Thursday, February 24, 2011
The jak tree
The jak tree is very tall. It bears fruits. The jak tree is very important to us because it gives us food and wood.The jak fruit is very tasty. Last week my mother cooked jak fruit. Ripe jak fruit is very tasty and is called Waraka.The leaves of the jak tree are eaten by cows and goats. With the timber from the tree we make many beautiful household furniture such as cupboards, chairs, tables and beds.There is a jak tree in my garden. It provides shade to my garden. Some people make medicines from parts of this tree.
The jak tree is a valuable tree and very useful too. So, we must protect our jak trees without cutting them down needlessly. We must plant a jak tree when we cut one.
Seasons
Seasons and climates are there because of the changing weather. Clouds, wind, rain, sun and snow contribute to the changes in the weather. However, the Moon has no air or water. So, there are no seasons and climates on the Moon. In Sri Lanka there are two seasons. They are the dry and rainy seasons. The weather becomes very hot in the dry season. Under this severe heat, streams and wells dry up in many places.
In some large lakes only muddy water remains. The fish in them die as a result. The water levels in rivers, tanks and wells all go down during the dry season.
Animals in jungles wander many miles in search of water. Both man and animal suffer due to the extreme heat and lack of water.
The South-West Monsoon and the North-East Monsoon usher in the rainy season. Tanks, rivers, streams, wells and all other water bodies begin to overflow.
Trees, shrubs, herbs and creepers become fresh and green. Animals and birds feed on grass, leaves, fruits and seeds. Farmers are happy as the dry season is over and now they can start the cultivation of crops.
Bogoda Bridge The oldest wooden bridge in Sri Lanka
My country, Sri Lanka has a rich cultural heritage and many historical places with old constructions. I like to tell you about the oldest wooden bridge in Sri Lanka, the Bogoda Bridge situated at Hali-Ela in Badulla. The bridge was built across the Gallanda Oya which is a branch of the Uma Oya. According to the legend surrounding this ancient bridge, a father and a son had been responsible for building this bridge. They had been very clever timber craftsmen.
It is completely made of wood without a single metal nail being used. The bridge is fifty feet long and five feet wide. It has a roof to protect the bridge and the people who go on it, from the rain.
The pillars are nicely carved with ancient designs. In the past it has been used, not only to get across the stream, but also as an “ambalama”. There is an old temple near the bridge. There is also a cave which the Buddhist Monks had lived in during ancient times. People still use this bridge which is in good condition. It is our duty to protect and appreciate these types of magnificent creations.
My little sister
My little sister’s name is Lakni Layanvi Edirisinghe. She is six years old. She studies at Musaeus College and goes to school by van. She is in Grade One. Her teacher’s name is Swarna Devasiri.She likes to eat apples and drink Sunquick.
Her best friend is Sarini. She likes dolls.
I love my little sister.
Hasali Hasara Edirisinghe, Grade 3-C, Musaeus College,Colombo 7.
Why we should protect the ozone layer
We know that there is an atmosphere around our home planet. This atmosphere contains mainly nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide gases.The ozone layer is in this atmosphere. It is quite important to the people, animals and plants that exist on the Earth.
The main function of the ozone layer is the prevention of harmful ultraviolet rays from reaching the Earth. Today, the careless activities of man has resulted in the depletion of the ozone layer. Nowadays the hot topic is the damage done to the ozone layer. Scientists believe that, as a result of the destruction of the ozone layer, man will have to suffer in the future. It has already led to global warming.
The main reason for the destruction of the ozone layer is environmental pollution. With the development of science and technology, new machines and vehicles have been invented to do various jobs; fossil fuels are used to operate most of them.
The gases released from these machines and also vehicles are very harmful to the environment. When the number of vehicles and machines increase, environmental pollution also increases. The ozone layer gets destroyed due to this air pollution.
If the ozone layer is destroyed what will happen to the world? All living beings will be eventually destroyed because of the harmful rays of the Sun. Therefore, the protection of the ozone layer is very important to all of us.
This is why there is an international day for the preservation of the ozone layer which is known as “The World Ozone Day”. It is commemorated on September 16. The international day was declared by the UN General Assembly on December 19, 1994.
In order to protect and preserve, the ozone layer, we must protect the environment first. In the past, our ancestors protected the environment as their life. This is clear from the Red Indian leader Seatle’s letter called “The Earth’s Song”. It is a good example to all of us. As people living on the Earth, it is our duty as well as our responsibility to protect the valuable ozone layer for the protection of our future generations.
A picnic on my birthday
It was a fine Saturday morning and my birthday. My parents, sister and I went on a picnic to the park. Mother packed the lunch, cake and some fruits in a basket and I filled the thermos flask with tea.When my father took the car out of the garage, my sister put the picnic basket and the mat into the car.When we reached the park my sister and I ran out of the car to play in the park. We played with a ball, sang songs and had our lunch. We ate the cake and fruits and drank tea later in the day. We then played hide and seek and had lots of fun. When it was time to leave I was very sad, but all in all, it was a wonderful day for me.
A.A. Udani Chathurangi Perera, Grade 5,Sarasavi Uyana Maha Vidyalaya.
Awaiting peace...
Explosions, bloodshed, dead bodies; that’s all we witness these days. That is what works in our minds all the time. No one knows what’ll happen next...
Pause for a while and see what’s going on around you. Think what is in the people’s hearts. We all have loved ones and we care for them. We never want to see loved ones suffering in hospitals without limbs; we never, ever want our loved ones to be sealed inside a coffin and burnt or buried. Do we? No! Not even in our dreams. Even though death is inevitable we do not want to be victims of war and terrorism. Some of you might have experienced it. It maybe one of your parents, siblings, cousins or friends who have been subject to this.
The people who are creating these explosives and detonating them are inhuman. Don’t they too have loved ones? But most of all, don’t they have a heart? Don’t such people at least have a sense of what’s going on around them? There are many people who are directly or indirectly involved in the war. Can’t any of them understand the tears of a child who has lost his/her parents?
People are suffering, fighting for their lives and praying for freedom from these horrors. Parents are ignoring their true feelings to let their children whom they love more than their own lives join the three Forces. They fight for freedom for their country and their people.
Sometimes they fail, but they rise again like a phoenix rising from the ashes. They die for the sake of their motherland. We count on them. We would not be able to sleep in the nights, having sweet dreams, if they were not awake fighting the terrorists.
Our country is full of wonders. It is the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. It was the Granary of the East. But today, it’s mostly famous for terrorism and bomb blasts. Our country has become a land of blood; cruelty is spreading all over. This was once a prosperous and peaceful land.
Think of the ripples. The water needs someone to make these ripples. Likewise, we need someone to stand up for freedom.
I hope this war will come to an end as soon as possible and peace would dawn. God must hear the cries of our people for freedom.
Peace and harmony must reign over this prosperous land once more.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
short history of kandyan kingdom & the kandyan convention.
Malvana Convention
When the Portuguese landed in Galle on November 15, 1505 Kingdoms of Kotte, Kandy, Jaffna and six more chieftaincies ruled in Sri Lanka. Kotte Kingdom ruled the southern and western lowlands, Kandyan Kingdom the mountainous central region, Jaffna Kingdom the north and the northern portion of the east and the chieftaincies the region between the Kingdoms of Kotte and Jaffna and the east and south.
Portuguese historian Joao de Barros in his book ‘The History of Ceylon from the Earliest Times to 1600 AD (Page 37) describes the political divisions of Sri Lanka as it existed during the arrival of the Portuguese in the following words:
Barros admits the biggest of them were Kotte, Kandy and Jaffna and says that each of them claimed that they were the rulers of the entire island.
