Yavanas

[Raveen Satkurunathan]

On Thu, 23 Mar 2000 11:59:56 -0700, Yashwant Malaiya
<malaiya at CS.COLOSTATE.EDU> wrote:

>Responding to mine:
>> It remind me something that is completely unrelated to this
>> verse. One Jain sect, that once existed near Konkan region
>> was named Yaapaniiya in Sanskrit (jaavNiiya in Prakrit). I
>> have wondered about the origin of the term.
>
>What I was wondering about is: could JaavaNiiya have been Yaavaniiya
>rather than Yaapaniiya.
>
>Yashwant

Javaka people have been coming to Sri Lanka. One Javaka king Chandra Bhanu
invaded Sri Lanka with South Indian mercenary help and founded a town
called Javaka Kotta (Currently Chavakatcheri) in the Jaffna Peninsula of
Sri Lanka. He is credited by some historians as the progenitors of the
Hindu Tamil kingdom in north of Sri Lanka which lasted till the Portugese
colonial time period.

Further Javaka Hindus and Buddhists also fled to Sri Lanka during the
Islamization of Java. If there are Javanese settlements in Sri Lanka it is
not hard to imagine that they would have existed in India too. Someone more
versed in Sri Lankan history can provide you with the references.