Story of Sinhala People -- Their Origins

Origins of the Sinhalese People
Written on June 8, 2013
By Jay Hettiarachchy

The word Sinhala means “lion blooded.” The traditional story of the origins of the Sinhala people as recorded in Mahavamsa – the great Chronicle of Sri Lanka, is interesting. According to this tradition, the king of Bengal (in east India) had a very attractive daughter. The soothsayers prophesied that she will live with a lion (the king of the beasts). The prophecy materialized, and the king’s daughter ran away and lived with a lion and had a twin son and a daughter by the lion. When the children grew up the son Sinhabahu (lion-handed person) ran away from the lion’s cave with his sister Sinhaseevali) and mother to the human habitat. Sinhabahu helped the ruler of the kingdom who married his mother Suppadevi  to kill the lion that was destroying the villages in search of his mate and the children. After that Sinhabahu established his own kingdom, married his own sister and they had sixteen twins. The eldest son born to them was named Vijaya (victory). Vijaya was an evil person and he had seven hundred followers who were as evil. Their evil behavior and evil doings angered his father Sinhabahu who banished Vijaya  and his followers into the sea. Vijaya and his followers were the forefathers of the Sinhalese people who colonized Lanka/Thambapanni (Ceylon of yesterday and Sri Lanka of today). According to this mythical story, the ancestry of the Sinhalese people begins from a beast and a human woman.

Analysis of this mythical tradition:

It is humanly impossible for a human woman and a beast to produce children. The “lion” mentioned in this tradition could probably signify a strong and wild man who ran away with the attractive daughter of the king of Bengal.

Sinhabahu  and Sinhaseevali (the twin brother and sister) having had 16 twins together is another such unfounded and unbelievable story. The story was apparently woven to establish that the Sinhalese race has a unique beginning, first having a kinship with a beast and then a relationship based on incest (no mixed blood, and having a pure pedigree as a race).

Unfortunately, most people in Sri Lanka believe this story of their origin. Children are made to accept this myth as the real beginning of their ancestry by their parents and teachers who make them to accept it without questioning its validity. There are plays produced based on the above story that reinforces such mythical images in the minds of young people and adults who in turn pass down these myths from generation to generation thereby continuing a vicious cycle.

We are living in a world in which we are unable to know for certain how an event happened even a few days ago. Even our court system is not a hundred percent foolproof system. It would therefore be prudent for us to acknowledge the fact that we do not have the evidence about the real beginnings of the Sinhala people than to trust in myths that have been fabricated to cover up our ignorance about it.