Sinhalese

By Bryan Pfaffenberger and John Beierle

Singhlese, Sinhala

The Sinhalese speak the Sinhala language, live in the southwestern portion of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), and are predominantly of the Theravada Buddhist faith. The name derives from the term for "dwelling of lions", an allusion to the mythical founder, an Indian princess who mated with a lion. Sri Lanka is located between 5 degrees 55 minutes and 9 degrees 51 minutes north latitude and 79 degrees 41 minutes and 81 degrees 5.3 minutes east longitude. Sinhalese traditionally make their homes in the wet zone of the central, south, and west provinces of Sri Lanka, where they are divided into two regional subgroups, the Kandyan Sinhalese of the central highlands, and the Low Country Sinhalese of the maritime provinces. With the rise of government-sponsored internal colonization projects after 1945, considerable internal migration has occurred to the central and northeastern dry zone.

In 1989 the population of Sri Lanka was estimated as 17,541,000. The population density averages approximately 252 per square mile and the population is growing at the rate of 1.8 percent per year. Sinhalese constitute 75 percent of the population of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's principal ethnic minority, the Sri Lanka Tamils, comprise an additional 11 percent, while the Sri Lanka Moors, a Tamil-speaking Muslim group, constitute 6.5 percent. Other minorities include the so-called Indian Tamils, descendants of tea plantation workers imported by the British, who comprise 8 percent, and small communities of Malays and Europeans.

Sinhala is an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan group and was brought to Sri Lanka by North Indian settlers in approximately 500 B.C. Subsequently Sinhala evolved in isolation from its North Indian origins but in close proximity with the Dravidian tongues of southern India, which gave it a distinct character as early as the third century B.C.

Sinhalese dynastic chronicles trace their origins to the exile of Prince Vijaya and his 500 followers from his father's kingdom in North India. According to the chronicles, which portray Sri Lanka as a land destined to preserve Buddhism, Vijaya (the grandson of a Hindu princess and a lion) arrived in Sri lanka at the moment of the Buddha's death. In the third century B.C., the Sinhalese king converted to Buddhism. By the first century B.C. a Sinhalese Buddhist civilization, based on irrigated rice agriculture, arose in the dry zone, with capitals at Anuradhapura and Pollunaruva. By the thirteenth century A.D., however, a major civilizational collapse occurred for reasons which are still debated (malaria, internal conflict, and South Indian invasions are possible causes), and the population shifted to the southwest. At the time of first European contact in 1505 there were two Sinhalese kingdoms, one in the central highlands at Kandy and one along the southwestern coast near Colombo. The Portuguese deposed the southwestern kingdom (but not Kandy) and won converts to Roman Catholicism among fishing castes along the coastal littoral, but were driven out of Ceylon by the Dutch in 1656-1658. A legacy of Portuguese times is the popularity of Portuguese names such as de Silva, Fernando, and de Fonseca among Low Country Sinhalese. The Dutch instituted the Roman-Dutch legal system in the maritime provinces (but not Kandy, which remained independent) and cash-crop plantation agriculture, including coffee, cotton, and tobacco, but few Sinhalese converted to Protestant Christianity. The British took over the island's administration in 1798, brought down the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815, and favored the growth of a European-owned coffee and tea plantation sector in the central highlands. By the early twentieth century a new elite of English-speaking, largely Low Country Sinhalese rose to prominence in trading, petty industry, and coconut and rubber plantation agriculture. In 1932, universal adult suffrage and internal self-rule were granted. Without having to fight for its independence, Ceylon was gained freedom in 1948 as a constitutional democracy on the Westminister model. The country was governed for eight years by an ostensibly panethnic national party of unity, but in 1956 a Sinhalese populist politician won a landslide victory on a platform to make Sinhala the sole official language of government affairs. Tensions rose as Tamils resisted this move, and communal riots occurred in 1958. Sinhalese youths also grew disaffected as the economy stagnated and unemployment mounted in the 1960s. A 1971 insurgency by an ultraleftist Sinhalese youth group called the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (the "People's Liberation Army," or JVP) nearly toppled the government. There were significant Tamil-Sinhalese riots again in 1977, 1981, and 1983; by 1984 a violent Tamil separatist movement had all but driven Sinhalese security forces out of the Tamil north and east; a 1987 accord with India brought 60,000 Indian peacekeeping troops to the Tamil provinces but set off a violent antigovernment campaign by the JVP, which now articulates right-wing Sinhala- chauvinist ideology in addition to its ultraleftist doctrine. More than 17,000 Sri Lankans have died in communal and political violence since 1977.

