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ශ්රී ලංකාවේ ප්රධාන ඡන කොට්ටාශය සිංහල ජාතිය වන අතර ඔවුන්ගේ මවු බස සිංහල භාෂාව වෙයි. ශ්රී ලංකාවේ සිංහලයින් මිලියන 15ක් පමන වෙසෙන අතර, 320,000 පමන වෙනත් රටවල වෙසෙයි. (ප්රධාන වශයෙන් තායිලන්තය මලයාසියාව සිංගප්පූරුව වැනි ගිණිකොණදිග ආසියානු රටවල් වල සහ බටහිර රටවල් වල) [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sin
ඉතිහාසය
සංස්කෘත භාෂාවින් ලියැවුනු ඉන්දියානු මිත්යා කථාවක් වන රාමායනය පෞරාණික ලංකා දූපතෙහි (නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාව යැයි විශ්වාස කරයි) දෙවියන් අතර වුනු සටනක් ගැන කතා කරයි. සිංහල ජාතිය සහ සිංහල භාෂාව ක්රි.පූ. 500දී පමන විඡයාගමනයෙන් ඇරඹුනු බවට විශ්වාස කරයි.
සිංහලයන් පැවත එන්නේ ක්රි.පූ. 543ත් ක්රි.පූ. 483ත් අතරදී බෙන්ගාලයෙන් පිටුවහල් කරන ලද විජය කුමරු සහ ඔහුගේ සිය ගනනක පිරිවරගෙන් බවට ජන වහරේ සඳහන් වෙයි. ක්රි.පූ. 4වන ශතවර්යේදී පාලියෙන් ලියැවුනු මහාවංශය සහ ක්රි.ව. 13වන ශතවර්යේදී ධම්මකිත්ථි තෙරනුවන් ග්රන්තාරූඩ කල චූලවංශය අනුරාධපුර සහ පොලොන්නරු රාජධානි වල ඉතිහාසයට ලිඛිත සාක්ෂි දරයි. සිංහල යන නාමය ඉන්දු-ආර්ය සිංහල වදනින් පැවත එන අතර එහි අර්ථය සිංහ ජනයා වෙයි. අශෝක අධිරාජයා ඔහුගේ පුත් මිහිඳු තෙරනුවන් හරහා ක්රි.පූ. 4වන ශතවර්යේදී ශ්රී ලංකාවට බුදු දහම හඳුන්වාදුන්නේය.
ශ්රී ලංකාවේ යක්ෂ සහ නාග ගෝත්රිකයෝ වාසය කල බවට ජන වහරේ ඇති අතර විජයාගමනයට පසුව ඔවුන් ඉන්දු-ආර්ය සංක්රමණිකයීන් සමග මීශ්ර වූ බවට සාක්ෂි ඇත. උඩරට සිංහල ජනයා සහ වැදි ජනයා අතර සුළු වෙනස්කම් ඇති නමුත් වසර 2500ක් තුලදී වුනු මිශ්ර වීම් නිසා සිංහල ජනයා අතර වෙනස්කම් ඇත්තේ අල්ප මාත්ර තරමින්ය.
Genetic and anthropological assessments
Contrary to popular opinion, in part instilled by British colonial policy of 'divide and rule', the Sinhalese are not a distinct group that is entirely or even mainly of 'Indo-Aryan' origin, which is itself a linguistic categorization and not a palpable 'racial' group. In fact, most Sinhalese, like most Indian populations show a high degree of genetic similarity that stems from a population that formed on the island roughly 12,000 years ago and has been little changed through invasions by Indo-Aryans and other groups. A 2003 Stanford study analyzing the origins of various South Asian populations (including 40 Sinhalese and over 90 Tamils from Sri Lanka) found that most of the population of the island and India in general:
- Taken together, these results show that Indian tribal and caste populations derive largely from the same genetic heritage of Pleistocene southern and western Asians and have received limited gene flow from external regions since the Holocene. *
These findings are corroborated by numerous other studies including a 2004 Biomedical Central Study:
- Gene flow from West Eurasia-Broadly, the average proportion of mtDNAs from West Eurasia among Indian caste populations is 17% (Table 2). In the western States of India and in Pakistan their share is greater, reaching over 30% in Kashmir and Gujarat, nearly 40% in Indian Punjab, and peaking, expectedly, at approximately 50% in Pakistan (Table 11, see Additional file 6, Figure 11, panel A). These frequencies demonstrate a general decline (SAA p < 0.05 Figure 4) towards the south (23%, 11% and 15% in Maharashtra, Kerala and Sri Lanka, respectively) and even more so towards the east of India (13% in Uttar Pradesh and around 7% in West Bengal and Bangladesh). The low (<3%) frequency of the western Eurasian mtDNAs in Rajasthan may be in part a statistical artifact due to the limited sample size of 35 Rajputs. *
Overall, the evidence supports the strong possibility that the Sinhalese are largely indigenous to Sri Lanka and adopted the Indo-Aryan language from invaders who in turn showed limited ancestry from some original Indo-Aryan invaders stemming from some Eurasian homeland. Ultimately, the genetic evidence also shows substantial genetic drift that corresponds to geography and in the case of Sri Lanka supports the notion that most Sinhalese stem from very early migrants, rather than later invaders:
- Modern Pakistani, Indian, and Sinhalese donors, examined for combinations of mini- and microsatellite loci, along with a number of Y chromosome and mtDNA markers (24), show varying degrees of diversity, which is expected from their geographic position and ability to receive waves of migrants pulsing from Africa and West Asia at different times. DYS287 or Y chromosome Alu insertion polymorphism also clearly demonstrate the gradual decline in insert-positive Y chromosomes from Africa to East Asia, reaching a transition point from polymorphic levels (1 to 5%) to private polymorphism in Pakistan. *
