Hindus and Buddhist lived in this island all through our known
history. They have both able to live happily and nurturing each
other's cultures. Sinhalaese who were all Buddhists at the time were
happy to live under Tamil kings and Tamils who were mainly Hindus and
some even Buddhists were happy to live under Sinhala kings. Ancient
Sinhala kings had Indian princess as queens and they were Hindus.
Therefore, most of our kings had done so much to the upliftment of the
Hindu culture. There were special Ministers in the king's cabinet. The
famous was the Damiladhikarin Danda of the King Parakrabahu the great.
What all this says is if not many Tamils converted to Catholism and
worked viciously (like Chelvanaikam) to separate Hindus and Buddhist
we never have come to this situation. If this conflict only involved
Buddhists and Hindus we would have solved this problem long time ago.
Sinhala have common ties with Sinhala catholics, Hindu tamils
(cultural ties) Muslims (blood relations), Burghers (blood relation),
so on. But with tamil catholics we have none.
It is a good pastime for some body to find out how much church played
in the rift and animosity between Hindus and Buddhists over the last
200 years. |