Buddhism amongst Tamils in Sri Lanka
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Buddhism is the majority religion of Sri Lanka. In the past Buddhism was prominent among Tamil in Sri Lanka, just as Buddhism was else where in the Indian Subcontinent, However most Sri Lankan Tamils today are Hindu and most Sinhalese are buddhist.
Jaffna peninsula
The Tamil majority towns of Jaffna and Trincomalee are considered important town in the Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist pantheon.
Nāga Tivu/ Nāga Natu was the name of the whole Jaffna Peninsula in some historical documents. There are number of Buddhist myths associated with the interactions of people of this historical place with Buddha.[4] This Nagadeepa Purana Viharaya was located close to the ancient Nainativu Nagapooshani Amman Temple of Nainativu, one of the Shakta pithas.[5][6] The word Naga was sometimes written in early inscriptions as Nāya, as in Nāganika - this occurs in the Nanaghat inscription of 150 BCE.
The famous Vallipuram Buddha statue built with Dravidian sculptural traditions from the Amaravati school was found in excavations below the Hindu temple. The language of the inscription is Prakrit, which shares several similarities with script inscriptions used in Andhra at the time, when the Telugu Satavahana dynasty was at the height of its power and its 17th monarch Hāla (20-24 CE) married a princess from the island.[7][8] Peter Schalk writes, "Vallipuram has very rich archaeological remains that point at an early settlement. It was probably an emporium in the first centuries AD. […] From already dated stones with which we compare this Vallipuram statue, we can conclude that it falls in the period 3-4 century AD. During that period, the typical Amaravati-Buddha sculpture was developed."[9] The Buddha statue found here was given to King of Thailand by the then British Governor Henry Blake in 1906.[citation needed]
Indrapala argued for a flourishing pre-Christian Buddhist civilization in Jaffna, in agreement with Paranavithana, and Mudliyar C. Rasanayakam, Ancient Jaffna in an earlier work, 1965 Archived 26 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
This place is similar to Nagapatnam where all Asian vessels used it as a stopover point and the Buddhist and Hindu Stupas are just a resting and worshipping places for the sailors and international traders.[citation needed] .
A group of Stupas situated close together at the Kadurugoda Vihara site in Kandarodai served as a monastery for monks and reflect the rise in popularity of Mahayana Buddhism amongst Jaffna Tamils and the Tamils of the ancient Tamil country in the first few centuries of the common era before the revivalism of Hinduism amongst the population.[1]
Trincomalee
Thiriyai is referred to as Talacori in the 2nd century CE map of Ptolemy. Thiriyai formed a prominent village of Jaffna's Vannimai districts in the medieval period.
The Chola Dynasty patronized several religions amongst Tamils, including Saivism, Vaishnavism, and Buddhism. They built Buddhist temples known as "Perrumpallis".[citation needed] In the eleventh century the Velgam Vehera of Periyakulam was renovated and renamed by the Cholas as Rajarajaperumpalli after they conquered the Anuradhapura and established their rule in Polonnaruwa.[10] Tamil inscriptions excavated from this site point to the attention the Cholas paid to the development of Trincomalee District as a strong Saiva Tamil principality and for their contributions to the upkeep of several shrines including the monumental Shiva Koneswaram temple of Trincomalee.[11]
Kingdom of Jaffna
The early Kings of Jaffna, King Chandrabhanu and King Savakanmaindan were Buddhists, however they were ethnically Javanese. Chandrabhanu being an invader from Tambaralinga and Savakanmaindan being his successor.[12]