The story begins with the Neolithic culture represented by the megalithic monuments found in the island, and runs through the fusion of this culture with an immigrant Indo-Aryan civilization from North India. This mingling with an Indo -Aryan people and the adoption of their language and ways of life mark the beginning of the Sinhala race.
Dr. Paranavitana who for thirty years worked and lived among the ruins of what was once a complete civilization, describes here with physical evidence the components that went to build the grand structure of a way of life. He takes us a along way from the crude dolmen of Rambukkana to the delicate chiseling of form and animation in the stone figures in Anuradhapura and Polonnaru. He takes us through shrine and temple to the flowering of our painting in Sigiri. He leads us from the vast plains of plenty watered by an irrigation system unparalleled in history to the flight to the hills and the threshold of want.
The Padaviya Inscription which appears above (a translation by Dr. Paranavitana) whilst providing a wistful memory to the youth of the present generation, will we hope encourage them to emulate the achievements of their forbearers.
- From the Book Sinhalayo by Dr. Senerat Paranavitana.
Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is referred to, in ancient Sanskrit literature, as Sinhaladvipa, i.e.:- the Island of the Sinhalas. The people called by this name have inhabited this island from the earliest historical times. The name by which it is now (Ceylon at the time of Dr. Parnavitana) known internationally is a modification of Sinhala. As it has been with most people, the earliest accounts which the Singhalese preserved about their origins abound in myth and legend. theses are of a totemistic nature, and are recounted in chronicles written about the fifth century AC. In spite of the incredible details with which they are embellished, these chronicles are generally accepted by scholars as furnishing evidence that a people speaking an Indo-Aryan dialect migrated to Ceylon from North India about five centuries before the beginning of the Christian era.
