The Hindu : National : Indo-Sri Lanka archaeological programme mooted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 18, 2004

National

National

Indo-Sri Lanka archaeological programme mooted

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, MAY 17. India and Sri Lanka should have a joint archaeological programme as the prehistory and the rise of civilisation in the island-nation is of direct relevance to India, specifically southern India, Siran Upendra Deraniyagala, consultant to the Sri Lankan Government on Archaeology, said here today.

Detailing how there were many commonalities between Sri Lanka and South India, Dr. Deraniyagala, said that evidence found in Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka, did not conform to the traditional notion that urbanisation, which started in northern India, moved subsequently towards the South, as the material found pointed to a much earlier period. There could have been a parallel development in southern India when urbanisation took place in the North.

He was delivering the second Vesak commemoration lecture organised by the Sri Lanka Deputy High Commission in Southern India and India-ASEAN-Sri Lanka Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Emphasising that India and Sri Lanka were part of one mass and had to be treated as a single entity, he called upon Indian counterparts to carry out more intensive survey and investigation in central and southern parts of their country to get new insights into common features between the two nations.

The origins of plant and perhaps animal domestication had been found in the highlands of the Nilgiris and Horton Plains from over 10,000 years ago. The initial findings were in urgent need of both intensive and extensive corroboration. They placed Sri Lanka and southern India on the global map as one of the hearths of this revolution in subsistence strategy that served to radically subjugate the environment to increase its human carrying capacity.

Referring to the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis, Dr. Deraniyagala, former Director-General of Archaeology of Sri Lanka, said that archaeology could provide a solution to the problem as the genetic make-up of the two races, Sinhalese and Tamils, could be ascertained through a scientific investigation. He said Buddhism was one of the high points of Indian culture and philosophy.

Nandita Krishna, Director of the C.P. Ramasamy Aiyar Foundation, said as the Sri Lankan and southern Indian societies had so much in common this had to be built upon to have a better understanding of each other's culture.

Sumith Nakandala, Deputy High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in Southern India, said his country believed that the concepts of cultural and political pluralism would provide the key to solving the present problem in Sri Lanka.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National