Ravana and a lost history

Soon after I finished Ameena Hussein's book about Ibn Battuta's pilgrimage, I opened another that was similar in theme, though written about a period well over a thousand years prior to Ibn Battuta's day. This was Ravana's Lanka: The Landscape of a Lost Kingdom by Sunela Jayewardene.

- PROF. RAJIVA WIJESINHA

The narrative of her journeys makes it clear that she is close to Ameena, for the two families have travelled together on their journeys of exploration, in the footsteps of the characters who inspired them. For Sunela there is no doubt at all that Ravana is not a mythical character, but a real king, who ruled a magnificent kingdom in Lanka long before the received history of this land, based on the Mahavamsa. She produces a whole range of evidence that more than substantiates her claim.

Even more than Ameena, understandably so for it suppressed the very basis of her argument, she takes issue with the Mahavamsa, which she notes has deliberately suppressed all evidence of a flourishing civilization in this land before Vijaya landed, around 2500 years ago. She cites example after example of sophisticated living indicated by archaeological evidence, and shows how this country was a centre of trade for ages before the simplistic narrative of a country based only on agriculture took over and suppressed all else.

The rest of the world had kept our memory alive. I had known about classical references to links with this country, but it was Sunela's extensive research that made clear how deep these went, and how sophisticated was the world with which the west had dealt. I had known about the reputation of Lankan steel - and indeed contributed to affirming this through having persuaded the British Overseas Development Administration to fund Gill Juleff's excavations which established the method of production - but I had not known that this reputation went back two thousand years.