The three kingdoms and the chieftaincies lost their sovereignty during the period of 310 years; Kotte in 1597, Jaffna in 1619, Vanni in 1802 and Kandy in 1815. Kotte went under the Portuguese through a deed of gift and Jaffna passed into Portuguese control when it lost the battle with them. Vanni and Kandy were captured by the British army.
Kotte fell on the lap of the Portuguese due to the infighting in the Royal family. The Portuguese who were interested in spice trade, especially in cinnamon, found that the Kotte Kingdom enjoyed the monopoly in that trade. The Portuguese commander Lourenço de Almeida who realized the strategic and commercial value of forging a close trade relationship with the rulers of Kotte proceeded to Kotte and met King, Dharma Parakramabahu, who gave him a friendly welcome.
The Portuguese soon entered into an agreement with Dharma Parakramabahu who agreed to provide them with regular supply of cinnamon. In 1518, Vijayabahu VI who succeeded Dharma Parakramabahu permitted the Portuguese to build a fort in Colombo to process cinnamon. In return, the Portuguese assured the King military help to defend his kingdom from enemies. Thus, the Portuguese became the allies of the Kotte Kings. This arrangement continued until 1551.
In that year, this relationship changed due to the succession dispute in Kotte into which the Portuguese were drawn in. Vijayabahu VI had three sons, Bhuvanekabahu, Rajasimha and Mayadune, and an adopted son Devarajasinghe. Vijayabahu VI and his ministers groomed Devarajasinghe to be the next king. The three sons revolted against Vijayabahu VI and laid siege to Kotte in 1521. Vijayabahu VI surrendered but was killed by the sons.
The brothers divided the Kingdom of Kotte among themselves and the eldest of them, Bhuvanekabahu was crowned the king of Kotte under the name Bhuwanekabahu VII and reigned till 1551. The portion Ravigama went to the second son Rajasimha and the other portion Sitavake to Mayadunne.
Mayadunne the most energetic and resourceful of the three brothers wanted to unite Kotte under his rule. He attacked Kotte but Bhuvanekabahu VII sought assistance from the Portuguese to protect his regime. The Portuguese provided the protection on condition that he becomes subservient to them.
Rajasimha, the ruler of Rivigama died in 1538 and Mayadunne annexed it to Sitavake with Bhuvanekabahu VII’s consent. But in the next year he attacked Kotte but was beaten back by the Kotte forces which were backed by the Portuguese. Though humiliated, Mayadunne’s popularity rose among the people of Kotte who resented the Portuguese trade practices and religious conversion activities.
Mayadunne and Prince Tikiri attacked Kotte and Colombo fort simultaneously. The Portuguese who realized that it was difficult to defend both Kotte and Colombo at the same time abandoned Kotte and shifted to Colombo taking King Dharmapala with them. The Kingdom of Kotte which had been the capital for over 150 years declined with the abandoning of Kotte by the king in 1565.
King Dharmapala who reached Colombo became a puppet ruler in the hands of the Portuguese.
On 12 August 1580, due to the insistence of the Portuguese, King Dharmapala vested the Kingdom of Kotte in the Portuguese by a deed of gift. One clause in the deed of gift was that if Dharmapala dies without an heir the Kingdom of Kotte should pass to the Portuguese. Dharmapala died on 29 May 1597 without an heir and the Kingdom of Kotte became a Portuguese possession.
Two days after Dharmapala’s death General Jeronimo De Azevedo held an assembly of chiefs of the Kotte Kingdom in Malwana and hoisted the Portuguese flag and proclaimed that the Kingdom of Kotte had passed on to the King of Portugal. In return he assured the chiefs that the administration would be carried on according to the traditional laws and customs that hitherto existed. From then onwards the Portuguese became the lawful heirs to Kingdom of Kotte.
The Portuguese made the transfer of the Kotte Kingdom legally valid through a treaty signed by King Philip 11 of Spain who was also king Philip 1 of Portugal, in his capacity as king of Portugal and the nobility of Kotte who were present in Malvana. In terms of this convention, the nobility of Kotte, on behalf of the people of Kotte freely accepted the sovereignty of King Philip and swore fealty to him as King of Kotte, by virtue of the last will and testament of the last king of Kotte, Don Juan Dharmapala 1, who died in 1596.
The contracting parties in this treaty were the King of Spain and the Indies, the most powerful ruler on earth during that period, as king of Portugal, and the representatives of the people of the kingdom of Kotte, an independent, legally constituted, diplomatically recognized, political entity which in other words, a sovereign state. The chiefs swore allegiance to the king of Portugal and, in return, were assured that their laws and customs would be left inviolate.
Nallur Convention
The Portuguese captured the Jaffna Kingdom by defeating King Sankili in battle. Thus unlike the low country Sinhalese who lost their sovereignty through a deed of gift Sri Lankan Tamils lost their freedom because they were conquered by the Portuguese.
When the Portuguese landed in Sri Lanka in 1515 Jaffna Kingdom was ruled by Pararajasekaran (1478-1519). The Portuguese did not show any interest in the Jaffna Kingdom as cinnamon or spices in which they traded were not available there. Their attention was drawn to the Jaffna Kingdom accidentally. One of their cargo ships was shipwrecked near Jaffna coast in 1543. Sankili, who succeeded Pararajasekaran in 1519 and ruled till 1561 confiscated the cargo following the custom that all ships stranded in the shallow sea belonged to the ruler of the land adjoining the sea. He also imprisoned the survivors. The Portuguese contacted Sankili and made him pay them the value of the goods and release their men.
Their next contact with the Jaffna Kingdom was also in the same year. Early that year Fr. Francis Xavier, a Portuguese Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order, visited Mannar and converted 600- 700 fishermen and pearl divers. Sankili saw in this a grave threat to Jaffna's economy and security. He realized that the immensely valuable pearl fisheries would be lost and Mannar would be turned into a bridgehead for a Portuguese invading army.
In July 1544, Sankili led an expedition to Mannar and demanded all the converts to return to Hinduism. When they refused, he slaughtered them. Fr. Francis Xavier who was stationed in Goa where the Portuguese had their headquarters appealed to the Portuguese Viceroy to punish the Jaffna King. The Portuguese sent an army commanded by Martin Alphonsus De Souza and it camped in Delft but it left when Sankili offered valuable presents.
Portuguese were angered by Sankili’s anti- Portuguese activities. To put an end to them and to seal off the supply route to Kandy and to take complete control of the trade routs that ran through Palk Straits Portuguese captured the Jaffna Kingdom. How Sankili died is not clear. The Jaffna University publication Yalpana Irachchium says with definiteness that Sankili was not captured by the Portuguese. But Portuguese documents say he was captured.
The History of Ceylon by M.G. Francis, an abridged translation of Prof. Peter Coortenay’s work, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual conquest of Ceylon’ (1658) maintains that he was captured. It says he was sent to Colombo and then to Goa where he was tried for high treason and for the many crimes he had committed and condemned to death.
The Portuguese took over the administrative authority of the Jaffna Kingdom in 1570 but permitted Periya Pillai to rule. He was overthrown 1582 by Sankili's son, Puviraja Pandaram. Like his father, Puviraja Pandaram followed an anti-Portuguese policy. He sought the help of the Zamorin of Calicut and attacked Mannar. But the expedition failed.
In 1591, the Portuguese sent a large army under Furtado Mendonca to curb Puviraja Pandaram’s activities. It landed in Mannar and marched to Jaffna, massacred 800 of Puviraja Pandaram's soldiers and killed Puviraja Pandaram.
