Sri Lanka (Sinhala:ශ්රී ලංකා,romanized: Śrī Lankā;Tamil:சிறி லங்கா / இலங்கை,romanized: Ilaṅkai), officially theDemocratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in the northernIndian Ocean which has been known under various names over time.
At the outset of the 6th century BC, Sri Lanka was known asSilam,[1][2] from thePaliSihalam[2] (orSimhalam,[3]Sihalan,[4]Sihala[5]); becameSaylan from the 9th century,[6] which was transcribed asCeilão by thePortuguese in 1505; and later asCeylon in English.Ceylon was used until it was replaced bySri Lanka in 1972; the honorificSri has been added toLanka, a place mentioned in ancient texts and assumed to refer to the country between the 10th[7] and the 12th centuries CE.[3]
Other ancient names used to refer to Sri Lanka includedSerendip inArabic,Persian,Turkic (Serendib/Särändib)(written as:سرندیپ) andEelam inTamil. In the 19th century, it was said that the oldest recorded name of Sri Lanka wasTamraparni.[8] (=Taprobane).
At the outset of the 6th century BC, Sri Lanka was known asSilam,[1][2] from thePaliSihalam[2](orSimhalam,[3]Sihalan,[4]Sihala[5]).Silam was transliterated asSinhale in Sinhala,[9] andIlam in Tamil (fromSilam without the initial sibilant).[4]
In theDīpavaṃsa (the Buddhist oldest historical record of Sri Lanka, 3rd to 4th centuryCE), it is written that "The island of Lanka was formerly called Sihala".[10]Sihala meanslion's abode[4] (fromSiha =lion)
In the 2nd century CE,Ptolemy called the inhabitants of the islandSalai.[11][12][2]Salai derives fromSihalam (pronouncedSilam).[2][1]
In Chinese sources, theBuddhist monkFaxian (3rd and 4th centuryCE) called the island theLion Kingdom (師子國) orSinhala,[13][14] while the 7th century monkYijing also used the termLion country (師子洲).Xuanzang called the countrySengjialuo (僧伽羅) forSinhala inRecords of the Western Regions.[15] Lengjia (楞伽) for Lanka was also used.[16]
Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century CE) named itΣιελεδίβα :Sielediba orSieleDiva[4][2] (Diva,Dwipa meaningIsland).Siele also derives fromSihalam.[2] In the 9th century, the formsSailan andSaylan were used.[6]
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Tamraparni is said to be the oldest recorded name of Sri Lanka, for example as asserted byRobert Caldwell.[8] According to some legends,Tamraparni is the name given byPrince Vijaya when he arrived on the island. The word can be translated as "copper-coloured leaf", from the words Thamiram (copper inSanskrit) and Varni (colour). Another scholar states thatTamara means red andparani means tree, therefore it could mean "tree with red leaves".[17]Tamraparni is also a name ofTirunelveli, the capital of thePandyan kingdom in Tamil Nadu.[18] The name was adopted in Pali asTambaparni.
The name was adopted into Greek asTaprobana, used byMegasthenes in the 4th century BC.[19] The Greek name was adopted in medieval Irish (Lebor Gabála Érenn) asDeprofane (Recension 2) andTibra Faine (Recension 3), off the coast of India, supposedly one of the countries where theMilesians /Gaels, ancestors of today's Irish, had sojourned in their previous migrations.[20][21]
The name remained in use in early modern Europe, alongside the PersianateSerendip,withTraprobana mentioned in the first strophe of thePortuguese nationalepic poemOs Lusíadas byLuís de Camões.
John Milton borrowed this for his epic poemParadise Lost andMiguel de Cervantes mentions a fantasticTrapobana inDon Quixote.[22]
Some sources also identify Taprobane withSumatra.[23]
FromSilam came the names :
Marco Polo, in 1298CE, names itSeilan.[27] In the ChineseMao Kun map (17th century but believed to date from the early 15th century), the name appears asXilan (锡闌), alsoXilan (細蘭) in the 13th century Chinese workZhu Fan Zhi.[28]
During the 13th and 14th centuries, the formsSailan,[29]Sílán,[30]Sillan,[31] andSeyllan,[32] were used
With the Portuguese colonization in the 16th century, the original local namesSilam,Sihala andSailan were adopted asCeilão inPortuguese (from 1505), and later asZeilan orZeylan inDutch, andCeylon in English. After independence in 1948, the nameCeylon was still used until 1972.
