Sri Lanka politics and commentary

UN- බලු පැනල් එක පිලිබද ලිපි

Monday, March 22, 2010

Who are we?

Brother Konnappu has intrigued my enthusiasm by starting a discussion about our roots. I can see from most responses to his article, most of us still believe that we are of Aryan decent and our nation is descending from Prince Vijaya and other Aryan migrations.

I cannot buy this story. I believe that Sinhala nation stared as a result of several tribes of Aryan and non-Aryan origins coalescing.

When the word non-aryan is mentioned many think its Dravidian, this is not ture, humans originated on earth more than 50 000 years ago, and there had been many civilizations that are not Aryan nor Dravidian.

This genetic study shows the human migration that occured on earth. There were many migrations prior to the Aryans migrated to India and there were people living in India when Aryans came there.








Surely these non-aryans would have migrated to SL prior to the Aryan migration led by prince Vijaya.

Is there any proof? This genetic study on on the human population in India shows that Sinhalese and Bengalis are closely related and Sinhalse seperate from the other races quite early in the evolutionalry time scale.

It is true that Prince Vijaya and the other Aryans migrated from north eastern India (Vanga dehshaya). There were a substantial population of Yaksh and Naga people living in Sri Lanka when Prince Vijya came here, even lord Buddha visited here to resolve a conflict that was at the brink of war. It would have been quite a bloodbath that triggered a long distance visit from Lord Buddha.
There for the eastern indian Aryan migrations would not have been sufficient enough to shift our genetic affinity towards the Bengalis, without a total anihilation of the native population. Which is highly unlikely.
This leaves us to beleive that Yaksha and Naga people also migrated from north eastern India much prior to the Aryan migation.
This is further supported by the fact that Sinhalse and Bengalis separating from other races at a much earlier time.

1 comment:

  1. Good job Desha. I also believe our (Hela) origin is more complex than just sticking to Aryan link although we have a huge Aryan (North Indian) influence on our culture.
    A comprehensive genetic study on human origin and migration patterns was done by Dr.Spencer Wells and few other scientists. There are few publications (books, papers and videos) on this topic.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journey_of_Man:_A_Genetic_Odyssey

    http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/explorers/spencer-wells.html

    http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7442.html

    ReplyDelete