihor; Paranavitana also considered South-East Asia. R.C. Majumdar thought the story too legendary to locate.

Is Vijaya history?

There is no archaeological evidence for Vijaya himself.

Myth and correctionG.C. Mendis judged the story too remote to be history, and the 543 BCE date seems fixed to the Buddha's death. Many historians, including Indrapala, Deraniyagala, R.A.L.H. Gunawardana and Seneviratne, reject a single founding migration. They see gradual, two-way movement between India and Sri Lanka. Some still see a memory of north Indian Prakrit speakers in the tale.

The politics of origins

The Vijaya story has been used in modern identity politics.

The politicsIn some Sinhala nationalist writing it marks the Sinhalese as the island's first civilised people with a special claim to it. Tamil writers such as Satchi Ponnambalam dismissed it as fiction serving such claims. Most academic historians treat it as a foundation myth and emphasise the shared ancestry suggested by archaeology and genetics.

Lanka in the Ramayana (legend)

The Sanskrit epic Ramayana tells of Ravana, king of Lanka, who seized Sita, and of the bridge Rama's army built across the sea. Many Hindus and many Sri Lankans identify that Lanka with Sri Lanka and Adam's Bridge with Rama's bridge.

Sites linked to the epic, such as places associated with Ravana and Sita, are now pilgrimage and tourist destinations on the island.

Legend, place and evidence

The Ramayana belongs to sacred literature, not to dated history.

Myth and correctionSome scholars have argued that the epic's original Lanka lay in central India, noting that the equation with Sri Lanka is clearly attested only in later sources. Others accept the identification. The Archaeological Survey of India told the Supreme Court in 2007 that there was no historical proof Rama built the bridge, which caused political controversy in India.

Early Tamil presence

Questions about who lived in the north and east before the chronicles' kings remain politically charged.

What the sources sayIndrapala's 2005 book argues that Sinhalese and Tamils descend from common ancestors in the island's Iron Age, with Prakrit spreading to most people and Tamil becoming dominant in parts of the island. Tamils ('Damedas' or 'Damelas') appear in early inscriptions, and he rejects treating them as outsiders.

Competing readings

Rival nationalist histories have both used this era.

The politicsSome Sinhala writers present the Sinhalese as first settlers and Tamils as later invaders. Some Tamil writers claim the megalithic people were Tamils and the island's original civilisation. Scholars such as Indrapala, Gunawardana, Deraniyagala and Seneviratne describe a mixed, multi-ethnic Iron Age in which the sea joined rather than divided the two shores.

The Veddas

The Veddas, or Wanniyala-aetto, are the island's indigenous people, traditionally forest hunter-gatherers. Their language is often described as an isolate with no close relatives, though it has been heavily influenced by Sinhala.

Many writers link them with the Stone Age hunters of the caves and with the Pulindas of the Mahavamsa. Both links are plausible but hard to prove directly.

What genetics says about the Veddas

A study published in the journal Mitochondrion in 2024, led by Ruwandi Ranasinghe of Colombo University with K. Thangaraj of CSIR-CCMB, analysed Vedda genomes.

What the sources sayIt found a close, very old genetic link between the Veddas and populations of India, despite their distinct language, plus a recent population bottleneck and limited gene flow from Sinhalese and Tamil neighbours. This supports deep roots on the island, but not an unbroken line from the cave dwellers.
Timeline: legends and their dates
c. 544/543 BCE — Parinibbana in Sri Lankan tradition; Vijaya lands (chronicle)
c. 486–483 BCE — 'Corrected' date of Buddha's death used by Geiger
c. 410–370 BCE — One modern estimate of the Buddha's death
4th c. CE — Dipavamsa: oldest written Vijaya story
5th–6th c. CE — Mahavamsa adds Kuveni and Pandyan queen
7th c. CE — Xuanzang records a variant origin myth

Looking back: The Island Before Kings

Historians now see this era chiefly through archaeology. Sri Lanka has some of South Asia's earliest evidence for modern humans, rainforest hunting and microliths, and an Iron Age town at Anuradhapura by about 900 BCE.

The chronicles' yakkhas, nagas and Vijaya are read as later monastic and royal myth. Most scholars stress gradual, two-way contact with India and shared ancestry, while dates for the Buddha, Brahmi writing and the cave layers continue to be revised.

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