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44-396: [REDACTED] Sri Lanka portal The Kingdom of Kotte ( Sinhala : කෝට්ටේ රාජධානිය , romanized:  Kottay Rajadhaniya , Tamil : கோட்டை அரசு ), named after its capital, Kotte , was a Sinhalese kingdom that flourished in Sri Lanka during the 15th century. Founded by Parakramabahu VI with the help of the Ming , the Kingdom managed to conquer the Jaffna kingdom and

88-783: A supposed former abundance of lions on the island. According to the chronicle Mahāvaṃsa , written in Pali, Prince Vijaya of the Vanga Kingdom and his entourage merged in Sri Lanka with later settlers from the Pandya kingdom . In the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India, including additional migration from the Vanga Kingdom (Bengal), as well as Kalinga and Magadha . This influx led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrits. The development of Sinhala

132-653: A Dravidian origin for this word. ), dola for pig in Vedda and offering in Sinhala. Other common words are rera for wild duck, and gala for stones (in toponyms used throughout the island, although others have also suggested a Dravidian origin). There are also high frequency words denoting body parts in Sinhala, such as olluva for head, kakula for leg, bella for neck and kalava for thighs, that are derived from pre-Sinhalese languages of Sri Lanka. The oldest Sinhala grammar, Sidatsan̆garavā , written in

176-722: A period of prior bilingualism: "The earliest type of contact in Sri Lanka, not considering the aboriginal Vedda languages, was that which occurred between South Dravidian and Sinhala. It seems plausible to assume prolonged contact between these two populations as well as a high degree of bilingualism. This explains why Sinhala looks deeply South Dravidian for an Indo-Aryan language. There is corroboration in genetic findings." In addition to many Tamil loanwords , several phonetic and grammatical features also present in neighbouring Dravidian languages set modern spoken Sinhala apart from its Northern Indo-Aryan relatives. These features are evidence of close interactions with Dravidian speakers. Some of

220-636: A roundabout route instead of a direct route. However, during this meeting, the Portuguese managed to secure a trade agreement with the Kotte king. Kotte Kingdom's downfall began with an event in 1521 that became known as the " Wijayaba Kollaya ". The Kotte King Vijayabahu VII's three sons mutinied and killed their father dividing the kingdom among themselves. This gave rise to three minor kingdoms, Kotte, Sitawaka and Principality of Raigama. The divided Kingdom of Sitawaka became more powerful with local popular support and

264-473: Is a conspicuous example of the linguistic phenomenon known as diglossia . Sinhala ( Siṁhala ) is a Sanskrit term; the corresponding Middle Indo-Aryan ( Eḷu ) word is Sīhala . The name is a derivative of [[[:wikt:सिंह|siṁha]]] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , the Sanskrit word for 'lion'. The name is sometimes glossed as 'abode of lions', and attributed to

308-623: Is also credited for building or renovating the Nallur Kandaswamy temple in Jaffna . The Portuguese converted much of the population into the Roman Catholic faith. The last king of Kotte, Don Juan Dharmapala, was one of two Catholic Sinhalese monarchs in Sri Lankan history (the other was Kusumasena Devi ), though several other contemporary kings had also been temporarily Catholic. Battaramulla

352-584: Is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka , who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million speakers as of 2001. It is written using the Sinhala script , which is a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala

396-479: Is divided into four epochs: The most important phonetic developments of Sinhala include: According to Wilhelm Geiger , an example of a possible Western feature in Sinhala is the retention of initial /v/ which developed into /b/ in the Eastern languages (e.g. Sanskrit viṁśati "twenty", Sinhala visi- , Hindi bīs ). This is disputed by Muhammad Shahidullah who says that Sinhala Prakrit branched off from

440-412: Is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, alongside Tamil . Along with Pali , it played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature. Early forms of the Sinhala language are attested as early as the 3rd century BCE. The language of these inscriptions, still retaining long vowels and aspirated consonants, is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi , a regional associate of

484-700: The Middle Indian Prakrits that had been used during the time of the Buddha . The most closely related languages are the Vedda language (an endangered, indigenous creole still spoken by a minority of Sri Lankans, mixing Sinhala with an isolate of unknown origin and from which Old Sinhala borrowed various aspects into its main Indo-Aryan substrate), and the Maldivian language . It has two main varieties, written and spoken, and

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528-576: The UNESCO National Commission of Ceylon According to Wilhelm Geiger , Sinhala has features that set it apart from other Indo-Aryan languages. Some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of the parent stock of the Vedda language . Sinhala has many words that are only found in Sinhala, or shared between Sinhala and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Possible examples include kola for leaf in Sinhala and Vedda (although others suggest

