Jaffna under Portuguese Rule

When we joined with the German relief team in a few minutes, they were in a rather relaxed mood planning the day’s mission.

Having finished our breakfast, a delicious Jaffna dish quickly, we all started to move towards the Bishop House of Jaffna.

While I was walking in the back corridor of the church with the German university students, my memories went back to my meeting with then Bishop of Jaffna Dr. Thiyogupillai in my school days several years ago. His caring nature very much impressed me though I did not belong to the Catholic religious sector but had a faith in Jesus.




The Bishop of Jaffna Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundranayagam with German university students and Dietmar Doering, Founder/Director of the Asian-German Sports Exchange Program on a Tsunami Mission to Jaffna.


The Bishop of Jaffna Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundranayagam had a lengthy chat with all of us in the conference hall and praised the students for their kind service to the tsunami victims.


While I was returning in the corridors with the students, I was reminded of the era of Portuguese rule and how Catholism was introduced into Jaffna.
                                                  

The conquest of Jaffna by the Portuguese under Captain General Constantine de Sa under the command of Philip de Oliveira in 1620-21 spelt the demise of the independent Kingdom of Jaffna. A pretext to capture Jaffna presented itself when the King of Jaffna, cruelly murdered about six hundred newly baptized Catholics in the Island of Mannar. Constantine de Braganza led an expedition and captured Mannar in 1560.

The King of Jaffna sued for peace and promised to pay tribute, so that the King could remain independent in Jaffna. But the tributary status came to an end in 1591 and the Portuguese undertook the missionary work of conversion despite the obstruction from the Kings of Jaffna. After the last ruler of Jaffna was captured in 1620, Jaffna became part of the Portugal's Overseas Empire.

The main contribution of the Portuguese rule in Jaffna was the introduction of Roman Catholicism.

The Portuguese wantonly destroyed quite a number of Hindu temples and introduced many other measures against the Hindus. At one time historians say during the Portuguese rule in the 17th century, the Tamil-speaking Jaffna peninsula, a bastion of orthodox Shiva worshipping Hindus was entirely Catholic. Fernao de Queiros, the renowned Portuguese chronicler described Jaffna as being "wholly Christian".

The reasons for the en masse conversion of Jaffna Tamils were the unquestioned military and political power that the Portuguese exercised over the population of Jaffna, due to a variety factors one of which was that the Jaffna masses were non-aggressive, non-militarised and leaderless. Although St Francis Xavier had begun conversion in 1543 itself, it was only after the complete takeover of Jaffna that the conversions took place on a mass scale.

In order to increase the number of converts rapidly, they resorted to "general baptism".

A typical case of general baptism in a village was first the announcement of the arrival of the

Portuguese missionaries made by tom-tom. The villagers in question would be asked to assemble and then a missionary would ask them to reject their "false" gods and accept "one true God". It was not a request; it was almost a command backed by the authority of the Portuguese government. This is because the missionary would invariably be accompanied by the local Portuguese officials and the native chiefs who supported them. Fear of a fine or corporal punishment with cane and stock would ensure their regular attendance at church on Sundays and feast days.

An un-named writer is quoted as saying that the Hindus believed under force that there were different paths to salvation and that there was nothing wrong in accepting Catholicism.


The Portuguese rule ruined Jaffna and burdened the Jaffna peasant as he had to pay heavy taxes, which the Portuguese kept hiking from time to time. The cash from the Jaffna treasury was being used to fund Portuguese settlements elsewhere. Nothing was ploughed back into the local economy. According to Fernao de Queiros, the people of Jaffna had been "reduced to the utmost misery" under Portuguese rule.


In the absence of the possibility of waging war or revolting, the only option for the people was to migrate. They migrated to the Wanni jungles in the South of the peninsula and by crossing the Palk Strait to India.

The people of Jaffna were immensely relieved when the Dutch overthrew the Portuguese in June 1658.

The refugees not only came back to Jaffna, but shed Catholicism and reverted to Hinduism en masse. Some of course, took to the Protestant religion of the Dutch.

The converts who believed there were different paths to salvation, reverted back to Hinduism. Only the people from coastal areas of the Gulf of Mannar and some coastal areas in the Jaffna Peninsula saw Catholicism as a liberating path and stuck to it.

Though the Jaffna Peninsula today is a Hindu-dominated area in population, the Bishop of Jaffna is highly respected by all communities irrespective of their religious differences. And still the Church is playing a powerful, influential and healthy role in the life of the Tamils in the Peninsula.

