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Trincomalee - Holy Hill of Siva
S.J.Gunasegaram (from
Selected Writings
published 1985)
[see also One
Hundred Tamils of 20th Century - S.J.Gunasegaram
and Our Temple: Thirukoneswaram
and
Welcome to Thirukoneswaram]
Trincomalee is known to the modern world as one of the finest
harbours in the world; but the origin of its name and its fame from
pre-historic times is associated with the sacred and ancient shrine
dedicated by the early Tamils to Siva.
The antiquity of the worship of Siva has been amply attested to
by scholars and archaeologists. "Among the many revelations that
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa have had in store for us", says Sir John
Marshall, "none perhaps is more remarkable than the discovery that
Saivaism has a history going back to the Paleolithic age or even
further still, and it thus takes its place as the most ancient faith
in the worlds".
In 'The History of Philosophy Eastern and Western
(published by the Ministry of Education, Government of India) we
read,
"Nearly all the Saivaite gods of Hinduism are non-Vedic and
are recognised as Dravidian. 'Trincomalee’ is the Europeanised
form of the Tamil TIRU-KONA- MA -MALAI or TIRU-KONA-MALAI, 'the
Holy Hill of Lord Siva'. The hill and the shrine are known by
several Tamil names.
- TIRU-KONA-MA-MALAI
- TIRU-KONA-MALAI
- TIRU-KUNRU-MALAI
- TIRU-MALAI
- KONESWARAM
- KON-AR-KOVIL
- SWAMY-MALAI
There are other similar shrines dedicated to Siva in Ceylon and
in Dravidian India. Some of the most famous are Tirukethiswaram in
the Mannar district and Muniswaram in Chilaw — all in Ceylon and
Tiruvannamalai, Thirukadaiyur, Tirumalai, Tirumylai, Kokannan or
Kokarnam, Kokali—all in South India.
Tamil tradition has it that the wife of the mythical king of
Lanka, Ravana who was a devotee of Siva, worshipped at the
Koneswaram shrine.
The earliest reference in the Pali Chronicles of Ceylon to the
Saiva shrine at Trincomalee is found in the Mahavamsa (Ch. XXXVII,
vv. 40 44). It states that Mahesan 'built also the Manivihara and
founded three viharas destroying the temple of the gods the Gokanna,
Erukavilla, and another in the village of the Brahman Kalanda'. In a
note below Geiger the official translator of the Mahavamsa, states,
"according to the Tika, the Gokanna Vihara is situated on the coast
of the Eastern sea, the two other Viharas in Ruhuna ... the Tika
also adds everywhere in the Island of Lanka he established the
doctrine of the Buddha having destroyed the temples or the
unbelievers, i.e. having abolished the Phallic symbols of Siva and
so forth."
If what the Tika says is to be accepted, Ruhuna and the Eastern
coast would appear to have been early homes of Saivaism, the Tamil
religion par excellence. The authors of the Pali Chronicles and the
monk author of the later XIII century Tika were Buddhist priests at
that time, the bitterest opponents of Saivaism and those who
supported it in Ceylon. The truth and accuracy of the statements
made by the commentator cannot be verified. It has however been
pointed out that the unknown writer of the Tika had used his piety
and his imagination rather than verify facts to explain the
allusions found in the Mahavamsa.
What appears to be the truth is that Mahasen, the on time
heretic, in his new formed zeal for Buddhism had ordered the
destruction of all the temples of the earlier religion Saivaism
including that at Trincomalee and those in Ruhuna. Ruhuna, from this
and other evidences, appears to have been the stronghold of Pandyan
Saivaite sub-kings who were the rulers of the district.
This is one of the strongest testimonies to Siva worship and its
wide-spread influence in early Ceylon Buddhism took a long time to
supplant the earlier religions - Saivaism and Vaishnavaism - which
still have an abiding place in the hearts of the indigenous peoples
of Ceylon. There is, however, ample evidence in Tamil religious
literature to demonstrate the antiquity and the reverence with which
these Saiva shrines at Trincomalee in the Eastern coast and at
Tirukethiswaram in the Western coast were held by the Tamils in
South India and Ceylon.
Suntharamoorthy Swamy (seventh century A.D.) and
Tirugnanasmbanthar, (eighth century A.D.) two
Tamil Saiva saints have left a number of Thevarams ('garlands of
verses to god') of imperishable beauty celebrating these shrines.
