Jaffna

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)
Sri Lanka Map

Jaffna (जाफ़ना) is the capital city of the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna District located on a peninsula of the same name.

Variants

  • Jafana जाफ़ना (लंका) = Tamraparni (ताम्रपर्णी) (द्वीप) (AS, p.363)
  • Tamraparni ताम्रपर्णी (AS, p.394)
  • Yalpanam
  • Tamil: யாழ்ப்பாணம், Romanized: Yāḻppāṇam,
  • Sinhala: යාපනය, Romanized: Yāpanaya)

Location

Jaffna is approximately six miles (9.7 kms) from Kandarodai which served as an emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical antiquity. Jaffna's suburb Nallur served as the capital of the four-century-long medieval Jaffna Kingdom.

Origin

Jaffna is a corrupted version of Yalpanam. The colloquial form of Yalpanam is Yappanam. The Ya and Ja including pp and ff are easily interchangeable. As soon as it went into foreign language, it lost the Tamil ending m and consequently stood as Jaffna.[1]

History

Early history: Megalithic excavations reveal settlements of an early period in this region. The bronze Anaikoddai seal with Tamil-Brahmi and Indus script indicates a clan-based settlement of the last phase of the Iron Age in the Jaffna region.[2] Iron Age urn burials including other Tamil-Brahmi inscribed potsherds found in Kandarodai, Poonakari and Anaikoddai in the Jaffna region, reflects the burial practices of older times.[3][4] Excavated ceramic sequences in Kandarodai, similar to Arikamedu, revealed South Indian black and red ware, potteries and fine grey ware from 2nd to 5th BCE.[5] Excavations of black and red wares (1000BCE–100CE), grey wares (500BCE–200CE), Sasanian–Islamic wares (200BCE–800CE), Yue green wares (800–900CE), Dusun stone wares (700–1100CE) and Ming Porcelains (1300–1600CE) conducted at the Jaffna Fort hints to maritime trade between the Jaffna Peninsula and South Asia, Arabian Peninsula and the Far East.[6]

Jaffna and surrounding region was part of the chiefdom of Naga Nadu mentioned in the 5th century AD Tamil epic Manimekalai and the Pali chronicle Mahavamsa as inhabited by tribal Naga people, surmised as one of the earliest tribes of Sri Lanka. They had according to scholars fully assimilated to Tamil language and culture by the 9th century AD or earlier.[7]

Medievalhistory: During the medieval times, the Kingdom of Aryacakravarti came into existence in the 13th Century as an ally to the Pandyan Empire in South India.[8] When the Pandyan Empire became weak due to Muslim invasions, successive Aryacakravarti rulers made the Jaffna kingdom independent and a regional power to reckon with in Sri Lanka.[9] Nallur a suburb of Jaffna served as the capital of the kingdom.

Politically, it was an expanding power in the 13th and 14th century with all regional kingdoms paying tribute to it.[10] However, it met with simultaneous confrontations with the Vijayanagar empire that ruled from Vijayanagara, southern India, and a rebounding Kotte Kingdom from the southern Sri Lanka.[11] This led to the kingdom becoming a vassal of the Vijyanagar Empire as well as briefly losing its independence under the Kotte kingdom from 1450 to 1467.[12] The kingdom was re-established with the disintegration of Kotte kingdom and the fragmentation of Viyanagara Empire.[13] It maintained very close commercial and political relationships with the Thanjavur Nayakar kingdom in southern India as well as the Kandyan and segments of the Kotte kingdom. This period saw the building of Hindu temples in the peninsula and a flourishing of literature, both in Tamil and Sanskrit.[14]

In Mahavansha

Vijaya founded Tambapanni: Mahavansa/Chapter 7 tells...Prince Vijaya, son of king Sihabahu, come to Lanka from the country of Lala, together with seven hundred followers.....When he had spent some days at that spot he went to Tambapanni. There Vijaya founded the city of Tambapanni and dwelt there, together with the yakkhini, surrounded by his ministers.