Thus, not surprisingly other studies done from different perspectives and goals substantiate these findings. In a 2003 American Journal of Human Genetics study entitled The Genetic Heritage of the Earliest Settlers Persists Both in Indian Tribal and Caste Populations, the 'West Asian', presumably Indo-Aryan and other, genetic indicators show that,
- Their frequency is the highest in Punjab, ∼20%, and diminishes threefold, to an average of 7%, in the rest of the caste groups in India... *
These findings all include sample groups from Sinhalese populations in Sri Lanka who were thus compared to other South Asian and other Eurasian groups. From an anthropological perspective, the modern Sinhalese represent a fusion of a wide variety that nonetheless is overwhelmingly indigenous to the island of Sri Lanka and the genetic variations (based on Y-chromosomes and MtDNA only) between the Sinhalese and their Tamil and Veddah neighbors appears to be largely marginal and may be restricted to a small degree of sporadic differences rather than anything universal although some genetic drift has taken place that corresponds to language barriers.
Geographic diaspora
The vast majority of the Sinhalese live in Sri Lanka (mostly in the south and west of the island), but there are significant expatriate communities in Southeast Asia, Europe (notably the UK) and in North America (in particular the United States).
Given its position at the junction of major trade routes spanning the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka inevitably has other ethnic groups in addition to the Sinhalese and the Tamils, such as Sri Lanka's small Arab, Chinese and Burgher (of mixed Dutch and Sri Lankan descent) communities.
This ongoing mingling of ethnic groups can be most obviously noticed in the Sinhalese language of (Sinhala) itself, which has a vocabulary that borrows heavily from foreign languages, particularly Portuguese as well as English.
Religion
Most of the Sinhalese are Buddhists (85-93%), and are considered the only ethnic group in South Asia who overwhelmingly adhere to the Theravada sect of Buddhism, though it should be noted that many Sinhalese Buddhists also venerate Hindu deities as well as indigenous gods. * The remainder mostly belong to the Roman Catholic church, but there are Muslim and Hindu communities as well.
The modern Sinhalese
The Sinhalese tend to identify themselves through their Sinhala language and Buddhist faith which sets them apart from the main ethnic minority of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Tamils. In addition, economically, the Sinhalese also display a dominance over the island nation which has led to some discontent from other groups. Sinhalese society is highly educated in comparison to many developing countries with roughly 95% of the population being literate. In addition, due to a policy of universal healthcare, life expectancy is quite high as well reaching an apogee of 72 years. Female emancipation has led to many changes including greater parity between the sexes and prominent female polticians including former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga. The Sinhalese also have a stable birth rate and a population that has been growing at a much slower pace in comparison to India and other Asian countries.
Contemporary problems
The past thirty or so years of Sinhalese history has been marred by ongoing ethnic strife with Sri Lankan Tamils. (see Ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka).
References
- De Silva, K.M. History of Sri Lanka (Univ. of Calif. Press, 1981)
- Gunasekera, Tamara. Hierarchy and Egalitarianism: Caste, Class, and Power in Sinhalese Peasant Society (Athlone 1994).
- Roberts, Michael. ''Sri Lanka: Collective Identities Revisited (Colombo-Marga Institute, 1997).
- Wickremeratne, Ananda. Buddhism and Ethnicity in Sri Lanka: A Historical Analysis (New Dehli-Vikas Publishing House, 1995).
Online references
- - Sri Lanka
- The Genetic Heritage of the Earliest Settlers Persists Both in Indian Tribal and Caste Populations, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 72:313–332, 2003.
- Most of the extant mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans, Biomedical Central, BMC Genetics 2004, 5:26
- Department of Census and Statistics-Sri Lanka
- Ethnologue-Sinhala, a language of Sri Lanka
- CIA Factbook-Sri Lanka
- Genetic Clues to Dispersal in Human Populations: Retracing the Past from the Present (2 MARCH 2001 VOL 291 SCIENCE). *
"සිංහල ජාතිය"