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THE MOORS OF CEYLON

The Times of Ceylon of 13.11.59, gives its readers the interesting news that the Government has deputed two Sinhalese scholars to go into the history of Beruwela, because of a dispute ‘with regard to the origin of the name ‘Beruwela’. The Sinhalese are said to hold that the earliest name of the town was Beruwela, and have objected to the claim of the Muslims to change the name to Barberyn, which the latter seem to think was derived from the Arab name Berber.

In a series of articles in the ‘Times of Ceylon’ on Chinese Sea-faring, I have already given the opinions of authorities such as Warmington, Wheeler, George Faldo Hourani, Panikkar, etc., to show that the maritime trade in the South-Western ports of Ceylon, particularly at Galle, was entirely in the hands of the Chinese, Persians and the Tamils and that the Arabs ventured out to the East as a sea-faring people only after the time of the Prophet. It is strange that Tamil opinion on this question seems to have been totally ignored! Even as late as 1409, the languages used in the Trilingual Inscription of Cheng-Ho, in Galle, were confined to Tamil, Chinese and Persian. It was also shown that Tamil traders, sailors, weavers, and cinnamon peelers had settled down along the Western sea-board from the early centuries of the Christian era. Evidence from the Tamil names of the ports in this area and the existence of time honoured shrines such as ‘Kataragama’ and ‘Dondra’ was also discussed.

The Sinhalese in recent times seems to have attempted to derive the name Beruwela from BE, a part of the name from BEWA meaning ‘to lower’, and RUWELA ‘to sail’. This strained derivation has been arrived at, not realising that RU in RUWELLA is nearer URU the Tamil name for a ‘long boat’ and Valai, the Tamil name for a ‘net’. I venture to suggest that the derivation from ‘Sinhalese’ given above is extremely strained, and that a more natural and probable derivation should be sought elsewhere.

With regard to BARBERYN AND BERBER, I would refer your readers to a small book on ‘Sonahar’ written in 1925, by Mr. J. C. Van Sanden, who, in page 2 of the book, admits that he had written it as a result of ‘persuasions of his Moorish friends’ and that ‘nearly all the information’ which he has been

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able to glean from the educated Moors, is purely legendary’! Mr. Van Sanden’s own ‘history’ itself is full of anachronisms. Nevertheless even in 1925, he does not appear to have heard from his ‘Moorish Friends’ any such tradition connecting BERUWELA with BERBER!

The fact is that the Muslims who settled down in the South-Western and North-Eastern Coasts of Ceylon as petty traders, were all Tamil speaking Muslims from the Malabar and Coromandal coasts of South India. Even during the time of the arrival of the Portuguese, they relied on the support of the Tamil speaking Kings of Ceylon, and that of the Zamorin of Calicut, the Hindu Malabar ruler of South India.

Now, BERUWELA in the South-West coast of Ceylon is the counterpart of PERUVELI, a Muslim settlement in the Trincomalee district. There are other similar Muslim settlements in the North-Eastern sea-board, viz. KUCHAVELI, NILAVELI, UPPUVELI, etc.

PERU in Tamil means ‘large’ and VELI an ‘open space’. Some of the early South Indian Tamil speaking Muslim traders who came over to the Western coast of Ceylon and occupied a ‘large open space’ near the sea-coast, similarly called it PERUVELI. The name in course of time took the Pali-ised Sinhala form, Beruwela. It is customary for the Tamil P to be pronounced as B in Sinhalese. Veli was similarly transformed into Wela, the V becoming a W and the e in Veli being pronounced a as in ‘alert’, by the Sinhalese, although there is no u in Elu. BERUWELA is thus the corruption of Peruveli, a name given by the Tamil-speaking Muslims who settled in the area.

II

If Mr. Wadwood wants your readers to believe that the names BERBER and BERBERYN indicate that the original MUSLIM settlers in BERUWELA, were Arabs (“Times of Ceylon” 8.12.59), he should first convince us that BERBER was an Arab town, and that the BERBERS themselves were Arabs. But were they?

