“” the vast majority of people who today speak Sinhalese or Tamil must ultimately be descended from those autochthonous people(of the prehistoric period) of whom we know next to nothing about”(UCHC, I, 1: 96:97).”

Could these “autochthonous” people possibly be the Rakshashas mentioned in Ramayana?

I fully agree with you. Common sense alone would imply that Tamils came to the island first. Long before Prince Vijaya was banished from Orissa, Tamil Nadu fishermen would have spotted the Jaffna peninsula on a near daily basis. Of course, this is just my personal opinion… the ultimate proof, as you have pointed out, is the technology now available at our disposal.

Actually, there have been a few genetics tests done on Sinhalese and Tamils and they have contradictory results to say the least. Some say the Sinhalese have more in common with Bengalis, while some say they have more in common with Tamils. However, I find the view of K. Indrapala(from a quote from another source) the most interesting:

” the vast majority of people who today speak Sinhalese or Tamil must ultimately be descended from those autochthonous people(of the prehistoric period) of whom we know next to nothing about”(UCHC, I, 1: 96:97).

Correction: Replace the word “minority” with “inferiority”. Thanks

“…P.S: By the way, pro-Sinhalese nationalists are prone to using the Mahavamsa as a way to show that Sinhalese came to the island first…”

I see a fundamental flaw in this statement.

The people came to this island found a language called Sinhala. In other words, Sinhalese people haven’t come to this Island as Sinhalese themselves.

We can figure out (roughly) the age of this language. On the other hand, Tamil is much older language than Sinhala. In other words, Sinhala people could have been Tamils themselves and Buddhists would have been Hindus once.

No wonder why the majorities of this island are suffering from minority complex (and vise versa).

I believe that the science and technology is matured enough to trace our original genes back. This will put an end to all these speculations and guesses.

I understand what you’re trying to say. However, this 28 mile distance between the Palk Strait and Tamil Nadu has been used, by pro-Eelamists, in another rather infamous context: to show that Tamils came to the island first. Now, I would find it rather amusing if a Sinhalese nationalist claimed that Tamil Buddhists were in abundance on the island – due to this 28 mile radius – yet simultaneously Sinhalese came to the island first (despite the 28 mile radius). Now, it is not my intent here to state who came to the island first – I am merely pointing out a rather obvious contradiction. The conclusion is that we should not use the 28 mile radius to prove the presence of Tamil Buddhists, for the same reason we should not use it to prove that Tamils came to the island first. Such an argument may not be faulty on its own terms, however, it is certainly inconclusive.

P.S: By the way, pro-Sinhalese nationalists are prone to using the Mahavamsa as a way to show that Sinhalese came to the island first.

The Mahavamsa was written in 6th century AD by Buddhist Monks; it has been suggested recently that, it was written over a period of a long time and many monks contributed towards it. The point to note here is that, both Buddhism and Hinduism were the faiths that the inhabitants of the Island followed paying homage regardless of one was a Tamil or Sinhala. Many noble and merchant families religiously following both faiths. There were Tamil speaking Buddhists in Sri Lanka at one time and they were sacttered across the Island and from the 10th century AD Hinduism and Tamil language established well within North & East as a result of South Indian rule.

It would be hard to fathom that 28 miles across the Park Strait there were Tamil Buddhists and not in Sri Lanka. Dr. M. Gunasingham covered this well.

I agree with you also. Even today there are many Dalits who convert to Buddhism (I don’t know if they are Tamil, however).

I fully agree with you that there may have been large numbers of Tamil Buddhists in India. However, I am more interested in the presence of Tamil Buddhists in Sri Lanka. As I said earlier, the Mahavamsa makes no mention of them, which leads us to two possibilities: (1) the number of Tamil Buddhists in Sri Lanka was rather miniscule so as to be of little consequence percentage-wise or (2) there were no Tamil Buddhists in Sri Lanka, period. Of course I am limiting my argument to the Mahavamsa… on the other hand, the Mahavamsa is probably the most noteworthy source for information on the evolution of Buddhism in the island. I would also point that the Mahavamsa does in fact mention Tamils many times – it mentions them as “demalas.” So it would be rather odd if “Tamil-Buddhist” was not mentioned even once, unless of course it is a case of (2), which is what I am leaning towards.