Mendonca then summoned the Tamil chiefs and the Mudaliyars for a convention at Nallur. He asked the assembled chiefs to submit to the King of Portugal’s suzerainty. He declared that he would maintain the distinct laws and customs of the Tamil kingdom. The Tamil chiefs accepted the offer and took oath of allegiance to the king of Portugal. The ceremony was followed by the signing of a treaty. King Philip 111 of Spain signed the treaty in his capacity of King Philip 11 of Portugal and the Tamil chiefs and Mudaliyars of the kingdom of Jaffna on behalf of the people of Jaffna.
The Tamil chiefs freely acknowledged through this treaty the sovereignty of King Philip and swore fealty to him as King of Jaffna, by virtue of the conquest of the kingdom by the Portuguese forces in 1616. As in the Malvana Convention the contracting parties were the King of Spain, as king of Portugal, and the representatives of the people of the kingdom of Jaffna, an independent, legally constituted, diplomatically recognized, political entity – a sovereign state.
The Portuguese commander on the advice of the chiefs placed on the throne Ethirmannasinghan, the youngest son of Periya Pillai. He was crowned the king of Jaffna in the name of the King of Portugal. He took in accordance with tradition the royal name Pararajasekaran.
By these two treaties the Crown of Portugal came into possession of two separate states of Kotte and Jaffna, and they were so governed by the Portuguese crown as two territories. The budgets and statements of income and expenditure of the two territories were submitted to the treasury in Lisbon as two separate records, throughout the period 1618 to 1658.
Ethirmanasingham too yielded to Hindu pressure and adopted an anti-Portuguese stand. He obtained help from Nayakas of Thanjavur and struck an alliance with the Kings of Kandy, Vimaladharmasuriya I (1593-1604) and Senarat (1604-1635) who were anti-Portuguese. He died in 1617.
On his death his nephew Sankili Kumaran seized the crown. The Portuguese captain who was in Mannar could not interfere. He exacted two promises from Sankili Kumaran: to permit the spread of Christianity and not to aid the Sinhalese rebels who were resisting the Portuguese rule. The Portuguese exacted the second promise because they were at that time interested in capturing the Kandyan Kingdom.
Sankili Kumaran did not keep his word as the people of his kingdom was resisting religious conversion. He sought help from Ragunatha Nayakar of Thanjavur to oppose the Portuguese. He also made attempts to contact the Dutch who had landed in Batticaloa. The Portuguese considered this as treachery and sent an army to Jaffna to punish Sankili Kumaran.
The Portuguese army which travelled by land and sea was under the command of Oliveriya. He sent three demands to Sankili Kumaran. They were: to surrender all the troops that came from Tanjavur; to surrender Varuna Kulattan, the Karava chief and to pay all moneys, he owed to the Portuguese sovereign. Sankili Kumaran refused to comply and the Portuguese army entered Jaffna. His forces fought back valiantly but were beaten at the Battle of Vannarpannai.
Sankili Kumaran with his family set to sail to Thanjavur to seek assistance from Ragunatha Nayakar. Adverse wind blew his boat towards Point Pedro where he was captured. Sankili Kumaran and his family were arrested and taken prisoners by the Portuguese. They were first taken to Nallur; from there, he was sent to Colombo and then to Goa where he was imprisoned. In Goa, he was tried for high treason by the Portuguese High Court and sentenced to death. He was hanged in 1621.
Following the arrest of Sankili Kumaran Filipe de Oliveriya, the Captain Major of the Portuguese army was installed as the Governor of the Jaffna Kingdom. But the Tamils continued their resistance. A Tamil Karava chief invaded the Jaffna Kingdom but was beaten back.
Two more attempts were made to expel the Portuguese from Jaffna. An influential Karava chieftain, Sinna Meegampillai Arachie, laid siege of Nallur in March 1620 with the help of soldiers from Thanjavur and the rebels within Jaffna. Portuguese broke the siege and drove him back. Meegampillai returned again in November 1620 with soldiers from Tamil Nadu but the Portuguese prevented them from landing. The final attempt to drive the Portuguese away was made in December 1620. An army of 2000 soldiers from Thsmjsvur landed at Thondamanaru on 5 December 1620 under the command of Varuna Kulatan. The war dragged on till February 11, 1621 but the invaders were beaten back. The Jaffna Kingdom thus fell into the hands of the Portuguese and the Tamils lost their sovereignty.
Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism
The Jaffna Kingdom that ruled northern Sri Lanka for 404 years (1215-1619) generated among the Sri Lankan Tamils a sense of a separate identity. They began to feel that though they are Tamils and shared with the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and other parts of the globe a Tamil identity they also possessed a distinct and separate identity: a Sri Lsankan Tamil identity. Professors K. Kailasapathy and K. Sivathamby, both of the Jaffna University, called that was the starting point of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism.
Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism is based on historical, linguistic, religious, social and cultural factors. The Sri Lankan Tamils are proud of their history, especially of the achievements of the Jaffna kingdom. They are proud that Jaffna Kingdom was the last Tamil- Hindu state that existed in the world. The last Tamil- Hindu state of South India was the Pandiya kingdom which was destroyed due to the Islamic invasion in 1334 AD. Jaffna Kingdom was the only Tamil- Hindu state in the world from 1334 to 1619.
Linguistically, though Sri Lankan Tamils spoke Tamil like the rest of the Tamil people they had preserved the ancient Sangam words and usages. Due to that Sri Lankan Tamils have developed a separate dialect. Sri Lankan Tamils have developed their own literature while contributing to the general development of Tamil literature. In some areas Sri Lankan Tamils have paved the way for the development of Tamil literature. Jaffna initiated the Hindu and Tamil revival movements in mid- 19th Century.
In the literary field too Jaffna excelled. The kings encouraged education, writing and translating literary works and books on medicine. They organized Tamil Sangam on the lines of the Madurai Tamil Sangam. They also started a library called the Saraswathy Mahal in Nallur. It served as the royal repository of all literary output of the kingdom.
In religion too the Sri Lankan Tamils have developed a separate identity during the period of the Jaffna Kingdom. They followed the Saiva Siddantha practices as opposed to Brahmanical practices of Tamil Nadu. Sri Lankan Tamils give importance to Thai Pongal, the festival of agriculturists, while Tamils in Tamil Nadu give importance to Dipavali. They give more importance to Tamil devotional hymns.
Jaffna kings had encouraged the study of medicine and astrology. Sri Lankan Tamils have developed siddha system of medicine. They have also developed a different social structure. Brahmins do not play an important role in society. Sri Lankan Tamils have also developed their own system of law called Thesavalamai.
Sri Lankan Tamils, thus, have developed a separate identity and wish to retain it. As Sivathamby effectively said, “Sri Lankan Tamils want to be Tamils and Sri Lankans.”
Separate Administrations
The Portuguese implemented Malvana and Nallur Conventions. The areas under the Kotte and Jaffna Kingdoms were administered as separate units. Portuguese historian Fathger Fernao De Queroz in his book Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon Volume I page 5 gives the extent of the area that came under the Jaffna Kingdom. He said it comprised the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni and extended from Mannarin the west to Trincomalee in the east.
The Portuguese brought the kingdoms of Kotte and Jaffna under the control of the Kingdom of Portugal and the King of Portugual became the monarch of the people of Kotte and Jaffna. The Portuguese king placed the administration of Kotte and Jaffna under his representative, the Viceroy at Goa. Thereafter, all the major decisions concerning the governance of Kotte and Jaffna were taken at Goa. The Viceroy’s representative, Captain General of the Conquest, who resided in Colombo, became the virtual ruler of Kotte and Jaffna.
