Ancient Indian and Sri Lankan myths and…

Ancient Indian and Sri Lankan myths and chronicles have been studied intensively and interpreted widely for their insight into the human settlement and philosophical development of the island.

Confirmation of the island's first colonizers—whether the Sinhalese or Sri Lankan Tamils—has been elusive, but evidence suggests that Sri Lanka has been, since earliest times, a multiethnic society.

Sri Lankan historian K.M. de Silva believes that settlement and colonization by Indo-Aryan speakers may have preceded the arrival of Dravidian settlers by several centuries, but that early mixing rendered the two ethnic groups almost physically indistinct.

The first major legendary reference to the island of Sri Lanka is found in the great Indian epic, the Ramayana (Sacred Lake of the Deeds of Rama), thought to have been written around 500 BCE.

The Ramayana tells of the conquest of Lanka in 3000 BCE by Rama, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.

Rama's quest to save his abducted wife, Ska, from Ravanna, the demon god of Lanka, and his demon hordes, is, according to some scholars, a poetic account of the early southward expansion of Brahmanic civilization.