Only about one of five Sinhalese lives in a city; Sri Lanka is still predominantly rural country, and -- unlike most Third World countries -- its rural-urban balance has not changed significantly in this century. Educational and medical facilities are available in most rural areas and a very low rate of industrialization gives rural villagers little reason to migrate to the cities. In the traditional "one village, one tank" pattern, the village (GAMA) is situated downstream from an artificial reservoir. Ringed round the paddy fields are the traditional; two-to four-room houses, each situated in its own garden and separated from others. Traditional houses are made of mud and plaster, and thatched with woven palm fronds. Wealthier villagers construct stucco houses roofed with ceramic tiles.

Subsistence agriculture, supplemented by marginal employment in service-related occupations and government employment, characterizes the economic life of most rural Sinhalese villagers. Rice holdings are small and marginally economic at best. Ploughing is often done with water buffaloes; tractors are numerous but more often used for light transport. Seed is sown and the young shoots are transplanted by hand; harvesting and threshing are also done manually. "Green revolution" hybrids are widely used but underfertilized. Additional subsistence food crops include fruit (jack-fruit, bread-fruit, and coconut), vegetables and manioc, which has become a significant staple-of-last-recourse for the poor. Domestic animals include cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, chickens, and pigs.

There is significant nonplantation, village-based cash crop activity, especially in the highlands, that produces chilies and other spices, poultry and eggs, goats, honey, herbs employed in Ayurvedic medicine, onions, tomatoes, pulses, cereals, vegetables, GANJA (marijuana), and potatoes. A major supplement to the village economy is direct government income for schoolteachers and village officials. Low Country Sinhalese achieved early prominence in coconut, rubber and low-altitude tea plantation agriculture as well as trade and light mining. Marginal employment is available for many in tea, rubber, and coconut processing.

The classical Sinhalese achieved remarkable feats in irrigation engineering, but the technology was lost in the collapse of the dry zone civilizations and Sinhalese today show little interest in engineering, mathematics or science, preferring liberal arts subjects. "Hands-on" technical work is stigmatized by linkages to low-caste occupations, serving to inhibit children's hobbies, vocational education and technological literacy, while Western imports have all but wiped out traditional arts and crafts. Efforts to industrialize Sri Lanka have met with little success, and the country shows one of the lowest rates of industrial growth of any South Asian country since independence. Severe and growing unemployment and landlessness, particularly among rural youth, has contributed to the JVP youth militancy.

Apart from the prevalence of subsistence agriculture the Sri Lankan rural economy is almost completely cash-based, with barter and reciprocity restricted to kin-group transactions. Village boutiques involve villagers in debt which frequently results in an impecunious farmer becoming little more than a tenant on his own land; village shopowners are thus able to amass large landholdings. Shops in town sell additional consumer items, and weekly village markets provide marginal economic niches for itinerant traders and village cash-crop agriculturalists. Transport is provided by bullock carts, tractors pulling flatbed trailers, old automobiles and light trucks. Internal trade, foreign investment, tourism, and economic growth are all casualties of the Tamil rebellion and the JVP insurgency.

Traditional Sinhalese society is male-dominated and patriarchal, with a strong division of labor by sex and a tendency to stigmatize female roles (women are considered to be ritually impure at times owing to the "pollution" of puberty, childbirth, and menstruation). Men are responsible for the provision of food, clothing, shelter and other necessities, while women prepare food and care for children. Traditionally, a family lost status if it permitted its women to engage in extradomestic economic roles, such as menial agricultural labor or cash-crop marketing. Men and women led separate lives aside from the convergence brought about by their mutual obligations. The entry of women into higher education and the professions is beginning to alter this pattern.

Traditionally the descendants of the village founder owned inheritable (but not marketable) shares (PANKU) of the village paddy lands. The actual holdings were sensitively adjusted to suit water availability and to reduce inequities in water distribution; when holdings were reduced below the economic level, a group of villagers hived off into the wilderness, constructed a new tank, and founded a new village. British reforms that defined all wilderness as Crown land and eliminated multiple claims to existing plots of land seriously eroded this system and, as land came on the market, a new class of rice land investors (called MUDALALIS) acquired substantial holdings but left the farming to clients holding the lands by a form of traditional sharecropping tenancy (ANDE tenure). Population increase has led to severe and still growing landlessness.