When those who were commanded by Vijaya landed from their ship, they-sat down wearied, resting their hands upon the ground and since their hands were reddened by touching the dust of the red earth that region and also the island were (named) Tambapanni. But the king Sihabähu, since he had slain the lion (was called) Sihala and, by reason of the ties between him and them, all those (followers of Vijaya) were also (called) Sihala.

ताम्रपर्णी

विजयेन्द्र कुमार माथुर[15] ने लेख किया है ...1. ताम्रपर्णी (AS, p.394) == 'सिंहलद्वीप' या श्रीलंका' का प्राचीन नाम है, जिसकी ख्याति दूर-दूर तक फैली हुई थी। 17वीं शती में अंग्रेज़ी भाषा के कवि मिल्टन ने 'पैरेडाइज लॉस्ट' नामक महाकाव्य में ताम्रपर्णी को 'टाप्रोवेन' लिखा है'--From India’s golden chersonese and ulmost Indian isle of Taprobane. dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed-- कुछ विद्वानों के मत में श्रीलंका-भारत के बीच के समुद्र में स्थित द्वीप ही ताम्रपर्णी है। ताम्रपर्णी के 'शिरीषवस्तु' नामक 'यक्षनगर' का उल्लेख 'बलाहाश्व' जातक में है- 'अतीते तंबपष्णि द्वीपे सिरीसवत्थुं नाम यक्खनगरं अहोसि।'

बौद्ध ग्रंथ महावंश 6,47 के अनुसार भारत के लाटदेश का निवासी कुमार विजय जलयान से सिंहल देश पहुँचकर वहाँ ताम्रपर्णी नामक स्थान पर उतरा था। यह वही दिन था, जब कुशीनगर में महात्मा बुद्ध ने निर्वाण प्राप्त किया था। महावंश 7, 39 में राजकुमार विजय द्वारा ताम्रपर्णी नगर के बसाए जाने का उल्लेख है। इसके अनुसार जब विजय और उसके साथी नौका से भूमि पर उतरे, तो थकावट के कारण भूमि पर हाथ टेक कर बैठ गए। ताम्र वर्ण की मिट्टी के स्पर्श से उनके हाथ तांबे के पत्र से हो गए, इसीलिए उस प्रदेश और द्वीप का नाम ताम्रपर्णी (तंब-पण्णी) हुआ।

External links

References

  1. ↑ Katiresu, Subramanier (1 January 2004). A Hand Book to the Jaffna Peninsula and a Souvenir of the Opening of the Railway to the North. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 9788120618725.
  2. ↑ Mativāṇan̲, Irāman̲; Mahalingam, N.; Civilization, International Society for the Investigation of Ancient (1995). Indus script among Dravidian speakers. International Society for the Investigation of Ancient Civilizations.
  3. ↑ K. Indrapala (2005). The evolution of an ethnic identity: the Tamils in Sri Lanka c. 300 BCE to c. 1200 CE. M.V. Publications for the South Asian Studies Centre, Sydney. ISBN 9780646425467.
  4. ↑ International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics. Department of Linguistics, University of Kerala. 2009.
  5. ↑ Allchin, F. R.; Erdosy, George (7 September 1995). The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States. Cambridge University Press. p. 171. ISBN 9780521376952.
  6. ↑ "Post-Conflict Archaeology of the Jaffna Peninsula – Durham University". www.dur.ac.uk.
  7. ↑ Holt, John (13 April 2011). The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Duke University Press. pp. 73–74. ISBN 0822349825.
  8. ↑ de Silva, A History of Sri Lanka, p.91-92
  9. ↑ Peebles, History of Sri Lanka, p.31-32
  10. ↑ Peebles, History of Sri Lanka, p.31-32
  11. ↑ de Silva, A History of Sri Lanka, p.132-133
  12. ↑ Peebles, History of Sri Lanka, p.31-32
  13. ↑ Peebles, History of Sri Lanka, p.34
  14. ↑ Codrington, Humphry William. "Short history of Sri Lanka:Dambadeniya and Gampola Kings (1215–1411)". Lakdiva.org.
  15. ↑ Aitihasik Sthanavali by Vijayendra Kumar Mathur, p.394-395
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