The early Sinhalese Kingdom

Story has it that the Sinhalese, long the majority race in Sri Lanka, descend from a lion. ‘Sinha’ refers to the lion who abducted a princess by whom he had two children. The son Sinhabahu, tired of being cooped up in a cave, escaped with his mother and sister to his grandfather's kingdom. The enraged lion began to ravage the area; it was only his son who was able to kill him. Then Sinhabahu married his sister. Their son Vijaya turned out a reprobate and was sent into exile. His boat landed in Sri Lanka whose monarch at the time was Queen Kuveni, who fell in love with Vijaya and made him her consort. Before long he got rid of her and brought reinforcements from his home in India, through whom the race flourished and filled up the island.

Bestiality, parricide, incest, wantonness and betrayal may not seem a promising beginning for a race. These are parts of a legend, and legends are only taken as seriously as required. What is significant here is the assumption that Sinhabahu came from the north of India, which makes him Aryan, of the conquering race that pushed down to the south the original Dravidian inhabitants of the subcontinent. Thus the Sinhalese too become Aryans, and can share in the distinctive heritage of that important race, constructed so lovingly by European ethnologists in the nineteenth century.