The largest kin group is the "micro-caste" (PAVULA), an endogamous and corporate bilateral kin group that represents the convergence of several families' bilateral kindreds. PAVULA members share paddy lands, often dwell together in a hamlet, and cooperate in agriculture, trade and politics. A PAVULA'S members share a unique status within the caste; the group's internal equality is symbolized through life-cycle rites and communal feasts. Descent is fully bilateral in practice, but noncorporate agnatic descent lines linking families with aristocrats of the Buddhist kingdoms may be maintained for status purposes.

The Sinhalese, including Moors, use Dravidian terms, which are associated with symmetrical cross-cousin marriage.

Most marriages are arranged between the two families, with a strong preference for cross-cousin marriage. Marriage implies caste equality, but with a double standard: to preserve the status of a micro-caste (PAVULA), women must marry men of equal or higher status within the caste; men, however, may have sexual relations with women of inferior status without threatening their family's status. Among the Kandyans, who are governed by Kandyan law, polyandry is rare, though villagers say it can be convenient for all concerned. Polygyny is also rare and may amount to no more than the husband's appropriation of sexual services from a low-ranking female servant. The bride normally comes to live with her husband, and this pattern (called DEEGA) establishes a relationship of mutual aid and equality between the husband and his wife's kin. In the less common BINNA residence, in contrast, the groom - who is usually landless - goes to live with his wife's parents (matrilocal residence) and must work for his father-in-law. Dowry is rarely paid unless a woman marries a man of higher status within the caste (hypergamy). The marriage may not involve a ceremony if it occurs between equals and within a PAVULA. Among the Kandyans, property is held individually and is not fragmented by the dissolution of marriage, which is easy and common. Among the Low Country Sinhalese, who are governed by Roman-Dutch law, matrilocal residence is very rare and hypergamy, coupled with dowry, is more common. After marriage the couple's property is merged and in consequence the allied families resist the marriage's dissolution.

The smallest kin group is the commensal unit or nuclear family: a wife, unmarried children and husband. Among traditional Kandyan Sinhalese, there may be more than one commensal unit in a house, but each has its own cooking area. Westernized families adopt the European pattern even for complex households.

In sharp contrast to Indian practices property is divided equally among all children, including women, although wealthy families control a daughter's property and use it as an instrument of marital alliance; among wealthy families, dowry may be paid in lieu of inheritance.

There is a strong preference for male children, who may receive better care; the infant mortality rate for girls is higher. Girls are expected to work harder than boys and may be given significant household chores as young as 5 or 6, and may be taken out of school at an early age even though education is compulsory for all children aged 5 to 14. Children are cared for by their mother, with whom they sleep except in highly Westernized households. Children are expected to show respect to their elders. Curiosity, initiative and hobbies are not encouraged. Schools repeat this pattern by emphasizing rote instruction and avoiding vocational subjects. Especially among the landed and high castes, the family is strongly authoritarian: deference to one's parents and acceptance of their decisions is required, on penalty of excommunication.

Sri Lanka is parliamentary democracy with a president as the head of the state. There is a strong two-party system in which politics are dominated by the centrist United National Party (UNP, in power since 1977) and the center-to-left Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Both are dominated by Sinhalese politicians and appeal to Sinhalese sentiment.

The Sinhalese caste system is milder than its Indian counterpart; it lacks Brahmans and the stratifying ideology of Hinduism. Most Sinhalese villages lack caste organizations (PANCHAYATS) which, in India, punish transgressions of caste; enforcement of caste endogamy, for instance, is left up to families. Because property is inherited bilaterally, however, families have very strong incentives to enforce endogamy (this is one reason for their authoritarian nature). The Sinhalese ideology of caste is derived from precolonial feudalism, in which castes of almost all statuses were granted lands, contingent on their performing services to the king and local aristocrats. The highest caste, the agricultural Goyigama, comprise about half the population, and count among their ancestors the aristocrats of the precolonial kingdoms. Among the Kandyans, additional castes include service castes, such as the Hena (washermen), Berava (drummers), Navandanna (metal workers), and the "lowest castes," such as the Rodiya, who were formerly itinerant beggars. Among the Low Country Sinhalese, three highly entrepreneurial maritime castes (Karava, Salagama and Durava) have risen to economic and political prominence in this area, which has long been under European influence. Most Sinhalese continue to see caste as a positive principle of social affiliation but deny that castes should be ranked or given special privileges. A major consequence of the colonial period was the development of an achievement-oriented national elite based on education and especially knowledge of English. Persons of low caste have won membership in this elite. However, local elites continue to be dominated by high castes or locally powerful castes.