The Portuguese honouring their obligations under the Malvana and Nallur conventions administered the territories of Kotte and Jaffna separately. Separate officials called Captain Majors were appointed to administer the two territories. They were assisted by revenue officers called Factors who functioned as the Treasurer, Auditor and Chief Judicial Officer of each territory. A group of Portuguese officials who headed the various departments worked under him. The Ecclesiastical affairs of Kotte and Jaffna were made part of the diocese of Cochin, whose Bishop administered the two territories through separate Vicar Generals.
In Jaffna and Kotte the Portuguese retained the traditional administrative machinery of each territory to run the ground level administration. These officials were required to adopt Roman Catholicism to enable them to continue to hold their posts. The Sinhalese and Tamil aristocracy which enjoyed tremendous power and influence under the traditional administrative system of Kotte and Jaffna was thus relegated to secondary positions. The Portuguese also tried to cut down their numbers.
The Portuguese emphasis on proselytization spurred the development and standardization of educational institutions. Mission schools were opened as a means of conversion where the medium of instruction was Portuguese and Tamil. The Franciscans founded 25 parish schools and the Jesuits 12. They also established colleges for higher education in the Jaffna peninsula. In these schools religion, good manners (viores), reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, and Latin were taught. Education was free. For a while, Portuguese became not only the language of the upper classes of Sri Lanka but also the lingua franca of prominence in the Asian maritime world.
The Dutch East India Co. (VOC) conquered the states of Jaffna and Kotte in 1658. The VOC ratified its conquest of the Portuguese possessions in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and other parts of Asia by signing a treaty with Portugal. The treaty known as the Treaty of 1658 was signed by King John 1 of Portugal and the VOC. The Portuguese territories in Sri Lanka, Kotte and Jaffna, were described separately in two distinct schedules.
The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Sri Lanka in June 1648 and ruled until 1798 when they were expelled by the British. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch administered the two territories separately.
Treaty of Amiens
By the end of the 18th Century Dutch power was on the decline and the power of Britain and France was on the rise. They tried to capture the Dutch colonies. The British East India Company formed at Madras in 1639 captured Tamil Nadu and the adjoining areas established the Madras Presidency. In 1796 the east India Company captured the territories controlled by the Dutch in Sri Lanka.
France which had captured Pondicherry and Karaikaal on the western coast of South India tried to take control of the Dutch possessions in Sri Lanka. This competition was brought to an end on March 25, 1802 when the French Republic and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Amiens. The treaty was signed by Joseph Bonaparte and Marquess Cornwallis on behalf of France and the United Kingdom. Under the treaty the United Kingdom recognised the French Republic which it had claimed as part of its possession from 1340.
To that treaty the territories under the control of the United Kingdom and France were annexed in a series of schedules. Jaffna and Kotte are listed in separate schedules. Anthony Hensman who wrote on this subject in the Daily Mirror two years ago says, “
A whole world of historical and political exploration and discovery is open to those genuine scholars, both of the majority and minorities, to examine the original documents, beginning with the Treaties of Malvana, Nallur and Kandy, subscribed by the ancient peoples of the country, under their time-honoured and traditional, separate and distinctive, historical and political identities, and extending to the treaties between the Portuguese crown and the V.O.C. of 1658, and between the latter and the British crown in 1803. If the protocol copies of these treaties are not with the Colombo archives, the originals would be with the archives in Lisbon, the Hague and London. The schedules and maps which form a substantive part of these treaties should make interesting and revelatory reading.
Kandyan Treaty of 1638
The Portuguese which had established its control over Kotte tried to bring the entire country under its dominance. To tackle the Portuguese attempt Kandyan King Rajasinghe II worked out an agreement with the Dutch who were stationed at Batticaloa to protect his kingdom.
The treaty known as the Kandyan Treaty of 1638 was signed William Jacobsz Coster, a commander and vice commander of the Dutch Naval Forces, for theDutch East India Company and King Rajasinghe II on May 23, 1638 inBatticaloa. The treaty secured the terms under which the two nations would cooperate in defending the Kandyan Kingdom from the Portuguese. The treaty mentions the Kandyan Kingdom which the Portuguese were trying to capture as a nation.
The Kandyan Convention
The British East India Company that captured the Dutch territories in Sri Lanka administered them as part of the Madras Presidency. The British government, realizing the strategic importance of Sri Lanka decided to take them over from the company. It sent Fredrick North to take over the administration. It declared Sri Lanka a crown colony in 1802 and appointed North as the first British governor.
North decided to bring the entire island under the British rule and captured Vanni by defeating its ruler Bandara Vanniyan. His next target was the Kandyan Kingdom. While North was making secret preparations a plot was hatched by the most powerful chief of the royal court. Maha Adikaram Pilimatalawe. His plan was to obtain the help of the British to depose the king and take his place.
Pilimatalawe met North secretly at Sitawaka and requested the British to take possession of the Kandyan Kingdom and help him to be the king. In return he promised liberal trade concessions. North did not evince interest in Pilimatalawe’s scheme. He decided to make use of the dissension in the royal court to bring the Kandyan Kingdom under the British rule.
The King smelt the plot and broke away from the plotting Pilimatalawe. North started implementing his plan to take over the Kandyan Kingdom. He sent Gen. Hay Macdowall to Kandy to meet the king and negotiate a deal to make the Kandyan Kingdom a British protectorate. The king turned down the offer.
Lieut-Gen. Sir Robert Brownrigg assumed duties as the Governor on March 11, 1812. He decided to make use of the confusion in Kandy to capture it. He and his deputy D'Oyly received Ehelepola Maha Adikaram ho succeeded Pilimatalawe at the Governor's residence in Mount Lavinia. The Governor promised him his favour and protection if he rebelled against the king.
Ehelepola worked out the plan for a military attack on Kandy. The Governor declared war against the king of Kandy on January 10, 1815. A British division entered Kandy February 14, 1815, and took possession of the city and sent Ehelepola to capture the king. The king went into hiding but was soon discovered at a place closer to Meda Mahanuwara in Kandy.
Four days later the king was bound, plundered of his valuables and dragged away with the greatest indignity by the supporters of Ehelepola, and was brought to Colombo for deportation to Vellore in South India, where his consorts and other kith and kin were based.
Two weeks after the capture of the king, on March 2, 1815, the Kandyan Convention (treaty proceedings) was held in the same Audience Halll where the king used to preside. This time Governor Robert Brownrigg presided. The historic date was 2 March, 1815.
He received Maha Nilame Ehelapola, and the Dissawas led by Molligoda. Ehelepola, together with John D'Oyly of the British Civil Service who engineered the coup.
The treaty was read by D'Oyly in English and Mudaliyar de Saram in Sinhala declaring that Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe and all his family were forever excluded from the throne.
The Kandyans were assured that their new rulers would respect their laws, institutions and customs and that the religion of the Buddha would be inviolable.
Nobles who had assisted the British invasion were restored to the rule of their original provinces with the promise that their privileges and powers would be respected so long as they carried out their administration with the general policy of the British government.
Signatories to the Treaty were Governor Brownrigg, Ehelepola and the Dissawas Molligoda, Pilimatalawe the elder, Pilimatalawa Junior, Monerawila, Molligoda the younger, Dullewe, Ratwatte, Millawa, Galgama and Galegoda. The signatures were witnessed by D'Oyly, now British resident in Kandy and Deputy Secretary James Sutherland.
Two further conferences were held at the Audience Hall. One week later Governor Brownrigg received the Ven. Kobbekaduwa Mahanayaka Thera of Malwatte and the Ven. Yatawatte Mahanayaka Thera of Asgiriya. He gave them his personal assurance on behalf of the British Crown that the Sangha would be protected and the temples held sacred.
This conference was immediately followed by another to discuss with the chiefs the return of the sacred Dalada to the temple of the Tooth and the tutelary deities to their sanctuaries in the Devasanghinda.