German Memories in Asia

Dutch Fort of Jaffna

We used to go inside of the Dutch Fort in our junior school days with our class teacher as she was residing inside the Dutch Fort with her husband who was a senior Police Officer attached to the Jaffna Fort.

Thereafter we somehow managed to enter inside the Fort which was heavily guarded at the main entrance for hunting the sweetest juicy yellow berries of a kind of creeper, which were so abundant on the ramparts and around the bastions of the Fort. As we were told there were crocodiles in the moat around the Fort we were very careful while we were plucking the berries on the edge of the ramparts not to fall in the moat.

The Jaffna Fort has been called one of the best and strongest in Asia, designed and built in strict accordance with the rules of military fortification. It had a larger garrison than the Castle of Batavia in Indonesia. The Jaffna Fort was built exclusively for military and administrative purposes.

Church inside Jaffna fort built by the Dutch during their occupation of Ceylon. The church is known as “Kruys Kerk”
(Photo Credit: Gaylawns)

The first permanent European occupier, the Portuguese, originally built Jaffna Fort and then it was captured in 1658 after a three and a half month siege by Dutch and reshaped as the Dutch Fort of Jaffna. The result was a superior Fortress, probably the strongest fortification in Asia.




Bell in front of “Kruys Kerk” inside Jaffna fort
(Photo Credit: Gaylawns)

It was often the Dutch church named the “Kruys Kerk” inside the Fort which was built by the VOC, which was a major attraction to me and I was amazed by the architecture, the carvings and paintings.

It had the shape of an old Greek cross (Kruys) and was a typical Calvinistic building. The Kruys Kerk which was built in 1706 and could take in 600 believers at once was an amazing place where I wanted to spend more and more time. I was told by my class teacher, the Burger and European women, who attended the services in the church, were followed by their slaves carrying a chair and after the services taking them back.
But the LTTE’s attack to capture the Fort, which was occupied by the Sri Lankan Army, destroyed the church and the Fort infrastructure completely.

The Dutch Fort of Jaffna almost disappeared thereafter.

German Memories in Asia

 

Crossing the Elephant Pass

The highway and the surroundings were once heavily mined areas. When we were passing the once strategic military camp, the destroyed tanks were telling signs of the war. The horrors of the war and the heat of the battle could be seen around the Elephant Pass Camp which was finally lost to the hands of LTTE in 1999.















The German Praktikum (Internship) students were looking at everywhere the area of the once fortified Camp area and recalling the terror in their motherland some decades ago.


Elephant Pass has come a long way from being a stretch of shallow waters that separated the Northern Jaffna Peninsula from the rest of the island in pre-colonial days and has now evolved into a military epicenter of the civil war.


The shallow waters through which elephants once carried goods into the Jaffna peninsula, giving it the name Elephant Pass, have been a silent witness to the ebbs and flow of the northern conflict. Elephant Pass, the terrestrial gateway to the Jaffna peninsula, is now under the control of the Tigers. The fall of Elephant Pass has changed the military course of the whole conflict. The Dutch colonialists first built a small fortress in 1776, which was converted in modern times into a rest house for tourists. After Independence a permanent garrison was set up there to check illicit immigration, smuggling and unlawful transport of timber.


As the intensity of the ethnic conflict escalated, the strategic importance of Elephant Pass also increased. The small camp gradually expanded into a sprawling complex. At one time, the Elephant Pass base and the satellite camps covered an area of about 23 km long and 8-10 km wide. While we were proceeding along in close proximity to Elephant Pass the Jaffna Lagoon on both sides of the high way triggered my thoughts back to many of the personal experiences in the Jaffna Lagoon. I had traveled a number of times crossing the lagoon from the mainland to the peninsula and vice versa as travel through Elephant Pass was prohibited in 1995.















The presence of warring climate around the Elephant Pass made passage unsafe what with heavy land mines laid everywhere around the camp area.


Even traveling on the lagoon was unsafe as the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Navy were warring with each other with heavy casualties on both sides. The small boats used to start just before midnight, as the journey through the lagoon would be invisible. The three hours journey crossing the lagoon was enjoyable to me with lot of thrill and suspense until we reached the other end. LTTE monitored the lagoon passage as they controlled both coasts, the Kilali in the peninsula and the Nallur in the mainland.


Crossing the Elephant Pass was more than a crossing and going back into the past to me!