The Sri Lankan state, an artifact of colonial rule, is excessively centralized and politicized; the country's provinces are governed by agents appointed by the president, and virtually all services -- roads, railways, education, health services, tax collection, government-owned corporations, land registry and allocation -- are administered by centrally controlled ministries. Efforts to devolve power and resources to the provinces, including the Tamil Northern and Eastern Provinces, have been opposed by Sinhalese chauvinists who see devolution as an erosion of Sinhala sovereignty. Members of parliament select the candidates for government positions, including even the lowliest menial jobs, on the basis of political loyalty. Politicization has severely eroded the autonomy of the civil service and judiciary. The JVP insurgency and its popular support can be seen in part as a broad-based rejection of an unresponsive and corrupt political system, but the JVP offers few solutions.

Within the village gossip and ridicule are strong forces for social conformity. The family regulates behavior through the threat of excommunication (deprivation of lands and family support in seeking employment). With growing landlessness and unemployment, however, many families are increasingly unable to deliver on their material promises and the threat of excommunication has become an empty threat. The JVP insurgency is in part a rejection of parental authority.

Traditionally, violence occurred within families, often as the result of long-standing grudges and obsession with one's "enemies," real or imagined. In the absence of sustained economic growth, aspirations for social mobility cannot be fulfilled, and as competition and anomie grows more intense, ethnic and political violence occurs as various groups compete for state resources. A late nineteenth-century riot occurred between Buddhists and Christians; later clashes pitted Sinhalese against Muslims (1915). After the "Sinhala-Only" language act of 1956, communal riots involving Tamils and Sinhalese occurred in 1958, 1977, 1981, and 1983. There was an aborted military coup in 1963, and violence often occurred during and after elections. Political violence has now become instutionalized in the form of youth insurgencies and government "death squads."

Sri Lanka is remarkable in that almost all major world religions are practiced there (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity), but Buddhism has received special state protection under Sri Lankan constitutions since 1973. Nearly wiped out by Christian conversions and neglect in the late nineteenth century, Buddhism was revived by reformers who borrowed techniques of proselytization and political activity from Christian missionaries -- and in so doing altered Buddhism by expanding the role of the laity and emphasizing a rigid Victorian morality.

More than 90 percent of Sinhalese are Theravada Buddhists, but there are substantial (and largely non-Goyigama) Roman Catholic communities in the maritime provinces. Often thought by foreign observers to contradict Buddhist teachings, the worship of Hindu gods in their temples (DEVALE) meets religious needs BHIKKUS (Buddhist monks) cannot address, and the pantheon's structure symbolically expresses the pattern of traditional political authority. At the lower end of the pantheon are demons and spirits which cause illness and must be exorcised.

In Theravada Buddhism, a true Buddhist -- a monk, or BHIKKU -- is one who has renounced all worldly attachments and follows in the Buddha's footsteps, depending on alms for subsistence. But few Sinhalese become BHIKKUS, who number approximately 20,000. Buddhist monastic organizations are known collectively as the SANGHA, which is fragmented into three sects (NIKAYAS); most BHIKKUS live in the sect's temple/residence complexes ( VIHARAS). The largest and wealthiest sect, the Siyam Nikaya, is rooted in the precolonial Kandyan political order and is still limited, in practice, to Goyigama aspirants. The smaller Amapura Nikaya emerged from the nineteenth century social mobility of the Karava, Salagama, and Durava castes of the maritime provinces. The smallest sect, the Ramanya Nikaya, is a reform community. Traditionally, the SANGHA was interdependent with Sinhalese kingly authority, which both depended on and supported the monastic orders, which grew wealthy from huge land grants. The veneration of the famed Tooth Relic (a purported tooth of the Buddha) at Kandy was vital to the legitimacy of the Kandyan king. BHIKKUS continue their tradition of political action today and are influential in right-wing chauvinist organizations. At village temples of the gods (BANDARAS and DEVAS), non-BHIKKU priests called KAPURALAS meet the needs of villagers in this life.

Holidays include the Buddhist New Year (April), Wesak (May), the anniversaries of the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha, the annual procession (PERAHERA) of the Tooth Relic at Kandy (August), and the Kataragama pilgrimage (August).