572-618: The Vanni and made its leaders loyal to him. Prince Sapumal was the commander of the Kotte army at the time. Tamil served as one of the court languages of the Kotte Kingdom at this time. In 1450, Parakramabahu VI had, with his conquest of the Jaffna kingdom in northern Sri Lanka, unified all of Sri Lanka. At its height, the Kingdom oversaw one of the greatest eras of Sinhalese literature. Notable poets at

616-580: The Vanni principalities , and bring the country under one flag. It led to a punitive invasion against the Vijayanagar dynasty and captured a port , which was converted to a trade route. The Kotte Kingdom was largely dissolved during the Sinhalese-Portuguese War , as it faced attacks from rival Sinhalese kingdoms, the Kingdom of Sitawaka and Kingdom of Kandy . Dom João Dharmapala handed it over to

660-464: The 13th century CE, recognised a category of words that exclusively belonged to early Sinhala. The grammar lists naram̆ba (to see) and koḷom̆ba (fort or harbour) as belonging to an indigenous source. Koḷom̆ba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo . The consistent left branching syntax and the loss of aspirated stops in Sinhala is attributed to a probable South Dravidian substratum effect. This has been explained by

704-700: The Eastern Prakrits prior to this change. He cites the edicts of Ashoka , no copy of which shows this sound change. An example of an Eastern feature is the ending -e for masculine nominative singular (instead of Western -o ) in Sinhalese Prakrit. There are several cases of vocabulary doublets , one example being the words mæssā ("fly") and mækkā ("flea"), which both correspond to Sanskrit makṣikā but stem from two regionally different Prakrit words macchiā (Western Prakrits) and makkhikā (as in Eastern Prakrits like Pali ). In 1815,

748-422: The Kotte Kingdom had to rely on Portuguese for help. The king of Kotte after Wijayabe Kollaya, Buvenekabahu VII, got assistance from the Portuguese in order to defeat his brother, Mayadunne. He also allowed his daughter's son, Prince Dharmapala, to be baptized as a Catholic by the Portuguese. After Buvenekabahu had named Dharmapala as his heir, he was shot – supposedly by accident – by a Portuguese soldier. In 1565,

792-466: The Kotte Kingdom to the Portuguese throne and the Kotte era was officially ended. The military of the Kotte kingdom was closely associated with both its rise and demise. Poems written in this era give vivid accounts of the contemporary military. Before the arrival of the Portuguese , firearms had not been widely adopted but it is believed that firearms had been introduced to Sinhalese by Arab traders due to

836-406: The Portuguese, thus leading to the formation of Portuguese Ceylon . The remainder was annexed into Sitawaka and Kandy. The term Kotte is said to have derived from the Sinhalese word kōṭṭa කෝට්ට and Tamil word kōṭṭai கோட்டை which mean fortress. Both words come from Dravidian/Old Tamil 𑀓𑁅𑀝𑁆𑀝𑁃 kōṭṭai.The word Kotte was introduced by Nissankamalla Alagakkonara, who was the founder of

880-465: The army of Four Korale. Marching down, Mayadunne ravaged Pitigal Korale and camped closed to Kelaniya in the vicinity of Sri Jarawardenapura Kotte. He was joined by his two brothers and together made preparations for war. Meanwhile part of King Vijayabahu VII’s army was in favor of the princes and declared “we will not fight against the royal princes”. As a result, the King was forced to sue for peace and

924-588: The capital ( Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte ) and remained hidden in Borales Migomuwa (Boralesgamuwa in Salpiti Korale). Whilst the two elder princes remained under the care of the Patabenda of Yapa Patuna, prince Mayadunne made his way to the Kingdom of Kandy ruled by King Jayavira whose queen was Mayadunne’s cousin. With her help, Mayadunne managed to secure the assistance of King Jayavira who provided Mayadunne

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968-415: The capital of Kotte was abandoned by Dharmapala of Kotte due to frequent attacks from the Kingdom of Sitawaka led by Mayadunne and his son Rajasinghe I; he was taken into Colombo under Portuguese protection. Most of the areas of Kotte Kingdom were annexed to the Kingdom of Sitawaka however after the downfall of Sitawaka in 1594, these areas were re-annexed to the Kotte kingdom. In 1597 Dharmapala gifted

