Ravana,Vijaya, Tissa Hindu kings – TNA MP

By Saman Indrajith-December 17, 2013, 8:45 pm 

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians yesterday said, in Parliament, that Sri Lanka was originally a Hindu nation and its national anthem should be sung in Tamil. If Lanka’s national anthem could not be sung in Tamil in the North, there was no point in singing it in Sinhala there.

"Sri Lanka is a Hindu country. Ravana ruled this land. He was a Hindu king. The Mahavamsa confirms these facts. Therefore, Hindus’ rights should be protected. Ravana is a Siva follower," Batticaloa TNA MP S Yogeshwaran said.

Participating in the third reading stage debate, on budget 2014, under the expenditure heads of 23 ministries and Secretariat for Special Functions (Senior Ministers), MP Yogeshwaran said: "Vijaya too was a Tamil King. King Devanampiyatissa, too, converted to Hinduism. He also gave Hindu names to his children. Pandukabhaya, too, was a Hindu king who had followed Shaivism."

Batticaloa District TNA MP P. Ariyanethran said that there was no need to sing the national anthem in Tamil areas if it was not sung in Tamil. The North does not have the need of a national anthem sung in the Sinhala language, he said.

Public Relations Affairs Minister Mervyn Silva, responding to the demands of the TNA MPs, said: "Maha Ravana was a great Sinhala King. Sinhala kings brought princesses from India and married them. For the use of those women, brought down from India, the kings built kovils. So you cannot point out to these Kovils and say that Lanka was ruled by Hindu kings. This is not a Hindu land. God Kataragama was born in the Sakya clan. Do not misinterpret the history of this country.