Classical Sinhalese civilization excelled in Buddhist architecture, temple and cave frescos, and large-scale sculpture. In colonial times craftsmen, now few in number, produced fine ivory carvings, metalwork, and jewelry. A mid-twentieth century school of Sinhalese painting called "The Forty-three Group" sparked an impressive renaissance of Sinhalese art, expressed in a traditional idiom in the temple paintings of George Keyt. A twentieth century tradition of Sinhalese fiction and poetry has attracted international scholarly attention. A government-assisted Sinhala film industry produces many popular films, and a few serious ones have won international awards.

The Indian-derived traditional sciences of Ayurveda (herbal medicine) and astrology, taught and elaborated at Buddhist schools (PIRAVENA) and practiced by village specialists, provide a comprehensive traditional explanation of health and illness.

The possibility of enlightenment and freedom from rebirth is restricted to those withdrawn from the world; a layperson hopes for a more advantageous rebirth based on a positive balance of bad against good acts (KARMA), and performs meritorious acts (such as supporting the SANGHA) towards this end. In popular belief a person who dies without fulfilling cherished dreams may become aspirit and vex the living. The dead are cremated, unless Christians.

There are ten documents in the Sinhalese file, all in English, and focused mainly on the Kandyan Sinhalese. Many of these works are heavily oriented to kinship and its integration into other cultural aspects of the society. Yalman's work, based on seven community studies, is probably the best general source on Kandyan kinship and its relation to other aspects of the culture (see Yalman 1971, eHRAF document no. 4). While most of the kinship documents tend to be concerned with the theoretical considerations of British kinship and social structure studies, they are well supported with case histories and community studies material which provide more that just kinship information. A number of these works, for example, provide additional ethnographic data on social structure, architecture, material culture, religion, politics, culture history, and the ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese population and the minority Tamils. For more detailed information on the content of any of the individual works in this file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

This Culture summary is from the article, "Sinhalese," by Bryan Pfaffenberger in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol 3. 1992. Paul Hockings, ed. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co. The synopsis and indexing notes were prepared by John Beierle, August 1996.

• AN KELIYA rituals -- category 796

• ANDE -- traditional sharecropping arrangement -- category 427

• ATTAM -- cooperative work groups -- category 476

• BETHMA -- the joint working of a portion of a field with the sharing of the resulting profits -- category 476

• BHIKKU -- monk -- category 792

• Buddhist Committee of Inquiry -- category 795

• Ceylon National Congress (CNC) -- category 646

• compound groups -- made up of households or GEDARA -- category 621

• DAYAKAYA SAMITIYA -- lay benefactor's societies -- category 794

• DHAMMA -- religious doctrine -- category 779

• DHARMAPALA -- a Buddhist layman -- category 794

• Divisional Revenue Officer (DR) -- category 634

• GAMARALA leader -- land owner; hereditary chief cultivator -- categories 554, 423

• GE -- nuclear family unit -- category 594

• GEDARA -- households -- category 592

• JANATHA VIMUKTHI PERAMUNA (JVP) -- an insurrectionist movement of Sinhalese youth against the majority government -- categories 669, 668, 665

• KAARANA -- theories of causation; "technologies" which attempt to manipulate supernatural forces for immediate ends -- category 789

• KAPURALA -- priest of the Devale shrine -- category 793

• KUDI -- category 613

• MASSINA -- brothers-in-law (may also include cross-cousins) -- category 607

• NIKANG -- cooperative work groups -- category 476

• PANGU -- category 423

• PAVULA -- category 602

• RAJAKARIYA -- corvee work used to maintain the tank -- category 653

• RATEMAHATMAYA -- category 634

• SANGHA -- order of monks -- category 792

• TARAWAD -- category 613

• Tom-Tom beater's welfare society -- category 747

• TULANA -- headman -- category 632

• VARIGA -- categories of human beings of all kinds -- castes, linguistic groups, religious groups, racial groups, etc. -- categories 571, 564, 829 (for social concepts of)

• VEL VIDANE -- category 624

• VIDYALANKARA group -- radical, left-oriented Buddhist monks -- categories 792, 668

• village tribunal -- category 692

• WANNI NAYAKA -- category 635

Gombrich, Richard F. (1971). Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Gunawardana, R. A. L. H. (1979). "The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography." Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities 5:1-36.

Roberts, Michael (1982). Caste Conflict and Elite Formation: The Rise of a Karava Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500-1931. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yalman, Nur (1967). Under the Bo Tree: Studies in Caste, Kinship, and Marriage in the Interior of Ceylon. Berkeley: University of California Press.