1012-471: The capital to Kelaniya in 1509 and it stayed there until 1528. The Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka in 1505, landing in Galle Harbour. Once they learnt that they had arrived in Sri Lanka, they sailed to Colombo. They were taken by a tortuous route to the capital, Kotte, which was actually quite close by. This was done in order to create the impression that the kingdom was too far inland to make invasion from

1056-499: The citizens were to be harmed so as to prevent looting in the streets. Meanwhile Vijayabahu was allowed to escape to the upper storey. He locked himself in a room with two of his concubines. During the night it was decided to assassinate the King. However since none of the Sinhalese dared to shed royal blood , a foreign assassin called Salman was hired to finish the deed; he killed Vijayabahu inside his chamber. The following morning,

1100-591: The council of ministers assembled and selected prince Bhuvanekabahu, the eldest prince, to succeed to the throne. . The succession was challenged by the King Vijayabahu’s sisters’ son, Pilesse Widiye Bandara (also known as Vira Surya). With the assistance of Mannamperiya the Aswela Arachchila (the late king’s equerry ) he left Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte with a considerable number of followers. Through Aluthkuruwa they arrived at Ambana and Pasonnuwara and raised

1144-745: The development of Ayurvedic medicine. Buddhism was the state religion for most of its existence. Parakramabahu VI built a shrine for the Sacred Tooth Relic near the royal palace. Kotte Raja Maha Viharaya was also enshrined by Parakramabahu VI to celebrate the Esala Perahara Pegent, in Honor of the Sacred Tooth relic. He also repaired Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara ; which along with the Sri Perakumba Pirivena and Sunethra Devi Pirivena have become

1188-477: The features that may be traced to Dravidian influence are: ඒක ēka it අලුත් aḷut new කියලා kiyalā having-said මම mama I දන්නවා dannavā know ඒක අලුත් කියලා මම දන්නවා ēka aḷut kiyalā mama dannavā it new having-said I know "I know that it is new." ඒක ēka it අලුත් aḷut new ද da Q කියලා kiyalā having-said මම mama I දන්නේ Wijayaba Kollaya Before his elevation to

1232-488: The fortress. They were believed to be from the city of Vanchi , identified with Kanchipuram of Tamil Nadu . The Alagakkonara family have also been identified to be of Tamil ancestry of Vallanattu Chettiar . Kotte was founded as a fortress by Minister Alakesvara (1370–1385) of the Alagakkonara clan of the Kingdom of Gampola during the reign of Vikramabahu III of Gampola to checkmate invasions from South India on

1276-407: The harbour feasible. This plan was, however, spoilt by the fact that the Portuguese who remained with the ship fired the ship's cannon repeatedly, which sound was heard by the Portuguese party being taken to Kotte. This incident gave rise to the local saying "Parangiya Kotte Giya Vage" ("like the Portuguese went to Kotte") [පරන්ගියා කොට්ටේ ගියා වගේ], which refers to doing something or going somewhere in

1320-538: The island of Ceylon came under British rule . During the career of Christopher Reynolds as a Sinhalese lecturer at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London , he extensively researched the Sinhalese language and its pre-1815 literature. The Sri Lankan government awarded him the Sri Lanka Ranjana medal for his work. He wrote the 377-page An anthology of Sinhalese literature up to 1815 , selected by

1364-445: The kingdom. Portuguese who arrived there as traders were able to secure a trading deal with the kingdom on their first visit. One of the greatest fields that flourished under his rule was literature and art since the king himself was very fond of them. Royal patronage was given to literature paving way to a golden age of literature in the island. These institutions paved way not only to the enhancement of Buddhist literature but also to

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1408-430: The military. The kingdom was situated near Colombo , a very important port at the time. Moorish merchants from India and Arabia dominated the trade of the kingdom until the arrival of the Portuguese. The spice trade, e.g. in cinnamon , cardamom , black pepper , dominated the exports while gemstones also was a big export. After the conquest of Jaffna, Kotte possessed the pearl trading which gave an enormous wealth to

1452-557: The most famous monasteries in the country. Hinduism was also given a foremost place in society. Most of the Buddhist temples entrusted shrines of Hindu gods Vishnu , Murugan (god Katahargama) and goddess Paththini , and God Gambara as the provincial god. Prince Sapumal (crowned Bhuvanekabahu VI ) had built a shrine near the ancient bo tree of the Kotte Raja Maha Viharaya as a vow to defeat Arya chakravarthi . Prince Sapumal

1496-487: The palace gates and to assassinate the princes. The unsuspecting princes entered the palace leaving their army outside. On their way, they met young prince Deva Rajasinghe who was seven years old. When Mayadunne inquired about the current events of the city, he innocently told about the soldiers who were waiting to fall up on them. The three princes dashed out, through the Karandupathi gate and escaped to their army. The army