The Kandy Convention consisted 12 clauses. The summary:
Malvana Convention, Kandyan Convention and the Treaty of 1638 provide indirect proof for the separate autonomous existence of Jaffna for 214 years. Nallur Convention, Treaty of 1658 and Treaty of Amiens provide direct proff for Jaffna’s autonomy.
When the Portuguese landed in Galle on November 15, 1505 Kingdoms of Kotte, Kandy, Jaffna and six more chieftaincies ruled in Sri Lanka. Kotte Kingdom ruled the southern and western lowlands, Kandyan Kingdom the mountainous central region, Jaffna Kingdom the north and the northern portion of the east and the chieftaincies the region between the Kingdoms of Kotte and Jaffna and the east and south.
Portuguese historian Joao de Barros in his book ‘The History of Ceylon from the Earliest Times to 1600 AD (Page 37) describes the political divisions of Sri Lanka as it existed during the arrival of the Portuguese in the following words:
At present what is to the purpose of our history is to know that it is divided into nine states, and each of these is called a kingdom.
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A Portuguese ship |
The three kingdoms and the chieftaincies lost their sovereignty during the period of 310 years; Kotte in 1597, Jaffna in 1619, Vanni in 1802 and Kandy in 1815. Kotte went under the Portuguese through a deed of gift and Jaffna passed into Portuguese control when it lost the battle with them. Vanni and Kandy were captured by the British army.
Kotte fell on the lap of the Portuguese due to the infighting in the Royal family. The Portuguese who were interested in spice trade, especially in cinnamon, found that the Kotte Kingdom enjoyed the monopoly in that trade. The Portuguese commander Lourenço de Almeida who realized the strategic and commercial value of forging a close trade relationship with the rulers of Kotte proceeded to Kotte and met King, Dharma Parakramabahu, who gave him a friendly welcome.
The Portuguese soon entered into an agreement with Dharma Parakramabahu who agreed to provide them with regular supply of cinnamon. In 1518, Vijayabahu VI who succeeded Dharma Parakramabahu permitted the Portuguese to build a fort in Colombo to process cinnamon. In return, the Portuguese assured the King military help to defend his kingdom from enemies. Thus, the Portuguese became the allies of the Kotte Kings. This arrangement continued until 1551.
In that year, this relationship changed due to the succession dispute in Kotte into which the Portuguese were drawn in. Vijayabahu VI had three sons, Bhuvanekabahu, Rajasimha and Mayadune, and an adopted son Devarajasinghe. Vijayabahu VI and his ministers groomed Devarajasinghe to be the next king. The three sons revolted against Vijayabahu VI and laid siege to Kotte in 1521. Vijayabahu VI surrendered but was killed by the sons.
The brothers divided the Kingdom of Kotte among themselves and the eldest of them, Bhuvanekabahu was crowned the king of Kotte under the name Bhuwanekabahu VII and reigned till 1551. The portion Ravigama went to the second son Rajasimha and the other portion Sitavake to Mayadunne.
Mayadunne the most energetic and resourceful of the three brothers wanted to unite Kotte under his rule. He attacked Kotte but Bhuvanekabahu VII sought assistance from the Portuguese to protect his regime. The Portuguese provided the protection on condition that he becomes subservient to them.
Rajasimha, the ruler of Rivigama died in 1538 and Mayadunne annexed it to Sitavake with Bhuvanekabahu VII’s consent. But in the next year he attacked Kotte but was beaten back by the Kotte forces which were backed by the Portuguese. Though humiliated, Mayadunne’s popularity rose among the people of Kotte who resented the Portuguese trade practices and religious conversion activities.
Fearing that Mayadunne might overthrow him and his grandson Dharmapala Pandaram whom he wanted to be his successor, Bhuvanekabahu VII requested the Portuguese in 1543 to formally approve his grandson as his successor. In his letter, he addressed the Portuguese King João III, as "my Lord" or "my Senhor," and in a letter to the Governor in Goa, he said: "I am a Vassal of the King my Lord." Following this request, the Portuguese placed a strong guard under an officer at the King's Palace.
Bhuvanekabahu VII sent a golden statue of his infant grandson to Lisbon and secured the Portuguese monarch’s guarantee that his grandson would succeed him to the throne of Kotte. When Bhuvanekabahu VII died in 1551 the Portuguese installed Dharmapala Pandaram on the throne of Kotte as a nominal sovereign. Thus the Portuguese became the protectors of Kotte in 1551.
In 1557 King Dharmapala was baptized as Don Juan Periya Bandara. The Buddhist monks and a large number of Buddhist layman who were displeased that their king had become a non – Buddhist took the Sacred Tooth Relic and moved to Sitawaka, the Kingdom of Mayadunne.Mayadunne and Prince Tikiri attacked Kotte and Colombo fort simultaneously. The Portuguese who realized that it was difficult to defend both Kotte and Colombo at the same time abandoned Kotte and shifted to Colombo taking King Dharmapala with them. The Kingdom of Kotte which had been the capital for over 150 years declined with the abandoning of Kotte by the king in 1565.
King Dharmapala who reached Colombo became a puppet ruler in the hands of the Portuguese.
On 12 August 1580, due to the insistence of the Portuguese, King Dharmapala vested the Kingdom of Kotte in the Portuguese by a deed of gift. One clause in the deed of gift was that if Dharmapala dies without an heir the Kingdom of Kotte should pass to the Portuguese. Dharmapala died on 29 May 1597 without an heir and the Kingdom of Kotte became a Portuguese possession.
Two days after Dharmapala’s death General Jeronimo De Azevedo held an assembly of chiefs of the Kotte Kingdom in Malwana and hoisted the Portuguese flag and proclaimed that the Kingdom of Kotte had passed on to the King of Portugal. In return he assured the chiefs that the administration would be carried on according to the traditional laws and customs that hitherto existed. From then onwards the Portuguese became the lawful heirs to Kingdom of Kotte.
The Portuguese made the transfer of the Kotte Kingdom legally valid through a treaty signed by King Philip 11 of Spain who was also king Philip 1 of Portugal, in his capacity as king of Portugal and the nobility of Kotte who were present in Malvana. In terms of this convention, the nobility of Kotte, on behalf of the people of Kotte freely accepted the sovereignty of King Philip and swore fealty to him as King of Kotte, by virtue of the last will and testament of the last king of Kotte, Don Juan Dharmapala 1, who died in 1596.
The contracting parties in this treaty were the King of Spain and the Indies, the most powerful ruler on earth during that period, as king of Portugal, and the representatives of the people of the kingdom of Kotte, an independent, legally constituted, diplomatically recognized, political entity which in other words, a sovereign state. The chiefs swore allegiance to the king of Portugal and, in return, were assured that their laws and customs would be left inviolate.
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Statue of Sankili |
The Portuguese captured the Jaffna Kingdom by defeating King Sankili in battle. Thus unlike the low country Sinhalese who lost their sovereignty through a deed of gift Sri Lankan Tamils lost their freedom because they were conquered by the Portuguese.
When the Portuguese landed in Sri Lanka in 1515 Jaffna Kingdom was ruled by Pararajasekaran (1478-1519). The Portuguese did not show any interest in the Jaffna Kingdom as cinnamon or spices in which they traded were not available there. Their attention was drawn to the Jaffna Kingdom accidentally. One of their cargo ships was shipwrecked near Jaffna coast in 1543. Sankili, who succeeded Pararajasekaran in 1519 and ruled till 1561 confiscated the cargo following the custom that all ships stranded in the shallow sea belonged to the ruler of the land adjoining the sea. He also imprisoned the survivors. The Portuguese contacted Sankili and made him pay them the value of the goods and release their men.
