By Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana
I thank Mr. Somapala Gunadheera for his comments which appeared in The Island newspaper of September 28, under the headline ‘Omatta’. Indeed, I did not discuss the place name ‘Omatta’ to keep matters short, because I had planned to discuss it in the place-names website (http://dh-web.org/place.names) under the entry on Omantha (Omanthai).
What is interesting in place names is that, just as with fossils, names which correspond to many stages of the evolution of a place name maybe found to still occur in different locations. Thus we do have ‘manda’, ‘matta, ‘maetta, ‘motte’ etc., and their Tamilized forms (‘manthai’, -‘mattai’ ‘moddai’) in Sri Lanka’s place names. Similarly, one can find Nagapura, Naka-pura, Nakkur and Nallur if one looks at regions ascribed to the ancient Naga people of this part of the world.
It is clear that Sinhalese have been living in areas, currently claimed as Tamil home land. Sinhalese have lost their living space. Reasons for this need to be investigated and further decline stopped. My view is Buddhism is too passive and kills off the ‘fight’ in Buddhists to survive and win.Giving up desires and end of suffering are questionable aims.
By: Ben Silva on October 7, 2011
at 10:11 am