(1) The New Standard Dictionary describes a BERBER as “A member of a primitive race of Northern Africa, any Moor or native of BARBARY”.

(2) The same dictionary defines BARBARY as ‘the Mohammedan countries in the North Coast of Africa, not including Egypt, peopled by BERBERS”.

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(3) The Oxford Dictionary defines a BERBER as “a member of the North African Stock including the aboriginal races of BARBARY (from Arab Barbara, to talk confusedly of, perhaps from Greek barbaros, Barbarians)”.

It is clear that Berber was neither in Arabia nor were the people ‘Arabs’. How then did PERUVELI (Tamil) and ‘BERUWELA’ (Sinhalese) become associated by the Portuguese historian DE QUEYROZ with BERBERIM or BARBARY?

I give a fuller extract from DE QUEYROZ which was only partly quoted by Mr. Wadwood: -

“One league before Alica there was the large village of BERBERIM, which deserves to be called BARBARY, for it was altogether peopled by them” (the MOORS)……. “And as a certain prelate of St. Francis was passing through it on a visit an old Chingala came to see him to be pleased to buy a garden which he had there to build a church, before the Moors by dint of bribes took it from him, and turned him out”, (‘Conquest of Ceylon’, Vol. II, Book IV, Ch. 19, p. 743).

Now, from the first portion of the quotation above, it is obvious that the PORTUGUESE who had carried with them the contempt with which they held the Moors of North Africa and of Spain, mainly on religious grounds, had ‘bodily’ transferred the epithet ‘Moor’ to the Muslims they unexpectedly met with in South India and Ceylon. The Muslims settled down along the Western Coast of Ceylon were their greatest competitors in their trade with Ceylon. De Queyroz who had never visited Ceylon obtained his information from Portuguese records and tales of Priests and soldiers who had been in Ceylon. He uses the term ‘BERBERIM’ to denote ‘BERUWELA, and ‘BARBARY’ to describe the people, in unfair contempt of the Muslim traders concentrated at Beruwela. It was thus, obviously a name not given by Muslim settlers themselves at Peruveli or Beruwela but a contemptuous reference to the Muslims found there.

The second portion of the quotation from DE QUEYROZ is very likely, an equally malicious description of the ‘MOORS’ – meant to make the world and the Sinhalese understand that they (the Portuguese) were more reasonable in their dealings with the Sinhalese than the Muslims.

I agree with Mr. Wadwood that Emerson Tennent was one of the most brilliant historians of Ceylon – a great pioneer. But his work was published in 1859, a hundred years ago. Since the days of Tennent and Alexander Johnston, two Ceylon officials of the colonial days, considerable research has been done –

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researches which have shown that several of their conclusions are completely out of date or that they require to be considerably modified.

Tennent’s view quoted by Mr. Reimers, a retired Government Archivist, and referred to by Mr. Wadwood may be found in Volume I, of Tennent’s history, pages 555 and 556. In his footnotes he admits that his conjecture about early Arab settlers in Ceylon was based on an obscure passage in Pliny, and his authority to suggest that the Arabs were here in the fourth and fifth centuries was Gildmister, a still earlier European writer than Tennent himself.

I have shown in my earlier comment on the origin of the name ‘BERUWELA’ that WARMINGTON whose work on ‘The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India’, 1928, a classic on the subject, speaks of Arabs as middlemen who took over the articles of trade taken by South Indians to the Arabian Coast and sold them in the countries of the Middle-East. The Sabeans who had settled down in Yemen (South Arabia), the Axumites (Abyssinians) and the Persians had often been confused with ‘Arabs’. Sir Mortimer Wheeler in his ‘Rome beyond the Imperial Frontiers’, (1955), devotes part III to commerce with South India (including Ceylon) but makes no specific reference to Arab merchants in Ceylon or to Arab Sea-faring.