For a full text of these poems and commentaries the reader is
referred to Mr. V. K. P. Nathan's 'Thevarath Thirupathikam', 1954.
That the Cholas and the Pandyans, two of the ancient historic
Tamil kingdoms, had colonised the Northern, Eastern and
South-Eastern districts of Ceylon, and from there Anuradhapura and
Polonnaruwa beginning from pre-Vijayan times has been attested to by
historians.
In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Ceylon Branch) Vol.
XXX, we are told,
"According to the KALVETTU (a Tamil stone inscription
referred to by Codrington), the temple of KONESAR is said to
have been founded by KULAKOTTAN, son of Manuwentan in the
Kaliyuga year 512 (B.C. 2591) It was destroyed by Constantine de
Sa in 1624, and the material used for the construction of the
Fort."
De Queyroz, the Portuguese author of the 'Conquest of Ceylon'
gives the name of the king as MANU-RAJAH. 'Venthan' in Tamil is
another word for KING or RAJAH.
VOGEL says,
"POLONNARUWA may have been an earlier Dravidian settlement.
For it is only natural that the Dravidians entered Ceylon by the
excellent port of the East Coast - Trincomalee, which as the
name TIRU-KUNRU-MALAI indicates is an early Tamil settlement.
From there their ships could have reached the interior of
Mahavaliganga" (Vogel's letter 'Journal of Science', Vol. II,
Part 1, pp. 231-232, quoted by Dr. Paranavitane).
‘KUNRU’, in Tamil means a ‘rock' or 'hill'. MAHAVALI in Tamil is
MA-VALI i.e. 'the great pathway'. Its branch the 'VERUGAL' is the
Tamil 'PERUKAL' - 'flood', or 'that which overflows'.
I give below extracts from 'The Reefs of Taprobane' by ARTHUR C.
CLARKE, (Harper Brothers, New York 1956)
"Swamy Rock Is one of the most historic spots on the East
coast of Ceylon. For at least three thousand years, with one
brief interruption of a mere century or so, the rock has been
the site of a Hindu temple. The interruption was caused by the
arrival of the Portuguese, who looked with great disfavour on
any religion except Roman Catholicism and who were men of
violent action where matters of faith were concerned.
."... We soon became aware that there was something peculiar
about the sea bed over which we were swimming. Huge blocks of
stone were scattered in every direction, and though all were
over-grown with weeds and barnacles many had a curiously
artificial appearance. At first we decided that this must be an
illusion; the action of the sea can sometimes carve rocks into
surprisingly symmetrical patterns. But presently we had
unmistakable evidence that beneath us was the work of man, not
of nature.
"The capital of a stone doorway, badly eroded but perfectly
recognizable (plate 21), lay in the jumbled chaos of rocks.
Beside it was a broken column, its square ends bearing on each
face a lotus petal design not unlike the Tudor Rose (plates 22
and 23). As our eyes grew more skilled in interpreting what we
saw, other regularities began to make themselves apparent. The
ruins of some great building had been scattered along the
sea-bed, where they lay in hopeless confusion. The water at the
foot of the headland was quite shallow; where we were diving it
was nowhere more than fifteen feet deep, and most of the broken
masonry lay only about five feet below the surface. We continued
our swim, often pausing to argue whether some curiously shaped
stone was natural or artificial. The fragments were distributed
along some two hundred feet of the shore line, and we had
covered about half this distance when we came upon debris of a
later civilisation."
The Temple of a Thousand Columns
Even before Buddhism came to Ceylon around 300 B.C. the rock
was sacred to the Hindus, who built at least three temples on or
around it. The largest of these was a colossal edifice known as
the Temple of a Thousand Columns; It stood until 1624, when it
was destroyed by the fanatically religious Portuguese, during
their blood-stained occupation of the country.
Just below the highest point of the headland stands a new
Hindu Temple. Inside the temple ranged against the far wall, is
a display of five bronze gods including Siva, his consort, and
the elephant god Ganesa."
On the very highest tip of Swamy Rock there stands a single
column, said to he one of the pillars of the original temple.
The view from this point, four hundred feet above the sea, is
both magnificent and vertiginous. One can look for miles along
the coast, and see far down into the water washing at the foot
of the rock.
As soon an we had located a temple attendant who spoke good
English, Mike and I described our under-water discoveries and
tried to obtain some informatlon about the origin of the ruins.