German Memories in Asia

 

 

 

Kingdom of Queen Alli

A huge monumental stone is seen near the remains of the ruined palace of "Kingdom of Queen Alli" in the vicinity of Gulf of Mannar (in between the present coastal villages of Sillavathurai and Arippu)



After nearly a decade when I was traveling with the German Praktikum (internship) students through Elephants Pass, watching the same Lagoon where I crossed at midnights struck how things were changing the world over in an unbelievably short time.


While the German students were videoing the Lagoon my mind recalling the once flourishing Nallur city offs the coast of the Jaffna Lagoon, which was once the capital of the Naga kingdom. The Northern part of Sri Lanka throve during the Naga Kingdom from 6th century BC to the middle of the 3rd century AD. Nagas were of the Tibeto - Burman origin, a Mongoloid race and migrated to India 4000 BC, driven by some political disturbances from Central Asia through the North Eastern frontier of the Himalayan mountain range.


Nagas were a prominent non- Aryan race in India and their names are still preserved in various parts of India. The Indo - Aryan invasion in the Indian subcontinent had driven them South and they invaded further South towards Sri Lanka.


This may coincide with the theory of the Aryan invasion in the North- western sector of India and their expansion to other areas driving away the indigenous people of the Indus valley civilization, the Dravidians further south.


The Nagas were dependent on the sea for their living and established trade with India, and developed art and culture. They also worshipped serpents, which is in the icon of Lord Siva. Kudiramali, a place near Silapaththurai, a western coastal sleepy village off the Gulf of Mannar too was a seaport and a capital of the Naga race.


There are legendry stories about an "Alli" queen who ruled that area and had a great liking for pearls. Her warriors were women and she hated men. During her time pearls were exported to Arab countries and in return Arab horses were imported through this port. That is how that port derived its name Kudiramalai (Horse Mountain).


Due to natural causes the sea engulfed the Kudiramalai area probably by tidal waves caused either by a strong cyclone or earthquake.


Memories impinged on me of moments when I had visited a decade ago Queen Alli's ruined palace. The roaring waves of the Gulf of Mannar were battering the walls of the ruined palace, which to a great extent was submerged by the sea.


Amazingly the ruined palace was still withstanding those mighty sea waves for some thousands years, though it has lost a major portions to the sea. When I stepped into the cave-like inside of it I marveled at the architecture of the upper portion of the wall's entrance. Other than the walls, I hardly found anything inside but the vibrations of the battering waves outside of the wall, which was echoing inside in a mysterious way.

German Memories in Asia

 

 

 

An Exploration Into Ancient Jaffna

Mantri Manai - The surving remains of the minister's quarters of the Jaffna Kingdom that was reused by the Portuguese and Dutch colonials


When we reached Jaffna, the German students were gazing at the surroundings of the Jaffna city. My mind went far back when looking at those war-ravaged buildings to the times where the Naga Kingdom was flourishing in various parts of the Jaffna Peninsula.


But the Jaffna Peninsula since then had a hazardous time for long periods as history tells us.


It is said that Lord Buddha visited Jaffna to resolve a crisis over a jewel between the Naga Chieftains and introduced Buddhism to them. Archeological findings in Kantharodai, Nagadeepa, and Vallipuram areas in the Jaffna Peninsula are evidences to prove the existence of Buddhism. Long before Buddhism crept into some areas of the Jaffna peninsula the Nagas who lived in Jaffna were worshiping Lord Shiva. The Nagas were good sea traders and Ptolemy who lived between 85 A.D. and165 A.D. and travelled around the Island observed that one of the oldest seaports of Sri Lanka was in the Northern part of the Jaffna Peninsula and was used since 6th century B.C.


Though the Nagas ruled the North of the Island, a formal Jaffna Kingdom came into being by the ambitions of two chieftains, one Kalinga Magha from Orissa, India and Chandrabhanu from Malacca in the Malay Straits region of Malaysia.