George Faldo Hourani (Princeton University, 1951), writing on Arab Sea-faring tells us (a) “Of Arab Sea-faring of the Ancient East we have met no evidence”, (page 11); (b) “There is no evidence in the Periplus of Arabs further south than Barygaza”, (p. 33); (c) “Thus when we come to the ninth century Arabic records of sea-trade with the Far-East we find mention of Moslems and Arabs far more than Persians. This change must have come gradually.” (page 65).

Hourani also points out (1) that the medieval Arabs borrowed many nautical terms from the Persians (page 65), (2) that during the Prophet’s time the wood of foreign ships wrecked on the shore was taken for use on the roof of the Ka’bah…….(page 45), (3) that South Indian teak and other timber had to be imported for the construction of boats, and the methods of construction were similar (page 91), and (4) that pre-Islamic poetry of the desert Arabs seldom contained references to the sea (page 45).

Thus BERBERIM and BARBARY were not the original names by which Peruveli or Beruwela and her Muslim settlers were called but a contemptuous reference to its ‘Moor’ inhabitants by the Portuguese.

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III

The Quran and Arab Navigation

Your readers should be grateful to Mr. S. A. Rahman for pointing out references in the Holy Quran to “ships and the sea”. My contention, in my letter of 27.1.59, on “Kandyan Moors”, was that there is no indication in the Quran to Arab “ships and navigation as such”. I was careful, however, to add, “there is however, a vivid awareness of the sea and its wealth”.

I quote below relevant references to ships and the sea found in the Quran from “The Meaning of the Glorious Quran” a translation of the Quran by Marmaduke Pickthall (3^rd edition, 1952). (Mr. S. A. Rahman’s quotations are likely to be misunderstood by the uninitiated as the Capital “W” not indicated by him in “We”, definitely refers to God (Allah) and “You” in the quotations refer to mankind in general, and not to the Arabs in particular as all God’s revelation should be).

Ch. XVI, v. 14: “And thou seest the ships ploughing it, that Ye (mankind) may seek His bounty, and haply may give thanks”.

Ch. XVII, v. 66, v. 70: “(O, Mankind), Your Lord is He who driveth for you the ship upon the sea” “Verily We have honoured the children of Adam. We carry them on land and sea”. (We = God (Allah), You = Mankind).

Ch. XXXV, v. 12: “And the two seas are not alike……and from them You hear, and derive the ornament that you wear…… and thou seest the ship cleaving them”. (You = Mankind) (“The two seas” i.e. two kinds of water in the earth).

Ch. XXXVI, v. 41: “And a token of them is that we bear their offspring in the laden ship”. (We = God) (Their = Mankind).

Ch. XLV, v. 12: “Allah it is who hath made the sea of service unto You”. (You = Mankind).

Ch. XLVII, v. 32: “And of His portents are the ships like banners of the sea”.

IV

The new derivation that Mr. A. C. Weerasinghe suggests (Times – 8.1.60) for Beruwela – from Beru: ‘a plant which is the bane of the paddy cultivation’ and Wala; ‘Hallow’, bog, marsh is interesting for two reasons.

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It sets aside the earlier attempts to derive it from BEWA and RUWELA, a derivation, the strained nature of which I have already pointed out. In his turn Mr. Weerasinghe uses two new Sinhala words BERU and WALA which have practically the same meaning as two similar words in Tamil; Peru – in Tamil is used also as a prefix to a number of plants, herbs and shrubs with fleshy thick leaves, a fact which could be tested by reference to, e.g. Visuvanathan Pillai’s Tamil-English Dictionary; and Wala, Valai (retroflexive L) in Tamil meaning something circular, a tank, etc.