It was not until then that we had any idea of the antiquity of
the place. There is evidence that a temple had stood on Swamy
Rock for thirty-five hundred years; so it must be one of the
oldest sites of continuous worship in the world.
"The priests In particular were anxious to locate the
Lingam—the phallic symbol which is the emblem of Siva Worship
which one might reasonably suppose to have been one of the first
things the Portuguese iconoclasts threw into the sea.......
However, the immense jumble of stone, natural and artificial,
covering so many thousands of square feet of the sea bed made
any systematic search hopeless The best that we could do was to
photograph the most clearly defined pieces of architecture so
that those concerned would know just what was lying in the sea
at the foot of the rock.
"The battered stone work at the foot of Swamy Rock was
probably the most photographed under-water ruins in the world.
(Plate 20).
The destruction of the temple began on the Hindu New Year's
Day 1624, when the Portuguese soldiers disguised as Priests
mingled with the worshippers and so entered the sacred
precincts. They waited until the temple was deserted by the New
Year's Day crowds, who followed the procession down the hill and
left only a few Priests on Swamy Rock. Then plundering started;
probably all those left in the temple were killed, and in a few
hours the accumulated treasure of about two thousand (three)
years was looted. The Konesar Temple to give its proper name was
one of the richest in Asia.
It must have contained a fortune in gold, pearls and precious
stones, and though the Portuguese must have captured most of
this wealth, they did not get it all as was demonstrated three
hundred years later.
"In 1950 some workmen were digging a well inTrincomalee when
they came across metal about a yard below the surface. Further
excavation revealed the statues of three Hindu Gods which were
handed over to the authorities they comprised more than a
hundred pounds weight of gold and copper alloy.
"The five statues which now stand in the new temple are among
the finest examples of
Hindu bronze sculpture known to exist. In particular, the
seated figure of Siva, which dates from about the tenth century
A.D., is regarded as a master piece these were found about 500
yards from the temple... it would be most interesting to go over
the rest of the Swamy Rock with a metal detector.
After the looting of the temple, the building was destroyed
and the masonry either thrown into the sea or used to construct
the fort which still guards the foot of the hill. Some of the
temple's original stonework can still be identified in the
European building, and by the entrance to the fort is a stone
slain containing a curious inscription, which has been
translated as follows:
'O King ! The franks shall later break down the holy
edifice built by Kulakoddan in ancient times; and it shall
not be rebuilt nor will future kings think of doing so.'
Constantine de Sa records the existence of the prophecy and
was sufficiently impressed to send a translation to Lisbon. (The
prophecy is certainly remarkable as it was apparently carved
centuries before the Portuguese arrived).
"In any event, the men who looted the temple did not long
enjoy their gain. Six years later de Sa and his army of three
thousand men were enticed into the jungle in the hope of finally
conquering the reigning monarch. With the Portuguese were troops
of local militia, who had learnt the lesson from the fifth
column tactics the Europeans had used to enter and over-throw
the temple. The Ceylonese recruits turned on the interlopers and
slaughtered them to the last man.
"Siva the god of destruction, had worked his revenge. Today,
more than hundred years later, he is still worshipped on Swamy
Rock, while the men who smashed his temple are forgotten and
their empire destroyed."...
ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD 'KO'
(SANSKRIT & PALI 'GO')
TAMIL DICTIONARIES give the following meaning to 'KO' and 'KON'.
(1) KO — (a) KING (b) a man in his prime (c) bull (d) cow (e} hill or
mountain.
KOVIL = KO + ILL. = where the 'king' or 'god' lives
KOKANNAM = KO + KANNAM = 'KO' bull (here the emblem of Siva) + KANNAM
'ear', ‘cheeks', also 'face'.
(The Sanskritised form of KOKANNAN, KOKANNA, is GOKANNA, GOKARNA).
(2) (a) KON = 'King', ‘master', ‘lord', 'god'. KONESAR - The God of the
MOUNTAIN, 'Siva'. KONESWARAM - The temple of Siva. KONA-MA-MALAI - The great
hill of Siva.
KON- 'a shepherd', 'a chief'.
KONAN - One who belongs to the shepherd community.
KONAR - 'a shepherd', 'a chief'.
There are a large number names with 'KON' as prefix or suffix — KONAK,
ALAGAKONAR, WERAKONE, ILANGAIKONE, SINNAKONE etc
HERAS -- (INDO-PROTO-.MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE) states that the old
pre-ARYAN name for Himalayas was VEN-KO. VEN = white; KO = {'Mountain')
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