Their next contact with the Jaffna Kingdom was also in the same year. Early that year Fr. Francis Xavier, a Portuguese Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order, visited Mannar and converted 600- 700 fishermen and pearl divers. Sankili saw in this a grave threat to Jaffna's economy and security. He realized that the immensely valuable pearl fisheries would be lost and Mannar would be turned into a bridgehead for a Portuguese invading army.
In July 1544, Sankili led an expedition to Mannar and demanded all the converts to return to Hinduism. When they refused, he slaughtered them. Fr. Francis Xavier who was stationed in Goa where the Portuguese had their headquarters appealed to the Portuguese Viceroy to punish the Jaffna King. The Portuguese sent an army commanded by Martin Alphonsus De Souza and it camped in Delft but it left when Sankili offered valuable presents.
The Portuguese sent another expedition of 77 ships with 4000 troops in 1558 under Constantine de Braganca and captured Jaffna. Sankili withdrew to Pachilaipalli. He then made peace with the Portuguese offering to give them 12 elephants and 1200 sovereigns every year and returned to power, but he lost Mannar. Thus, he lost the pearl fishery and the control of the trade and shipping routes in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Straits, a major source of revenue for his Kingdom. The Portuguese built a fort in Mannar making use of the building material they obtained by demolishing the Thirukeetheswaram temple in Mannar.
Sankili continued his policy of resisting Portuguese intrusion. He joined forces with the Sinhalese kings who resisted Portuguese incursions. He sent a detachment of his army to fight along with the Sinhalese army led by the Sittawaka king Mayadunne. That expedition failed. Then when Vidya Pandara fled to Jaffna with his son after falling out with the King of Kotte and the Portuguese, Sankili welcomed him warmly. Prof. S. Pathmanathan says in his paper “The Kingdom of Jaffna before the Portuguese conquest (Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka) that Vidya Bandara was killed while he was within the Veeramakali Amman kovil by the Sinhalese in Jaffna who revolted. Sankili deeply regretted his death and built a memorial, the Puthar Rasar Kovil in the northern precinct of Nallur. Sankili also permitted the transport of men and material through his kingdom to Kandy.Portuguese were angered by Sankili’s anti- Portuguese activities. To put an end to them and to seal off the supply route to Kandy and to take complete control of the trade routs that ran through Palk Straits Portuguese captured the Jaffna Kingdom. How Sankili died is not clear. The Jaffna University publication Yalpana Irachchium says with definiteness that Sankili was not captured by the Portuguese. But Portuguese documents say he was captured.
The History of Ceylon by M.G. Francis, an abridged translation of Prof. Peter Coortenay’s work, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual conquest of Ceylon’ (1658) maintains that he was captured. It says he was sent to Colombo and then to Goa where he was tried for high treason and for the many crimes he had committed and condemned to death.
Portuguese interference in the affairs of the Jaffna Kingdom increased with the death of Sankili but they were not powerful enough to impose their will. Thus there was confusion and instability there. Sankili’s son Puvi Raja Pandaram, to whom Sankili handed over the kingdom ruled for four years (1561- 1565).
Periya Pillai (1565-1582) ascended the throne in 1565 replacing Puvi Raja Pandaram. How that happened is not clear but Portuguese records suggest that they had an important role to play. Periya Pillai at the start acted on the directions of the Portuguese. They made him to pay an annual tributary payment of ten tuskers or their worth in money.
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| The map shows the territories administered by the Dutch in 1796. They were Jaffna Commandant, Colombo Commandant and Galle Commandant. Rest of the country was under the Kandyan Kingdom. |
In 1591, the Portuguese sent a large army under Furtado Mendonca to curb Puviraja Pandaram’s activities. It landed in Mannar and marched to Jaffna, massacred 800 of Puviraja Pandaram's soldiers and killed Puviraja Pandaram.
Mendonca then summoned the Tamil chiefs and the Mudaliyars for a convention at Nallur. He asked the assembled chiefs to submit to the King of Portugal’s suzerainty. He declared that he would maintain the distinct laws and customs of the Tamil kingdom. The Tamil chiefs accepted the offer and took oath of allegiance to the king of Portugal. The ceremony was followed by the signing of a treaty. King Philip 111 of Spain signed the treaty in his capacity of King Philip 11 of Portugal and the Tamil chiefs and Mudaliyars of the kingdom of Jaffna on behalf of the people of Jaffna.
The Tamil chiefs freely acknowledged through this treaty the sovereignty of King Philip and swore fealty to him as King of Jaffna, by virtue of the conquest of the kingdom by the Portuguese forces in 1616. As in the Malvana Convention the contracting parties were the King of Spain, as king of Portugal, and the representatives of the people of the kingdom of Jaffna, an independent, legally constituted, diplomatically recognized, political entity – a sovereign state.
The Portuguese commander on the advice of the chiefs placed on the throne Ethirmannasinghan, the youngest son of Periya Pillai. He was crowned the king of Jaffna in the name of the King of Portugal. He took in accordance with tradition the royal name Pararajasekaran.
By these two treaties the Crown of Portugal came into possession of two separate states of Kotte and Jaffna, and they were so governed by the Portuguese crown as two territories. The budgets and statements of income and expenditure of the two territories were submitted to the treasury in Lisbon as two separate records, throughout the period 1618 to 1658.
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Manthri Manai: The surviving portion of the Minister’s mansion |
On his death his nephew Sankili Kumaran seized the crown. The Portuguese captain who was in Mannar could not interfere. He exacted two promises from Sankili Kumaran: to permit the spread of Christianity and not to aid the Sinhalese rebels who were resisting the Portuguese rule. The Portuguese exacted the second promise because they were at that time interested in capturing the Kandyan Kingdom.
Sankili Kumaran did not keep his word as the people of his kingdom was resisting religious conversion. He sought help from Ragunatha Nayakar of Thanjavur to oppose the Portuguese. He also made attempts to contact the Dutch who had landed in Batticaloa. The Portuguese considered this as treachery and sent an army to Jaffna to punish Sankili Kumaran.
The Portuguese army which travelled by land and sea was under the command of Oliveriya. He sent three demands to Sankili Kumaran. They were: to surrender all the troops that came from Tanjavur; to surrender Varuna Kulattan, the Karava chief and to pay all moneys, he owed to the Portuguese sovereign. Sankili Kumaran refused to comply and the Portuguese army entered Jaffna. His forces fought back valiantly but were beaten at the Battle of Vannarpannai.
Sankili Kumaran with his family set to sail to Thanjavur to seek assistance from Ragunatha Nayakar. Adverse wind blew his boat towards Point Pedro where he was captured. Sankili Kumaran and his family were arrested and taken prisoners by the Portuguese. They were first taken to Nallur; from there, he was sent to Colombo and then to Goa where he was imprisoned. In Goa, he was tried for high treason by the Portuguese High Court and sentenced to death. He was hanged in 1621.
Following the arrest of Sankili Kumaran Filipe de Oliveriya, the Captain Major of the Portuguese army was installed as the Governor of the Jaffna Kingdom. But the Tamils continued their resistance. A Tamil Karava chief invaded the Jaffna Kingdom but was beaten back.
Two more attempts were made to expel the Portuguese from Jaffna. An influential Karava chieftain, Sinna Meegampillai Arachie, laid siege of Nallur in March 1620 with the help of soldiers from Thanjavur and the rebels within Jaffna. Portuguese broke the siege and drove him back. Meegampillai returned again in November 1620 with soldiers from Tamil Nadu but the Portuguese prevented them from landing. The final attempt to drive the Portuguese away was made in December 1620. An army of 2000 soldiers from Thsmjsvur landed at Thondamanaru on 5 December 1620 under the command of Varuna Kulatan. The war dragged on till February 11, 1621 but the invaders were beaten back. The Jaffna Kingdom thus fell into the hands of the Portuguese and the Tamils lost their sovereignty.
Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism
The Jaffna Kingdom that ruled northern Sri Lanka for 404 years (1215-1619) generated among the Sri Lankan Tamils a sense of a separate identity. They began to feel that though they are Tamils and shared with the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and other parts of the globe a Tamil identity they also possessed a distinct and separate identity: a Sri Lsankan Tamil identity. Professors K. Kailasapathy and K. Sivathamby, both of the Jaffna University, called that was the starting point of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism.
Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism is based on historical, linguistic, religious, social and cultural factors. The Sri Lankan Tamils are proud of their history, especially of the achievements of the Jaffna kingdom. They are proud that Jaffna Kingdom was the last Tamil- Hindu state that existed in the world. The last Tamil- Hindu state of South India was the Pandiya kingdom which was destroyed due to the Islamic invasion in 1334 AD. Jaffna Kingdom was the only Tamil- Hindu state in the world from 1334 to 1619.
Linguistically, though Sri Lankan Tamils spoke Tamil like the rest of the Tamil people they had preserved the ancient Sangam words and usages. Due to that Sri Lankan Tamils have developed a separate dialect. Sri Lankan Tamils have developed their own literature while contributing to the general development of Tamil literature. In some areas Sri Lankan Tamils have paved the way for the development of Tamil literature. Jaffna initiated the Hindu and Tamil revival movements in mid- 19th Century.
In the literary field too Jaffna excelled. The kings encouraged education, writing and translating literary works and books on medicine. They organized Tamil Sangam on the lines of the Madurai Tamil Sangam. They also started a library called the Saraswathy Mahal in Nallur. It served as the royal repository of all literary output of the kingdom.
In religion too the Sri Lankan Tamils have developed a separate identity during the period of the Jaffna Kingdom. They followed the Saiva Siddantha practices as opposed to Brahmanical practices of Tamil Nadu. Sri Lankan Tamils give importance to Thai Pongal, the festival of agriculturists, while Tamils in Tamil Nadu give importance to Dipavali. They give more importance to Tamil devotional hymns.
Jaffna kings had encouraged the study of medicine and astrology. Sri Lankan Tamils have developed siddha system of medicine. They have also developed a different social structure. Brahmins do not play an important role in society. Sri Lankan Tamils have also developed their own system of law called Thesavalamai.
Sri Lankan Tamils, thus, have developed a separate identity and wish to retain it. As Sivathamby effectively said, “Sri Lankan Tamils want to be Tamils and Sri Lankans.”
Separate Administrations
The Portuguese implemented Malvana and Nallur Conventions. The areas under the Kotte and Jaffna Kingdoms were administered as separate units. Portuguese historian Fathger Fernao De Queroz in his book Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon Volume I page 5 gives the extent of the area that came under the Jaffna Kingdom. He said it comprised the Jaffna peninsula and Vanni and extended from Mannarin the west to Trincomalee in the east.
The Portuguese brought the kingdoms of Kotte and Jaffna under the control of the Kingdom of Portugal and the King of Portugual became the monarch of the people of Kotte and Jaffna. The Portuguese king placed the administration of Kotte and Jaffna under his representative, the Viceroy at Goa. Thereafter, all the major decisions concerning the governance of Kotte and Jaffna were taken at Goa. The Viceroy’s representative, Captain General of the Conquest, who resided in Colombo, became the virtual ruler of Kotte and Jaffna.
The Portuguese honouring their obligations under the Malvana and Nallur conventions administered the territories of Kotte and Jaffna separately. Separate officials called Captain Majors were appointed to administer the two territories. They were assisted by revenue officers called Factors who functioned as the Treasurer, Auditor and Chief Judicial Officer of each territory. A group of Portuguese officials who headed the various departments worked under him. The Ecclesiastical affairs of Kotte and Jaffna were made part of the diocese of Cochin, whose Bishop administered the two territories through separate Vicar Generals.
In Jaffna and Kotte the Portuguese retained the traditional administrative machinery of each territory to run the ground level administration. These officials were required to adopt Roman Catholicism to enable them to continue to hold their posts. The Sinhalese and Tamil aristocracy which enjoyed tremendous power and influence under the traditional administrative system of Kotte and Jaffna was thus relegated to secondary positions. The Portuguese also tried to cut down their numbers.
The Portuguese turned Kotte and Jaffna into generators of revenue to enable them to finance their administration, fund their military operations and to support their religious missionary activities. They increased the revenue by raising the existing taxes, duties and levies, by introducing new taxes, duties and levies and by streamlining revenue collection.
The Portuguese taxation was heavier in Jaffna than in Kotte and Abeysinghe, in his study of Portuguese rule in Jaffna says that they turned Jaffna into a money machine. The difference in treatment was mainly due to the submissive nature of the Jaffna administrators and the people and due to constant opposition the Portuguese faced from the Sinhala people who supported the attacks by the Sitavaka and Kandyan rulers. The Portuguese were also under pressure from the Dutch in the south during the latter part of their rule.
Cinnamon was the prime item of trade in Kotte. In Jaffna the Portuguese introduced the cultivation of tobacco zs the commercial crop.
Catholic missionary activity began in the Jaffna Kingdom before its annexation to the Portuguese crown. Franciscan friars entered the kingdom soon after the Portuguese invasion of Jaffna in November 1591 and turned their attention to the influential administrators, mudaliyars to the village headman. According to Portuguese records, they used the extensive powers of patronage and preference the Portuguese officials enjoyed in granting appointments and promotions to the people to promote Christianity. Land-owning aristocracy was the other group that was compelled to adopt Roman Catholicism.
In 1622, members of the Jesuit order entered Jaffna and founded a college and used it as their headquarters. The Portuguese administrators decided the next year to divide the Jaffna peninsula into 42 parishes and allocated 24 to the Franciscans and the balance to the Jesuits. They sent the solitary Dominican who was already working in Jaffna to Kotte where others of his order had already established their presence. By 1634, all the parishes in Jaffna were functional.
The reports the two missionary orders had filed with their headquarters in the 1640s say that all the people of the Jaffna peninsula had embraced Roman Catholicism. One of the Portuguese officials had said just before the Portuguese rule ended that Jaffna was “wholly Christian”. It is reasonable to infer from these reports that during the latter part of the Portuguese rule no one practiced Hinduism openly.
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| Portuguese built Church of Mallgam |
The Portuguese in their zeal to convert the entire population under their rule carried out general baptisms and mass conversions. Abeysinghe, quoting Portuguese officials Trinidade and Queiros says that a general baptism in a village was conducted thus: the arrival of the Portuguese missionaries was announced by the traditional tom tom beaters. When the people assembled, the Portuguese missionaries asked them to reject the "false" gods they were worshiping and accept "one true God".
Abeysinghe adds that that was not a request but a command backed by the authority of the Portuguese government for the priests would invariably be accompanied by the local Portuguese officials and the native chiefs. "Fear of a fine or corporal punishment with cane and stock would ensure their regular attendance at church on Sundays and feast days," Abeysinghe adds.The Portuguese emphasis on proselytization spurred the development and standardization of educational institutions. Mission schools were opened as a means of conversion where the medium of instruction was Portuguese and Tamil. The Franciscans founded 25 parish schools and the Jesuits 12. They also established colleges for higher education in the Jaffna peninsula. In these schools religion, good manners (viores), reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, and Latin were taught. Education was free. For a while, Portuguese became not only the language of the upper classes of Sri Lanka but also the lingua franca of prominence in the Asian maritime world.
