Sri Lanka ( si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Lankā; ta, சிறி லங்கா / இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai), officially the
Democratic Socialist Republic of 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 ...
, is an island country in the northern
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
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
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
epic ''Ramayana'' mentioned it ''Lanka'' and the abode of King
Ravan
Ravana (; , , ) is a rakshasa king of the island of Lanka, and the chief antagonist of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana'' and its adaptations.
In the ''Ramayana'', Ravana is described to be the eldest son of sage Vishrava and rakshasi Kaikesi. He ab ...
.
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 half of the 20th century. The name was used by the Marxist
Lanka Sama Samaja Party, which was founded in 1935. The Sanskrit honorific ''
Sri
Shri (; , ) is a Sanskrit term denoting resplendence, wealth and prosperity, primarily used as an honorific.
The word is widely used in South and Southeast Asian languages such as Marathi, Malay (including Indonesian and Malaysian), Javanes ...
'' was introduced in the name of the
Sri Lanka Freedom Party ( si, ශ්රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය, Sri Lanka Nidahas Pakshaya), founded in 1952. The
Republic of Sri Lanka was officially adopted as the country's name with the
new constitution of 1972, and changed to "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka" in the
constitution of 1978.
Ceylon
Under
British rule
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...
, the island was known as Ceylon from 1815 to 1972.
Serendip
The name "Serendip" given by Arabs due to Lankan Rubi and pearl. The name Ceylon too originated from an Arabic name "Saheelan" since they had long trading history with Lanka. Then Romans called it "Sielen"
The name ''Ceylon'' has a complicated history going back to antiquity. Theory states that the name comes from ''Sielen'' as the island was known by the Romans as ''Serendivis'' and by Arabs as Serandib and the Persians as ''Serendip'' (the root from which
serendipity is derived) while Greeks called the island ''Sielen Diva'' or ''Sieldiba''. The name is said to be based on the word ''Sinhaladvipa'' which is also used in the
Culavamsa as a name for the Island.
From the word ''Sielen'', many European forms were derived:
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''Seelan'',
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
''Ceilão'',
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''Ceilán'',
French ''Seilan'', ''Ceylan'',
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
''Zeilan'', ''Ceilan'' and ''Seylon'', and of course the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
''Ceylon''.
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 ...
called the Island ''Salike'', and the inhabitants ''Salai''. Another theory is that the name derives from the Tamil words ''cheran'' for the Tamil dynasty of the
Chera and the words ''theevu'' which means "island" in Tamil.
''Taprobana, Tamraparni''
''Tamraparni'' is according to some legends the name given by
Prince Vijaya
According to the ''Mahāvaṃsa'' chronicle, Prince Vijaya (c. 543–505 BCE) was the first Sinhalese king. Legends and records from both Indian and Sri Lanka sources say that he along with several hundred followers came to Sinhala after they ...
when he arrived on the island. The word can be translated as "copper-coloured leaf", from the words Thamiram (copper in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
) and Varni (colour). Another scholar states that ''Tamara'' means red and ''parani'' means tree, therefore it could mean "tree with red leaves".
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 r ...
is also a name of
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 Tam ...
, the capital of the
Pandyan kingdom in
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
. The name was adopted in Pali as ''Tambaparni''.
The name was adopted into Greek as ''
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 ...
'', used by
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 ha ...
in the 4th century BC. The Greek name was adopted in medieval Irish (''
Lebor Gabala Erenn'') as ''Deprofane'' (Recension 2) and ''Tibra Faine'' (Recension 3), off the coast of India, supposedly one of the countries where the
Milesians /
Gaedel, ancestors of today's Irish, had sojourned in their previous migrations.
The name remained in use in early modern Europe, alongside the Persianate ''Serendip'',
with ''Traprobana'' mentioned in the first strophe of the
Portuguese national epic poem
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
''
Os Lusíadas
''Os Lusíadas'' (), usually translated as ''The Lusiads'', is a Portuguese epic poem written by Luís Vaz de Camões ( – 1580) and first published in 1572. It is widely regarded as the most important work of Portuguese-language literature ...
'' by
Luís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões (; sometimes rendered in English as Camoens or Camoëns, ; c. 1524 or 1525 – 10 June 1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespear ...
.
John Milton borrowed this for his epic poem ''
Paradise Lost'' and
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...
mentions a fantastic ''Trapobana'' in ''
Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...
''.
Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...
, Volume I, Chapter 18: ''the mighty emperor Alifanfaron, lord of the great isle of Trapobana''.
Helabima
Sri Lanka has also been known as ''Helabima'', meaning "Land of
Helas", which is a name that Sinhalese were called. ''Siṃhala'' is attested as a Sanskrit name of the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the
Bhagavata Purana
The ''Bhagavata Purana'' ( sa, भागवतपुराण; ), also known as the ''Srimad Bhagavatam'', ''Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana'' or simply ''Bhagavata'', is one of Hinduism's eighteen great Puranas (''Mahapuranas''). Composed in S ...
and
Rajatarangini
''Rajatarangini'' ("The River of Kings") is a metrical legendary and historical chronicle of the north-western part of India, particularly the kings of Kashmir. It was written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri historian Kalhana in the 12th century CE. Th ...
