Approaching Lanka through the ages, tired of their days at sea, sailors would have stood on deck to gaze longingly at the emerging land. As their ships sailed closer, the pastel-hued ranges broke the horizon, misted and layered. As they drew nearer, they would have seen that before the mountains that rose through the cloud beds, the lush land flattened to the shoreline they sought. Closer still, the gaudy scents of a tropical island would have assailed their salt-soaked senses; fragrant and curious spices, strange blooms, the cloying sweet scent of overripe fruit and the heavy odour of wet, tropical foliage would have gusted across decks, with every land breeze.

These mariners would have sailed to Lanka through her primary western, eastern and southern ports of Mahatittha, Gokanna and Godawaya, as well as myriad lesser-known harbours. As though the mouths of over a hundred rivers were not quite enough, there were ports at several secluded coves, in addition to the anchorage at the islets that lay off the main island of Lanka. From these harbours, sailors learnt her stories and carried them to the world. Today, they tell the world of a tired nation. A country beset by woes of recovery from a protracted civil war, deficient socialist experiments and corrupt politicians. Now, they encounter an island people bearing the post-colonial burdens of dismantled traditions and alien systems of governance; a struggling state, striving to reach beyond mediocrity, for the memory of the nation it once was.

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But, in bygone times, sailors would have returned to their homes, extolling the wonders of a resplendent island. They would have sailed back to their distant ports with amazing tales of a rich land. An island nation that exported the most startling gems, the finest-quality steel and magical spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper that grew only in Lanka. At ports around the island, besides gems and spices, merchants would have bargained for cages of iridescent peacocks for the pleasure of distant nobles, and sailors would have shared passage with the largest elephants to be found – the most powerful war machines of that ancient world.

Through millennia, humans of every hue had peopled the island. Records, inscribed in both stone and palm leaf manuscripts, poems and songs, indicate large volumes of antique travellers. First, they had come to Lanka as simple sailors, bands of adventurers and exiles: there were accidental landings, small, deliberate flotillas, or latterly, in the Western style of an initial reconnaissance ship bearing an overdressed ambassador, to be followed by military might, looking to plunder. On rare occasions, even grand visitations in the fashion of the legendary fifteenth-century Chinese admiral Zheng He had stopped by the island. During his command of the Ming emperor’s navy, whenever his great fleet of 300 nine-masted ships sailed into the harbour, life by the coast would have come to a complete and awe-struck standstill. But the majority of people who peopled Lanka had come with far less pomp and grandeur.

Today, the evidence of this multifarious maritime traffic is easily found in the old bazaar of the island’s modern capital of Colombo. A stroll through the tight grid of Pita Kottuwa, now anglicised to Pettah, confirms the varied genetic traffic that has homed in on this island. Here, in the congested and colourful streets of Pita Kottuwa beats the heart of the island’s trade. Crowding the harbour shore and mushrooming off the fortification lines of the colonial fort, the cramped real estate that lines the narrow streets is packed tight as a packet of pastel marshmallows.

The old bazaar, which has puddled inland from the waterline, is where traders and coolies, pickpockets and priests of every denomination, mongrels and madams mingle with the wastrels and wanderers. Often, in search of brass locks or canvas by the roll, stationery, or even the best-quality citronella oil, I get distracted by the evidence of a delightful genetic cocktail that adds a dimension to the majority groups of Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. Behind the colourful chaos of displays of doorknobs, reams of iridescent ribbon and rolls of flouncy, psychedelic georgette, hefting sacks of Ayurvedic herbs, navigating carts full of fiery pickles or fielding black bundles of fat Jaffna cigars, are the most amazing faces. These are faces that know tales of longago marriages, clandestine trysts, audacious elopements, of lust and longing and fateful, reluctant rendezvous, romances and rackets that were inevitable, as countless sailors came ashore. Trading in dusty doorways, in the depths of the cavernous wholesale emporiums, even loitering in narrow alleyways or trundling overladen handcarts, are the keepers of the secrets of a fascinating admix of humanity. This ancient bazaar, occupied for generations with daily business, is a showcase of human races; of sallow-skinned Malays, hooked-nosed Arabs, heavylidded Central Asians or light-eyed residual of Europeans and peppercorn curled, unmistakable African blood, well-diluted in the predominant Dravidians and Aryans. These are the children of genetic collisions, off ships and submerged land bridges.

So, when did this peopling of an island begin? My quest was for a window into the standard narrative of the history of humankind on Lanka; an era when a human civilization could have advanced and then receded as rapidly as a montane mist. As global archaeology is increasingly unearthing evidence of sophisticated societies, which existed long before the standard timelines of human civilization, the window in which a preVijayan civilization could have existed on Lanka, is widening. But first, I need to trace the origins and interactions of the migrant tribes and clans with the island’s aborigines – when each of these varied strands of humanity were woven tight as warp and weft, into the complex pattern of the social fabric of this land.

Excerpted with permission from Ravana’s Lanka: The Landscape of a Lost Kingdom, Sunela Jayewardene, Penguin India.