A collection of stupas and mounds, the remains of ancient buildings in the vicinity of a grove of palm trees. The base of each stupa is made of coral stone molded into four bands and the domes are made of coral rubble coated with plaster fashioned to look like blocks of stone. Archeological investigations done at Kantarodai in 1966-7 found that the site was inhabited from about the 2nd century BCE to about the 13th century CE. Kantarodai was probably a monastery for Tamil monks although some have argued against this. However, Buddhism was widespread in south India in ancient times and there is no reason to doubt that some Tamils living in Sri Lanka were Buddhists too. Certainly the stupas at Kantarodai are different from those found in other parts of Sri Lanka. (Source: Sacred Island)


In 1215 the aggressive Kalinga Maga conquered Sri Lanka with his powerful army from Kalinga. Kalinga was an ancient Indo - Aryan Kingdom of central-eastern India, in the province of Orissa. The kingdom had a formidable maritime empire with trading routes linking Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Bali, Sumatra and Java. Colonists from Kalinga settled in far away places such as Sri Lanka, Burma as well as the Indonesian archipelago. Even today Indians are referred to as Klings in Malaysia because of the early Indian invasions from Kalinga into Malaysia. Many Sri Lankan kings, both Sinhalese and Tamil, claimed to have descended from Kalinga dynasties.

TheYakkas and Nagas might have become the outcasts as bondsmen and slaves, after the Indo-Aryan immigrants conquered them and became the lords and aristocrats. And finally they might have assimilated within the dominant society.


What happened to Nagas and Yakkas in the Island points to the ultimate cause of the rise and fall of the civilizations are according to their racial homogeneity and nothing else - a nation can survive wars, defeats, natural catastrophes, but not racial dissolution.


Jaffna Peninsula under Kalinga Maga's rule was so controversial. His rule was the worst marauding regime that had existed in the Island according to historians.


In 1247 Chandrabhanu invaded the Island with the aid of Indian armies from the Malayan peninsula and inflicted heavy damages on the Kalinga Maga domain. Although Chandrabhanu's invasion was repulsed in 1263 he managed to capture the areas in the Jaffna Peninsula that were then under Kalinga Maga.


The Jaffna Kingdom was dominated by the South Indian Pandyan Empire, a dravidic empire in the 13th Century after they defeated Chadrabanu. The development of the Dravidic tribes in the past twenty centuries gave rise to states like Pallava, Pandy, Chola, Chera and Vijayanagar kingdoms in Southern India. From time to time one or the other of these Dravidian states reached pre-eminence but indubitably the greatest of these was the Chola Empire, which encompassed not only south India but the entire region up to the Ganges in Northern India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives to the south to Malaya and Sumathra in the east.


The political socio-economic and cultural impact and influence of this empire was very great. All these Dravidian kingdoms had a lasting political socio-economic and cultural impact and influence on Sri Lanka and in the region to a very great extent.


After lasting for over 400 years the Dravidian influenced Jaffna Kingdom finally lost its independence to the Portuguese in 1621. The Portuguese captured the King of Jaffna Sangili Kumaran and had taken him to Goa in India along with his sons. After trial, the Portuguese found him guilty of treason and hanged him along with his sons. With the Jaffna Kingdom's demise, the only indigenous independent political entity that was not Sinhalese and Buddhist in character came to an end in the Island.


While we were moving along the Jaffna streets, the repercussions of the fall of Jaffna Kingdom seemed to reverberate with a mysterious silence everywhere.

German Memories in Asia

 

 

 

Crossing the War-Torn Border

German Praktikum(Internship) students were keenly watching the evening phenomenon over the Jaffna Lagoon. Twilight was in its last moments of our Northern Mission for the second day.


We reached the LTTE checking point in another half an hour's time and the night was upon us. We all parked our vehicle for clearance. Though we had a clearance from the LTTE in a few minutes, the LTTE had to determine from the Army checking point which was few meters away, whether they could allow us to enter into the Sri Lankan Army-controlled territory as we were past the deadline of the day to cross the No Mans Zone.


The new development in having a direct rapport between two points of the frontiers of the warring factions was a credit to the Ceasefire Agreement between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, which was facilitated by Norway with the backing of the international community. There were times they used to infiltrate into opposite areas and inflicted heavy casualties and losses.


We had come near the barrier of the LTTE's exit point, but had to wait as we were still not given clearance to enter into the Army's front. Some of the students got down from the vehicle. I too got down from the vehicle and went near the barrier, which was heavily guarded by LTTE male and female cadres.


Some female LTTE cadres in their unique uniform approached us. The German female students smiled at them and developed cordiality with them. The students gifted some chocolates, which they had brought with them to the LTTE's female cadres. I introduced the Singhalese couple to the LTTE's female cadres.


They were trying to speak to the Singhala couple with the few Singhala words they knew.

The female cadres had shown more interest to acquaint themselves with the German female students.

