Land, Migration, and Myth: Socio-Ecological Networks and the Making of Sinhala Ethnicity in the Indian Ocean Longue Durée

Abstract

This paper deconstructs the colonial categorization of Sinhala ethnicity by tracing its pre-colonial formation within the broader Indian Ocean world. Challenging the British colonial framing of ethnic identities as fixed and insular, it argues that Sinhala-ness emerged as a fluid, hybrid identity shaped by transregional migrations, ecological practices, and regional socio-political dynamics. Analysing the Vijaya origin myth as a narrative mechanism for absorbing mainland migrants, it illustrates how Sinhala cultivator society maintained relationality to each other and non-humans through land-based practices like tank irrigation. Situating Lanka within monsoon-driven trade and monastic networks (e.g., with Southeast Asia), the paper positions the consolidation of Theravada Buddhist monastic orders – emphasizing egalitarian spiritual access while elevating the sangha as a brahmin equivalent – as a response to the encroaching hegemony of Brahmin caste hierarchies on the mainland. By framing indigeneity as a land-based relationship, it highlights the coexistence of land-based cultivator and hunter-gatherer societies and critiques colonial/nationalist reifications of ethnicity and indigeneity. Offering a longue durée perspective, this study challenges the “islanding” of Lankan history, foregrounding its embeddedness in Indian Ocean socio-ecological networks.