Jaffna Nagas

The Northern part of the Indian Ocean's Island (today's Sri Lanka) throve during the Naga Kingdom from 6th century BC to the middle of the 3rd century AD.

The Jaffna Nagas

Naga people were of Tibeto-Burman origin, migrated to India in 4000 BC, driven by some political disturbances from Central Asia through the North Eastern frontier of the Himalayan mountain range. The Nagas were a prominent non-Aryan and non-Dravidian race in India and their names are still extant in various parts of India.The Nagas were dependent on the sea for their living and established trade with India, and developed art and culture. They also worshiped serpents, which is in the icon of Lord Siva. Countries in South East Asia which have ancient Indianized Kingdoms have Naga origin. Cambodia claims origins from a Naga princess and a Hindu sage called Kaundinya. Kingdoms of Kheda, Kediri, Funan, Langkasoka, and Champa have Naga origins.

The Naga Kingdom was flourishing in various parts of the North of Island and the Jaffna Peninsula. Naga means East. It is said that Lord Buddha visited Jaffna to resolve a crisis over a jewel between the Naga chieftains and introduced Buddhism to them. Archeological findings in Kantharodai, Nagadeepa, Nagar Kovil and Vallipuram areas in the Jaffna Peninsula are evidence to prove the existence of Buddhism. Long before Buddhism crept into some areas of the Jaffna peninsula the Nagas who lived in Jaffna were worshiping Lord Shiva. The Nagas were good sea traders and Ptolemy, the famous Greek-speaking geographer and astronomer who lived in Roman Egypt between 85 A.D. and 165 A.D. and travelled around the world observed that one of the oldest seaports of the Island was in the Northern part of the Jaffna Peninsula and was used since 6th century B.C.

Yakshapatnam or Yashapatnam may be the origin of Yazhpatnam and later Yazhpanam. It means 'the City of the Yakshas'. Similar names are also found nearby. Eg: Iyakkachi, Nagar Kovil, and Nagapatnam.

Yakshas, a tribal group also were living in isolation with Nagas together in the Jaffna Peninsula. Yakkas mean Yaksha and most probably they are the Negritoid people who lived along the western coast. Both Yakshas and Nagas are mentioned in Mahabharatham and Ramayana and they not only lived in Lanka, but also throughout South Asia. As such Nagas fromNagaland are also linked very much to these Nagas and they are mostly of South East Asian origin.

The ‘Yakkas’, possibly early immigrants to the Island, were numerous and very powerful, and held themselves aloof and confined themselves mostly to the mountain fastnesses of the North- Central region of the Island, whereas the 'Nagas' confined themselves to the seaboard. Ptolemy called the Mahaweli River as "Phasis fluvius", which means the Persian river, indicating that the Yakkas who dwelt there, were connected to the Persia. This place now is called Pasi Kudah and is a tourist resort which may have been an ancient seaport. The river he mentions is most probably the longitudinal lagoon which extends for hundreds of miles parallel to the seashore along the coast.
Kuveni was the queen of Yakkhas and became the consort of Prince Vijaya(B.C. 543-504) who eventually became the first Indo-Aryan king of Sri Lanka with the Kalinga ancestry. Later he married a princess from the Dravidian Kingdom of Pandy in South India.

Though the Nagas ruled the North of the Island, a formal Jaffna Kingdom came into being by the ambitions of two chieftains, one Kalinga Magha from Orissa, India and Chandrabhanu from Malacca in the Malay Straits region of Malaysia.

In 1215 the aggressive Kalinga Maga conquered Sri Lanka with his powerful army from Kalinga. Kalinga was an ancient Indo – Aryan Kingdom of central-eastern India, in the province of Orissa. The kingdom had a formidable maritime empire with trading routes linking Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Bali, Sumatra and Java. Colonists from Kalinga settled in far away places such as Sri Lanka, Burma as well as the Indonesian archipelago. Even today Indians are referred to as "Klings" in Malaysia because of the early Indian invasions from Kalinga into Malaysia.Many Sri Lankan kings, both Sinhalese and Tamil, claimed to have descended from Kalinga dynasties.

The Yakkas and Nagas might have become the outcasts as [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bondsmen bondsmen] and slaves, after the Indo-Aryan immigrants conquered them and became the lords and aristocrats. And finally they might have assimilated within the dominant society. The Nagas' religious practices are still prevailing among some people on the island. They have a great faith on serpents and worship by offering milk and eggs. Still they don't keep Garuda (Falcon)'s pictures at home as the Garudas have eternal enmity towards serpents. In India, the demi-god tribe called Suparnas (in which Garuda belonged) was arch-rivals of the Nagas. The customs and practices of the Nagas are still prevailing among a section of Sinhalese who were assimilated originally from Nagas in various parts of the Island.

References

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