Prehistoric, Mythological And Legendary Links Sri Lanka - India

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The Book is about the uninterrupted interaction and continuous flow of humans, ideas and influences between the two neighbors. ensured by geographical proximity; the more recent chapters are well-known by virtue of being well documented in the annals of history; the author has therefore not touched them. He has focused on the prehistoric and distant episodes which find reflection in great Indian epic, and most revered Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka namely the epic Ramayana and chronicles Mahavansa.

Picking up his threads from epics, chronicles, legends and popular beliefs the author has weaved an enchanting sequence to demonstrate the spiritual unity between the people of two countries as it existed in ancient times. There is a graphic narration of Sri Lanka, as LANKA of 1000 B.C. ruled by Ravan, the powerful king of Demons who was a staunch devotee of the Hindu God Shiva and of his destined confrontation with the Aryan Prince Ram, from the northern plains of India, who was an incarnation of another Hindu God Vishnu.

The author, deriving the source from Mahavansa, traces the origins of majority Sinhala race of Sri Lanka to the arrival in Sri Lanka of the Indo- Aryans, led by Prince Vijay from the region across the Island which now constitutes Orissa and West Bengal in India. There is an interesting episode based on legends which establishes a matrimonial alliance as early as 6th Century BC between an Indo-Aryan Prince and an indigenous tribal princes. The surviving Vedda Tribes of contemporary Sri Lanka are considered by some as descendants of the children born out of this legendary wedlock.

In the closing chapters, there are vivid descriptions of the Buddhist links between. India, the birthplace of Buddhism, and Sri Lanka where over seventy percent of contemporary population follows Buddhism as religion, philosophy or way of life.

The narrations in this coffee Table book are supported by colourful visuals of peoples, places and events; these visuals include photos, painstakingly clicked by the author as an amateur photographer.

The author conceived the idea of producing this coffee-table format book while he was posted in Sri Lanka as Assistant High Commissioner for India in Kandy from 2000 to 2004. He subscribes to that school of thought amongst the geologists, who believe that, at some distant point of time, India and Sri Lanka were part of the same land mass and only as a result of the subsequent continental drift the two were separated but yet by only a narrow strip of water called Palk Strait.

Achal Malhotra is a serving officer of the Indian Foreign Service. He had the privilege of being born in independent India, just few years later than 15th August 1947, the glorious day in the history of India. He thus grew up more or less as the nation grew, listening in the meanwhile to numerous tales of trauma which his grandparents and grand uncles and aunts went through due to the partition of India, witnessing the downwards and upwards swings in the political, socio economic economic fortunes of the country. Though born and brought up in the cosmopolitan city of New Delhi, he had several opportunities to taste the flairs of rural life thanks to his maternal grandparents who lived in a village (now a town) on the borders of India-Pakistan in Rajasthan. He did his schooling from Ramjas in science stream, realising in the process that Physics, Chemistry and maths were not his cups of tea. He therefore switched over to softer options and completed his Masters in Russian Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and topped it up several years later with a post Graduate Diploma in Tourism Administration, justifying it on the grounds that life is a continuous learning experience and it is never too late In pursuance of his job thus far the author has had several opportunities to live in and travel to various parts of the world. On many occasions he had the urge to pen down his accumulated experiences but sheer lethargy prevailed over his ambitions. It was finally during his tenure as Assistant High Commissioner for India in Kandy, Sri Lanka that he made up his mind to share with others in a reader friendly format what he had discovered for himself: a sequence of uninterrupted flow of humans, ideas and influences between the two neighbouring countries as reflected in epics, legends, chronicles and popular beliefs. Hence "Pre-Historic, Mythological and Legendary links: India and Sri Lanka".

I am inclined to believe those who believe that at some point of time in the history of universe, India and Sri Lanka were part of the same land mass but the continental drift subsequently resulted in the creation of two separate geographical identities: the Indian subcontinent and the Island of Sri Lanka; even then the contemporary India and Sri Lanka are separated only by a narrow strip of sea described as Palk Strait.

The geographical proximity between India and Sri Lanka has played an important factor in facilitating an unbroken interaction between the inhabitants of these two countries since time immemorial. While more recent events are welldocumented in the annals of recorded history, the distant and prehistoric interaction is reflected in popular legends and mythology as well as Indian epics, e.g., Ramayana and Buddhist religious chronicles Mahavansa.

Interestingly, as recently as in 2002, the US space agency NASA was reported to have picked up digital satellite images of what has been described as an ancient manmade bridge, now buried under the sea linking the southern part of India with the northern tip of Sri Lanka, thus lending credence to the mythological bridge built by the Aryan Prince Rama and his allies so as to cross over to Lanka to wage war against the King Ravana in or perhaps earlier than 1000 B.C.

I may confess at the outset that the Coffee Table Book is not a result of any scholarly effort. It is more in the nature of rearranging some of the well-known and widely accepted beliefs and facts in a meaningful sequence and illustrating them through artists impressions which I have gathered from various sources (dually and appropriately acknowledged) a as well as photographs which I have clicked myself. I have, however done so with a specific objective in mind.

And the objective is to present the visual impressions (with brief narrations) of some of the fundamental episodes of the earliest periods of history and pre-history of interaction between the then inhabitants of India and Sri Lanka, and to underline in the process the cultural and spiritual unity between these two countries, whose people are justifiably proud of civilizations between 2500 to 5000 years old and can be arguably described as Two Bodies: One Soul.

I would like to avail of this opportunity to place on record that my wife Anita was the constant source of inspiration throughout, and that the critical reading and approval of the text by my son Sahil, who represents the young generation, became the source of encouragement during my maiden venture.

I must thank Dharma and Shaila and Shaila and numerous others in Sri Lanka for providing useful tips and acting as my friends, philosophers and guides while I was in the compiling information or conducting photo-sessions.