While we were passing our time so leisurely and joyfully, we could sense a fusion of the different cultures and tastes. It was a fascinating moment on our northern tsunami relief mission.


The LTTE officer in charge of the point informed us that we could move towards the Sri Lankan Army-controlled area. The German female students and female LTTE cadres greeted each other once again.

Our vehicles started to move towards the military checkpoint. Two officers came towards us and Dr. Jayalath spoke to them. We were allowed to get in. Passing the barrier we stopped near a military camp.


A captain who was in-charge of the point came near us and was talking to Dr. Jayalath and Dietmar Doring. The students alighted from the vehicle and were taking in the surroundings with much enthusiasm.

For them it was such a strange experience. They were quite young when the Berlin Wall, a vestige of the Second World War was demolished after the reunion of both Germanys at the end of the cold war and the collapse of the USSR. They didn't experience the hostility of the occupied forces and the trauma, which was caused by the erection of the Berlin Wall, but had only heard about it.


After the European Union emerged as the central body to keep Europe free of wars and economically united, it further removed hostilities between the adjoining European countries and to the German students the past nightmare was mere recall.


But when they were exposed to the military points and the warring hostility in a foreign land, they might have harked back to the events in Germany several decades ago, giving them a feel of the experience of a past coming alive. They were startled whenever they closed in on military camps.


We were talking to few of the junior officers about our mission. The hostile environment was still prevailing. The area was so vulnerable to confrontation though there had been a written Ceasefire Agreement with a new development where after the General Election in 2004, the Government, which signed the agreement with LTTE, lost at the polls.


The change of governmental power impacted on military affairs as well, and created chaos in the warring fronts. The Army gave us clearance and we started journeying towards Jaffna.


We were moving fast as there were no vehicles around which would have made our progress slow.

German Memories in Asia

 

 

 

Dutch Jaffna and the Rise and Fall of the VOC - the World's First Multinational Company

During the Dutch period in Asia, all Dutch colonial operations were overseen by the VOC, the "Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie" or the Dutch East India Company.


When the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia, the VOC, the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stocks entered its acitivities in Asia in 1602. The VOC employed not only Dutch nationals, but also enlisted men from Belgium, Friesland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Austria.




A Dutch stuiver struck in Jaffna with the VOC monogram of the Dutch East India Company surmounted by the letter "J " indicating that the coin was struck at the Jaffna mint


Jaffna had been a busy trading town and the most important city in the North of the Island. Jaffna was the last remaining important stronghold of the Portuguese, when it was conquered by the VOC in 1658.


The VOC had eliminated all its competitors in the Island. The Dutch-Portuguese War prompted the VOC to establish its headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia with other colonial outposts in Asia and forcibly maintained a monopoly over nutmeg and mace by violent suppression of the native populations and mass murders.


In Dutch times Jaffna was a centre for the pearl fishery, textile industry and the trade in elephants with India. The VOC traded throughout Asia. Ships were coming from the Netherlands carrying silver from Spanish mines in Peru with copper from Japan, and trading with India and China for textiles. The VOC was also instrumental in introducing European ideas and technology to Asia.


The Company supported Christian missionaries and traded modern technology with China and Japan. In the surroundings the VOC tried to spread the protestant religion, but the difference between the protestant and Catholic religion was not quit clear to the local people.

The VOC was the richest private company the world had ever seen, with over 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, a private army of 10,000 soldiers, and a dividend payment of 40%.

Jaffna was a busy trading center and the most important commodities of Jaffna were cotton, ready made clothes, pearls and elephants in the Dutch era. Indian maharajas bought the elephants to use them in warfare. The animals were caught in a trap and afterwards were taken out one-by-one and tied up and sometimes even baptized! After being tied up for eight days the animals became tame and then the training could begin.

In Jaffna, the VOC had great power. This situation was quite unique in Jaffna for an organization to control the affairs as a de facto ruler. One of the consequences of this VOC rule was the collection of taxes, which were much higher than that of the Portuguese.


In 1676 the population revolted against the VOC, but the VOC broke the rebellion and the tax collection continued.

After the fourth war between the Netherlands, then as United Provinces and Great Britain in1780-1784, the VOC got into financial trouble, and in 1798, the company was dissolved and the legacy of the first multinational company which was an important trading concern for almost two centuries in Asia finally came to an end.

VOC was awarded finally to the Kingdom of the Netherlands by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

German Memories in Asia