Sri Lanka Essay, Research Paper

The first people to inhabit Sri

Lanka, called Ceylon until 1972, were tribal people from India called the

Veddahs. Vijaya, a prince from northern India, came, with the other

founders of the Sinhalese culture, to Sri Lanka in the early 400’s B.C.,

and enc ouraged the first major immigration movement there. The center of

this Sinhalese civilization, that lasted from 200 B.C. until A.D. 993, was

Anuradhapura, a city in Northern Sri Lanka that housed the major shrines

and irrigation projects that the Sinhale se developed. In the 100’s B.C.

the Tamils from southern India began invading Sri Lanka, and eventually

gained control of the northern half of the island, pushing the Sinhalese

to the south. From the A.D. 900’s until the 1500’s, Sri Lanka’s history

cent ers mostly on the struggles between the Tamil kings and the Sinhalese

kings.