Is Ceylon the Lanka mentioned in Ramayana?

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On this website there is the assertion that Ceylon was Lanka of the

Ramayana. The assertion is also made using typical offensive language of

mundane scholars regarding Sastras.

 

Today is Ramanavami on this date last year I started reading the Ramayana

(full edition). In the Ramayana we learn that Lanka was 100 yoganas from the

mainland. Since a yogana is about 8 miles that would mean that it was about

800 miles from the mainland. Much further than current Sri Lanka aka Ceylon.

Also the Suryasiddhanta mentions that the meridian which passes through

Ujjain also passes through Lanka. (The Suryasiddhanta and all of the Jyotish

literature uses the meridian passing through Ujjain as the reference point

just as today the meridian of Greenwich is used for astronomical

calculations and time keeping.) Ujjain is 75 degrees 47 minutes east of

Greenwich if you look south in the Indian Ocean the closest land would be

the Maldive Islands in the Lakshadvip Sea (100,000 Islands sea). So I would

suggest that is the actual area of the original Lanka not Ceylon which only

recently (1972) renamed itself as Sri Lanka. The actual Lanka is submerged

and only some of its highest points are above the ocean. In any case the

real Lanka was several hundred miles to the South West of current Ceylon-Sri

Lanka.

 

Ceylon has been known by that name for at least 2500 years. It was the name

that the Romans, Greeks and Persians knew it by (Greek traders in the

Ptolomiac and Roman empires regularly went to South India and even onto

China via the well known trade route starting from Alexandria,down the Nile,

portage accross to the Red Sea, down the Red Sea and then straight accross

the Arabian Sea to modern Kerala. This is how Saint Thomas, disciple of

Christ, got to South India and why Kerela has 20% Christians since that

time. The many hordes of Roman dinari (gold coins) that have been excavated

in the extreme south of India also attest to this fact.

 

In ancient times it was also called Taprobane (especially by the Greeks) and

Serendip, which was derived from Sanskrit for Sinhala Dvipa, the island of

Singhalese. The Singalese were orginally from the Kalinga region (Orissa)

and invaded the island some time before 500 BC. It morphed into Ceylon from

Serendip.

 

The English word Serendipity--which is finding something unexpected and

useful while searching for something else entirely. For instance, the

discovery of the antibacterial properties of penicillin by Alexander Fleming

is said to have been a serendipitious discovery--is etymologicaly derived

from its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale "The Three

Princes of Serendip"

 

In any case by what ever name you call it modern Sri Lanka-Ceylon is not the

Lanka of the Ramayana because it is much too far to the North East by

several hundreds of miles from the location of Lanka indicated in the

Ramayana and the astronomical Siddhantas and other Jyotish literature.

 

yhs

 

Shyamasundara Dasa

 

www.ShyamasundaraDasa.com

 

Shyamasundar Dasa