Lanka appears later and in parallel, between the 10th[33] and the 12th centuries CE.[3] The nameLanka, aSanskrit word, comes from theHindu text theRamayana, whereLanka is the abode of KingRavana.
TheRamayanaLanka began to be considered as the present-daySri Lanka between the 10th[33] and the 12th centuriesCE.[3] Then from the 16th century, in opposition to colonization, the assertion that theRamayanaLanka was the present-daySri Lanka became part of the Sinhalese Buddhist mythology,[33] and started to be used by locals in opposition to the Portuguese colonial nameCeilão.
The name ofSri Lanka was introduced by theMarxistLanka Sama Samaja Party founded in 1935.
The Sanskrit honorificSri was introduced in the name of theSri Lanka Freedom Party (Sinhala:ශ්රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය,romanized: Sri Lanka Nidahas Pakshaya) founded in 1952.
In 1972, theRepublic of Sri Lanka was officially adopted as the country's name with thenew constitution[34] and changed to "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka" in theconstitution of 1978.
The namesSerendip,Seren-dip,Sarandib orSarandīp (written as:سرندیپ) arePersian andArab[4] or Hindustani[35] names for Sri Lanka suggested to have been derived from the wordsSinhala-dvipa (Sinhala Isle,dvipa ordipa meansIsland), orSuvarna-dvipa meaning "golden-isle".[35] Another proposal suggested Cheran (a Tamil tribe) andtivu (island) as the origin.[36] The English word "serendipity" was coined from Serendip.[37][38][39]
Another traditional Sinhala name for Sri Lanka wasLakdiva, withdiva also meaning "island".[40] A further traditional name isLakbima.[41] In both cases,Lak is derived fromLanka. The same name could have been adopted in Tamil asIlangai; theTamil language commonly adds "i" before initial "l".
The earliest use of the word is found in aTamil-Brahmi inscription as well as in theSangam literature. TheTirupparankunram inscription found nearMadurai in Tamil Nadu and dated on palaeographical grounds to the 1st century BCE, refers to a person as a householder from Eelam (Eela-kudumpikan).[42]
The most favoured explanation derives it from a word for thespurge (palm tree),[43] via the application to a caste oftoddy-drawers, i.e. workers drawing the sap from palm trees for the production ofpalm wine.[44]The name of the palm tree may conversely be derived from the name of the caste of toddy drawers, known asEelavar, cognate with the name ofKerala, from the name of theChera dynasty, viaCheralam,Chera,Sera andKera.[45][46][unreliable source?]
The stemEela is found in Prakrit inscriptions dated to 2nd century BC in Sri Lanka in personal names such asEela-Vrata/Ela-Bharat andEela-Naga.[citation needed] The meaning ofEela in these inscriptions is unknown although one could deduce that they are either fromEela a geographic location or were an ethnic group known asEela.[47][unreliable source?][48] From the 19th century onwards, sources appeared in South India regarding a legendary origin for caste of toddy drawers known asEelavar in the state of Kerala. These legends stated thatEelavar were originally from Eelam.
There have also been proposals of derivingEelam fromSimhala (comes from Elam, Ilam, Tamil, Helmand River, Himalayas).Robert Caldwell (1875), followingHermann Gundert, cited the word as an example of the omission of initial sibilants in the adoption of Indo-Aryan words into Dravidian languages.[49] The University of Madras Tamil Lexicon, compiled between 1924 and 1936, follows this view.[43]Peter Schalk (2004) has argued against this, showing that the application ofEelam in an ethnic sense arises only in the early modern period, and was limited to the caste of "toddy drawers" until the medieval period.[44]
Thomas Burrow, in contrast, argued that the word was likely to have been Dravidian in origin, on the basis that Tamil and Malayalam "hardly ever substitute (Retroflex approximant) 'ɻ' peculiarly Dravidian sound, for Sanskrit -'l'-." He suggests that the name "Eelam" came from the Dravidian word "Eelam" (or Cilam) meaning "toddy", referring to the palm trees in Sri Lanka, and later absorbed into Indo-Aryan languages. This, he says, is also likely to have been the source for the Pali '"Sihala".[50] The Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, which was jointly edited by Thomas Burrow andMurray Emeneau, marks the Indo-Aryan etymology with a question mark.[51]
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The dictionary definition ofnames of sri lanka at Wiktionary
