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Serendib (old Name)
Sri Lanka ( si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Lankā; ta, சிறி லங்கா / இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in the northern Indian Ocean which has been known under various names over time. ''Lanka'' ''Lak-vaesiyaa'' in Sinhala means an inhabitant of the island of Lanka. ''Lak-diva'' in E'lu (old Sinhala) means the island of Lanka. Another traditional Sinhala name for Sri Lanka was ''Lakdiva'', with ''diva'' also meaning "island". A further traditional name is ''Lakbima''. ''Lak'' in both cases is derived again from ''Lanka''. The same name could have been adopted in Tamil as ''Ilankai;'' the Tamil language commonly adds "i" before initial "l". The Sanskrit epic ''Ramayana'' mentioned it ''Lanka'' and the abode of King Ravan. The name of Sri Lanka was introduced in the context of the Sri Lankan independence movement, pushing for the independence of British Ceylon during the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain. Spanish is the official language of List of countries where Spanish is an official language, 20 countries. It is the world's list of languages by number of native speakers, second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's list of languages by total number of speakers, fourth-most spoken language overall after English language, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani language, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance languages, Romance language. The largest population of native speakers is in Mexico. Spanish is part of the Iberian Romance languages, Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megasthenes
Megasthenes ( ; grc, Μεγασθένης, c. 350 BCE– c. 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book '' Indica'', which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructed from literary fragments found in later authors that quoted his work. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to leave a written description of India. Biography While Megasthenes's account of India has survived in the later works, little is known about him as a person. He spent time at the court of Sibyrtius, who was a satrap of Arachosia under Antigonus I and then Seleucus I. Megasthenes was then an ambassador for Seleucid king Seleucus I Nicator and to the court of the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra (modern Patna). Dating for his journey to the Mauryan court is uncertain; Seleucus I reigned from 305–281 BCE for the loose range of years that Megasthenes' mission might ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taprobana
Taprobana ( grc, Ταπροβανᾶ) and Taprobane (, ) was the name by which the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka was known to the ancient Greeks. History Reports of the island's existence were known before the time of Alexander the Great as inferred from Pliny. The treatise ''De Mundo'', supposedly by Aristotle (died 322 BC) but according to others by Chrysippus the Stoic (280 to 208 BC), incorrectly states that the island is as large as Great Britain (in fact, it is only about one third as big). The name was first reported to Europeans by the Greek geographer Megasthenes around 290 BC. Herodotus (444 BC) does not mention the island. The first Geography in which it appears is that of Eratosthenes (276 to 196 BC) and was later adopted by Claudius Ptolemy (139 AD) in his geographical treatise to identify a relatively large island south of continental Asia. Writing during the era of Augustus, Greek geographer Strabo makes reference to the island, noting that "Taprobane send ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India by population, sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language—one of the longest surviving Classical languages of India, classical languages in the world—is widely spoken in the state and serves as its official language. The state lies in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, and is bordered by the Indian union territory of Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, as well as an international maritime border with Sri Lanka. It is bounded by the Western Ghats in the west, the Eastern Ghats in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait to the south-eas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tirunelveli
Tirunelveli (, ta, திருநெல்வேலி, translit=Tirunelveli) also known as Nellai ( ta, நெல்லை, translit=Nellai) and historically (during British rule) as Tinnevelly, is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the administrative headquarters of the Tirunelveli District. It is the sixth-largest municipal corporation in the state after Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli and Salem. Tirunelveli is located southwest of the state capital Chennai, away from Thoothukudi, and from Kanyakumari. The downtown is located on the west bank of the Thamirabarani River; its twin Palayamkottai is on the east bank. Palayamkottai is called the Oxford of South India as it is a hub of many schools and colleges. It boasts several important government offices. Tirunelveli is an ancient city, recorded to be more than two millennia old. It has been ruled at different times by the Early Pandyas, the Cheras, the Medieval Cholas and Later Chol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamraparni
Tamraparni (Sanskrit for "with copper leaves" or "red-leaved") is an older name for multiple distinct places, including Sri Lanka, Tirunelveli in India, and the Thamirabarani River that flows through Tirunelveli. As a name for Sri Lanka The rock edicts of the 3rd century BCE Indian emperor Ashoka mentions the word Tamraparni (as "Tambapanni") in connection with his foreign missions. One edict states that his ''dhamma vijaya'' (victory through dhamma) prevailed in frontier kingdoms of the Choda (Cholas), Pada ( Pandyas), and as far as Tambapanni. This seems to be a reference to Sri Lanka, as the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka mention that a port city called Tammapanni was established there during the reign of the legendary king Vijaya. The city was called "Tammena" during the reign of Vijaya's successor Panduvasdeva and "Tammapanni" during the reign of Ashoka's missionary son Mahendra. According to these chronicles, the place was so called because its dust stuck to Mahendra' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prince Vijaya
According to the ''Mahāvaṃsa'' chronicle, Prince Vijaya (c. 543–505 BCE) was the first Sinhalese monarchy, Sinhalese king. Legends and records from both Indian and Sri Lanka sources say that he along with several hundred followers came to Sri Lanka, Sinhala after they were banished from Sinhapura. In Sri Lanka, Vijaya and his settlers defeated a yaksha near "Thammena" (Tambapaṇṇī, believed to be in the central or western part of the island), eventually displacing the island's previous inhabitants from their city of Sirisavatthu. Vijaya's marriage to Kuveni, a daughter of a yaksha leader, may have cemented his ability to rule the kingdom of Tambapanni. However, Kuveni's renunciation of her people for love did not last long; Vijay betrayed her for a princess from India. Kuveni had two children by Vijaya, whose fates are unknown. Sources and variations Four versions of the legend explain the origin of the Sinhalese people. In all the versions, a prince comes to the isl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the '' Almagest'', although it was originally entitled the ''Mathēmatikē Syntaxis'' or ''Mathematical Treatise'', and later known as ''The Greatest Treatise''. The second is the ''Geography'', which is a thorough discussion on maps and the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the ''Apotelesmatika'' (lit. "On the Effects") but more commonly known as the '' Tetrábiblos'', from the Koine Greek meaning "Four Books", or by its Latin equivalent ''Quadrip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