But no man with a knowledge of Tamil will derive Peruveli from Peru and Valai. This derivation of Mr. Weerasinghe would mean that the Muslim traders, who it must be admitted, performed also a civilising mission in the South-Western coastal regions of Ceylon thought it fit to occupy ‘pits’ ‘bogs and marshes’. Mr. Weerasinghe goes on to speak of ‘thousands’ of other ‘walas’ as though a greater part of Ceylon consisted of boggy marshes and the plant which was an enemy of paddy. It is a moot point, again, whether this plant which Mr. Weerasinghe calls the enemy of the paddy plant thrives along the sea coast as well! Verunkulama, to which Mr. Weerasinghe refers is of course the Sinhalese variation of the Tamil ‘Perunkulam’, the large pond or tank.

These “velis” occupied by the Muslims were all settlements along the sea coast, while the cultivable lands they occupied they called in Tamil Ur e.g. Eravur, Nindavur, Muthur, Puthur etc.

Most of the confusion in derivations of names of places as well as of persons in the case of Sinhala arises from the fact that the names spelt in English today had been Pali-ised first by the Buddhist Priests from India, and later mutilated further by the Portuguese, Dutch and then English in turn, almost beyond recognition. The task of arriving at the truth would be easier if the original names could be written and spelt in the Sinhalese and Tamil Alphabets. There are several letters in Tamil for instance whose sounds are alien to the English Alphabets.

It might help Mr. Weerasinghe to refer to a recent publication by Mr. C. W. Nicholas entitled ‘Historical Topography of Ancient and Medieval Ceylon’. I am not sure about his scholarship in Tamil and Sinhalese and in the knowledge of the varieties of the Brahmi script, but he tells us:-

“The Chronicles of the early historical period (3 B.C. to 3 A.D.) contained no reference to Kalutara, Galle, and Matara

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Districts, nor are there any Brahmi Inscriptions or early ruins in those cities. It can therefore, be assumed that this South-Western area was not then populated” (page 11).

He does not however, inform us whether more modern ‘Chronicles’ like the Culavamsa, Rajavali and Pujavali make references to these towns including Beruwela. As for Brahmi inscriptions, it is well known that the Brahmi script was developed early and widely used by South Indian rulers and merchants in all regions in South-East Asia and Ceylon. The Kalingas, Pandyas, Cheras, Pallavas and Cholas (some Hindu and some Buddhist) were all here in this Island. The absence of Brahmi inscriptions in the South-Western regions of Ceylon is, therefore, no proof that the Sinhalese were not in occupation of these parts.

Peruveli or ‘Beruwela’ is a comparatively recent coastal town like Colombo, developed mainly by the Muslims, some time before the arrival of the Portuguese who strove their utmost to expel them from these coastal settlements.

Notes

(a) In 1350, JOHN MARIGNOLLI was wrecked on the coast of Ceylon at ‘PERIVILIS’ which is supposed to be BERUWELA. (Yule’s ‘Cathay’, p. 357)

(b) “Here a certain tyrant by name Coya Joan, an eunuch, had the mastery of an opposition to the lawful king. He was an accursed Saracen”, i.e. Mohammedan. We are also told that by means of his great treasures he had gained possession of this part of the country. He robbed DE MARIGNOLLI of the valuable gifts he was carrying home to the Pope. (ibid. p. 357).

Ibn Batuta visited the Island six years earlier (in 1344), but makes no mention of Beruwela though it lay directly on his route from Galle to Colombo…… He refers to BATTALAN (PUTALAM) as the capital of a Tamil king Aryachakravarti….. (J.R.A.S. (C.B.), Vol. VII, p. 56, of the extra Number).

(c) “The settlement at Beruwala, which the Ceylon Mohammedans generally admit to be the first of all their settlements, took place not earlier than the XIV century – say A.D. 1350. We may also safely conclude that this colony was an offshoot of KAYAL PADANAM, and that the emigrants consisted largely of a rough and ready set of bold Tamil Converts….” (J.R.A.S. (C.B.), Vol. X, No. 36, ‘The Moor of Ceylon’, p. 255).