. T
''Eelam''
The earliest use of the word is found in a
Tamil-Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptio ...
inscription as well as in the
Sangam literature
The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam'';) historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ'') connotes ...
. The
Tirupparankunram
Thiruparankundram, also spelled Tirupparankundram or Tiruparangundram, is a town in Madurai district in Tamil Nadu, India. It is about from Madurai city and constitutes the southwest part of the greater Madurai city (Municipal Corporation). The ...
inscription found near
Madurai
Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration in ...
in
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
and dated on palaeographical grounds to the 1st century BCE, refers to a person as a householder from Eelam (''Eela-kudumpikan'').
The most favoured explanation derives it from a word for the
spurge
''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...
(palm tree),
via the application to a caste of
toddy-drawers, i.e. workers drawing the sap from palm trees for the production of
palm wine
Palm wine, known by several local names, is an alcoholic beverage created from the sap of various species of palm tree such as the palmyra, date palms, and coconut palms. It is known by various names in different regions and is common in va ...
.
The name of the palm tree may conversely be derived from the name of the caste of toddy drawers, known as ''Eelavar'', cognate with the name of
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
, from the name of the
Chera dynasty, via ''Cheralam'', ''Chera'', ''Sera'' and ''Kera''.
[M. Ramachandran, Irāman̲ Mativāṇan̲ (1991). ''The spring of the Indus civilisation''. Prasanna Pathippagam, pp. 34. "Srilanka was known as "Cerantivu' (island of the Cera kings) in those days. The seal has two lines. The line above contains three signs in Indus script and the line below contains three alphabets in the ancient Tamil script known as Tamil ...]
The stem ''Eela'' is found in Prakrit inscriptions dated to 2nd century BC in Sri Lanka in personal names such as ''Eela-Barata'' and ''Eela-Naga''. The meaning of ''Eela'' in these inscriptions is unknown although one could deduce that they are either from ''Eela'' a geographic location or were an ethnic group known as ''Eela''.
[p. 313] From the 19th century onwards, sources appeared in South India regarding a legendary origin for caste of toddy drawers known as
''Eelavar'' in the state of Kerala. These legends stated that ''Eelavar'' were originally from Eelam.
There have also been proposals of deriving ''Eelam'' from ''Simhala'' (comes from Elam, Ilam, Tamil, Helmand River, Himalayas).
Robert Caldwell
Robert Caldwell (7 May 1814 – 28 August 1891) was a missionary for London Missionary Society. He arrived in India at age 24, studied the local language to spread the word of Bible in a vernacular language, studies that led him to author a tex ...
(1875), following
Hermann Gundert
Hermann Gundert (Stuttgart, 4 February 1814 – 25 April 1893 in Calw, Germany) was a German missionary, scholar, and linguist, as well as the maternal grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse. Gundert is chiefly know ...
, cited the word as an example of the omission of initial sibilants in the adoption of Indo-Aryan words into Dravidian languages. The University of Madras Tamil Lexicon, compiled between 1924 and 1936, follows this view.
Peter Schalk (2004) has argued against this, showing that the application of ''Eelam'' in an ethnic sense arises only in the early modern period, and was limited to the caste of "
toddy drawers" until the medieval period.
[.]
Suggested Biblical names
*Tarshish. According to
James Emerson Tennent
Sir James Emerson Tennent, 1st Baronet, FRS (born James Emerson; 7 April 1804 – 6 March 1869) was a British politician and traveller born in Ireland. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 5 June 1862.
Life
The third son of William ...
,
Galle
Galle ( si, ගාල්ල, translit=Gālla; ta, காலி, translit=Kāli) (formerly Point de Galle) is a major city in Sri Lanka, situated on the southwestern tip, from Colombo. Galle is the provincial capital and largest city of Southern ...
was said to be the ancient city of Tarshish where
King Solomon drew ivory,peacocks and others. Cinnamon was exported from Sri Lanka as early as 1400 BC and as the root of the word itself is
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, Galle may have been the entrepôt for the spice.
''Dambadiva, Jambudvipa''
Although now referring to India, The name had also, earlier been used to name Sri Lanka. As several ancient and
pre-colonial
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
sources like an
19th century English book titled ''
Ceylon and the Cinghalese'' (written by Sir, Henry Charles) first published in 1850. On page
203, it says that a conference in Dambadiva (57 miles from
Colombo
Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...
) had been requested.
Nickname/Special names
* Pearl of the Indian ocean
* Teardrop in the Indian ocean
See also
*
Sri Lankan place name etymology
References
External links
Ancient Names of Sri Lanka
{{Countries and languages lists
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka