Indian Epigraphy c14.s2.1

c14.s2.1

Among the countries of South-East Asia, Ceylon’s cultural contact with India is the oldest. According to an old Ceylonese tradition, Prince Vijaya, son of the king of Siṃhapura in Rāḍha (in South-West Bengal; or less probably Lāṭa in Gujarat) and a great-grandson of the king of Vaṅga (then South Bengal), colonised Ceylon about the beginning of the 5th century B.C. About the middle of the 3rd century B.C. the Maurya emperor Aśoka of Pāṭaliputra (near modern Patna) is known to have maintained friendly relations with Tāmraparṇī or Ceylon. He is also stated to have sent to that country a Buddhist mission which converted Devānāmpriya Tiṣya, king of the island, to Buddhism together with his subjects. Ceylon’s contact with the Tamil-speaking region of South India, just beyond the Palk Strait, has been very close throughout the ages and, during the major portion of the 11th century A.D., wide areas of the island formed parts of the empire of the Coḷas of Tañjavūr. It is therefore interesting to note that the Ceylonese language belongs to the Aryan (and not the Dravidian) group. Old Ceylonese traditions appear to suggest that the peoples of Eastern and Western India were mainly responsible for the spread of Aryanism in that land.² The Ceylonese royal house often contracted matrimonial alliance with Indian ruling families such as the Pāṇḍyas of the South and the Kaliṅgas of the East.