1540-426: The princes insisted that, the two ministers who were involved with the plot were to be handed over for punishment. Kandure Bandara was flogged to death by their orders but Ekanayake Mudali managed to seek sanctuary with the priests. The three princes entered the capital with their army. Unknown to them, King Vijayabahu had a detachment of sixty chosen soldiers lying in concealment at Rahas Kunda Watta in order to bar

1584-410: The similarity of the design of Sinhala firearms to Arab guns and the Portuguese expressing unfamiliarity with the designs of Sinhalese ordinance used by 1519. However, the use of heavy armour and firearms by Europeans would also result in locals rapidly adopting firearms. The military consisted of four main departments, namely In the final periods of the kingdom, the Portuguese were often in charge of

1628-488: The standard of rebellion in Hapitigama Korale. Prince Mayadunne arrived with an army and subdued the rebellion by killing both the ringleaders. Inhabitants of the Hapitigama Korale were severely punished and several high caste nobles were given over to Pannayo , one of the lowest castes, whose duty was to cut grass for the elephants. After pacifying the rebellion, a formal coronation took place and Bhuvanekabahu came to

1672-479: The throne as King Buvanekabahu VII. As advised by the chief minister Illangakon, the kingdom was divided into three parts. Youngest prince, Mayadunne, received Seethawaka, Denawaka and Four Korales as Kingdom of Sitawaka while Prince Rayigam Bandara received Raigama, Walallawiti and Pasyodun Korale (excluding the sea ports) as the Principality of Raigama. These were granted as fiefs by Royal sannas and they were given

1716-429: The throne, prince Vijayabahu used to reside with his brother Chakrayudabahu , and his wife Kirawelle Mahabiso Bandara, as an associate husband. During their stay at Menikkadawara, the princess gave birth to four princes, Maha Rayigam Bandara who died at a young age, Bhuvanekabahu , Para Rajasinghe , and Mayadunne Raja . Soon Chakrayudabahu and his wife died, leaving the three princes with Vijayabahu. Once Vijayabahu

1760-443: The time were Buddhist monks such as Thotagamuwe Sri Rahula Thera , Weedagama Maihree thero, and Karagala Wanarathana thero. By 1477, however, 10 years after the death of Parakramabahu VI, regional kingdoms became more powerful. Most notably a new Kingdom was founded in the central hill-country of the island by Senasammata Vikramabahu who successfully led a rebellion against the Kotte Kingdom in 1469. Parakramabahu IX of Kotte moved

1804-505: The western coast; Parakramabahu VI later made Kotte his capital city in 1412. It was well protected by the large swamp that surrounded the area. Parakramabahu VI first became the king of Raigama in 1412, then, in 1415, he made Kotte his capital. The King upgraded the existing citadel and built a new royal palace. Parakramabahu VI waited until ties between the Vijayanagara Empire and Jaffna Kingdom were severed. First, he captured

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1848-491: Was a village that provided rice to the king's palace. The royal flower gardens were also located in this village in an area called Rajamalwatta. Sinhala language Sinhala ( / ˈ s ɪ n h ə l ə , ˈ s ɪ ŋ ə l ə / SIN -hə-lə, SING -ə-lə ; Sinhala: සිංහල , siṁhala , [ˈsiŋɦələ] ), sometimes called Sinhalese ( / ˌ s ɪ n ( h ) ə ˈ l iː z , ˌ s ɪ ŋ ( ɡ ) ə ˈ l iː z / SIN -(h)ə- LEEZ , SING -(g)ə- LEEZ ),

1892-629: Was informed about the King’s treachery and decided to kill the King. A game of Nirogi was organized and the crowds gathered to see it were persuaded to join their cause. Meanwhile the princes managed to win over the king’s army and both armies broke into the palace, with the angry mob. They plundered the palace, treasury, and the harem. They burst open the treasure chests and gems, gold, silver, silk, and pearls were looted. Vijayabahu's valuables and royal wardrobe were tossed from hand to hand. However, strict orders were conveyed by beating drums, that none of

1936-399: Was raised to the throne as King Vijayabahu VII , he married another princess of Kirawelle. She brought with her a boy named Deva Rajasinghe whom Vijayabahu adopted. Later King Vijayabahu VII plotted with two of his courtiers, Kandure Bandara and Ekanayake Mudali, in order to make Deva Rajasinghe his heir. The three princes discover the plot and with the assistance of the priests , fled from

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