The Portuguese destroyed every Hindu temple and the Saraswathy Mahal library, the royal repository of all literary output of the kingdom. The first to suffer was the historic Thiruketheeswaram temple of Mannar. The rocks and bricks obtained from that temple were used to build the fort in Mannar. Nallur Kanthaswamy temple suffered next. Jaffna Fort was built using the building material obtained from it.
In the words of Fernao De Queiros, the principal chronicler of Portuguese colonial exploits in Sri Lanka, the people of Jaffna were "reduced to the uttermost misery" during the Portuguese rule.
Treaty of 1658The Dutch East India Co. (VOC) conquered the states of Jaffna and Kotte in 1658. The VOC ratified its conquest of the Portuguese possessions in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and other parts of Asia by signing a treaty with Portugal. The treaty known as the Treaty of 1658 was signed by King John 1 of Portugal and the VOC. The Portuguese territories in Sri Lanka, Kotte and Jaffna, were described separately in two distinct schedules.
The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Sri Lanka in June 1648 and ruled until 1798 when they were expelled by the British. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch administered the two territories separately.
The Governor was the head of the administration of the Dutch territories in Sri Lanka. He was assisted by a council which consisted of the Chief Administrator, the Controller of Revenue, the Disawa of Colombo, the chief military officer, the Fiscal (Public Prosecutor), and five other officers who headed the principal departments at the headquarters. The Governor was obliged to take the advice of the council.
For administrative purposes, the territory under their rule was divided into three divisions – Colombo, Galle and Jaffna. Colombo was the largest unit spreading from Kalpitiya in the north to the river Bentota in the south. Galle and Jaffna were administered by separate commanders assisted by their respective councils. This restricted the territory of the Tamils to the north and east. Some of the territories in the west and south which were earlier under the Kingdom of Jaffna were annexed to the Sinhala areas.
The internal administration of each division was under the official named dissava. Jaffna dissava was in charge of Mannar, Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Officials called Superintendents were placed in charge of these areas and they functioned under Jaffna Dissawa. All the officials above the rank of dissavas were Dutchmen. There were about 3000 Dutch officials in the government service. Like under the Portuguese, the Sinhala and Tamil officials were given only subsidiary positions.
The Dutch, like the Portuguese, retained the old system of government inherited from the native kings. The dissavanis were divided into korala, pattu and gama. The mudaliyars, Koralas, athukoralas were in charge of these divisions. Another official named vidane was in charge of the day-to-day functions of the villages.
In administration and judicial systems, the Dutch, like the Portuguese, used the Sinhalese language in the Sinhala areas and Tamil language in the Tamil areas. They preserved the two linguistic zones that existed during the period of the native kings.
Like the Portuguese, the Dutch did not make any fundamental changes in the administration, customs and the social structure of the people. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch held all the top posts themselves and thus reduced the locals to secondary positions.The Dutch contributed to the evolution of the judicial system of Sri Lanka. They recognized and codified the indigenous laws and customs that did not conflict with Dutch-Roman jurisprudence. Thesavalamai, the Tamil legal code of Jaffna, Mukkuvar law, legal practices of the people of Batticaloa, and Muslim law were codified in this manner. The Low Country, courts applied Roman Dutch law, thus modifying traditional notions of property and affecting family structures.
The Dutch implemented their religious policy rigourously in Jaffna. When they took control of the peninsula there were 20 Catholic churches and some of them were architectural beauties. They took them over. There were 34 Hindu temples which escaped the Portuguese frenzy of destruction. They destroyed them.
The Dutch built several churches in Jaffna. One of the Dutch churches, which was built within the Dutch fort of Jaffna stood there intact till the beginning of 1990s and fell into ruins together with the fort due to heavy fighting around this area
Tellipalai Church was one of the first Dutch Reformed churches established in the Jaffna peninsula. It was opened in August 1658 by Ven.Philip Pauldias. He also opened a school in its compound. This church and the school were the cause for Tellipalai’s advance in the fields of religion and education.
The Dutch administered Jaffnapattnam in Tamil and Tamil occupied prominent place in their documentation. They used Tamil to propagate their religion, Protestantism, among the people. Their pastors and preachers studied Tamil and communicated with the people in Tamil. The Thesavalamai Law was complied in Tamil. Their system of education too laid stress on developing the capacity to communicate in Tamil.
This environment coupled with the latent spirit of nationalism found expression, like in the Kandyan kingdom, in literary works. The mudaliyar community which had direct contact with the people and understood their real feelings were in the forefront of the literary revival.
Sinnathamby Pulavar, son of Vilvaraya mudaliyar, one of the 12 mudaliyars who helped in the compilation of Thesavalamai law, wrote two notable poetic works Kalvalaiyanthathi and Maraisaiyanthathi Senathiraya mudali wrote Nallaiyanthathi and Nallaivenba. He later played an important role in compiling the first Tamil dictionary published by the missionaries. Muthukumara Kavirayar, Viswanatha Sasthiriyar and Swami Ganapragasar played pivotal role in the revival of Tamil literature. A popular literary form called ammanai was used during this period for religious propagation. Fr; Ganapragasar had collected twenty such works.
Several dramas were written and staged during the Dutch period. They were based on the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and on Christian topics. Ganapathy Iyer wrote three popular dramas Alangararupa Vatakam, Adhirupavathi Vilasam and Valapeeka Natakam. Muthukumarasamy Pulavar rendered the life of Devasakayam Pillai, a South Indian Roman Catholic, who sacrificed his life defending his faith. He titled the drama Devasakaya Batakam. Poothathamby Natakam which depicted the story of a controversial event that happened during Portuguese rule emerged as a very popular drama which is acted even today
The encouragement the Dutch missionaries gave to the publication of Christian literature and the introduction of printing were the factors that motivated the revival of Tamil and Sinhala literature. A booklet which turned out to be the trailblazer for Tamil prose was Vetha Vina Vidai. Written in question and answer format it explained the basic tenets of Christianity, Arumuga Navalar, the Hindu revivalist of mid-1850’s adopted that format effectively. Christian pamphlets that explained the rules and regulations of the Dutch Reformed Church were very popular. The masterpiece of the Christian literature of that period was Thembavanikam authored by Fr. Constantine Besche.
The religious policy of the Dutch which was harsh on Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam in the initial stages and tolerant in the final stages also left an impact on Sri Lankan society. Dutch who practiced Protestantism banned all religious activities of the Roman Catholics soon after the expulsion of the Portuguese. The Dutch feared that the Roman Catholic population would aid the Portuguese to recapture Sri Lanka. They also feared that unless the Roman Catholics were converted to the ‘true religion’ of Protestantism (Calvinism) they would fall back to their original religions of Buddhism and Hinduism.
The Catholic churches were either converted into Protestant churches or destroyed. They banished the Catholic priests, and declared giving shelter to Catholics, Buddhists and Hindus a capital offence. Buddhist and Hindu ceremonies too were prohibited.
The Dutch also followed the Portuguese policy of using education as a tool to propagate their religion. Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch made use of education to promote the welfare of the local people. The Dutch period is important in the history of educational development in Sri Lanka.
The Dutch replaced the Catholic parish schools established during the Portuguese period with schools affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. Education was almost entirely in the hands of the priests.
The emphasis the Dutch gave to education and to the use of Sinhala and Tamil generated the necessary environment for literary activity. That was particularly so in Jaffna, Vanni and Kandy where the nationalist spirit was steadily flourishing.
Parallel to the Tamil literary revival was that of the Sinhala literature in which development the two centres of Sinhala nationalism- – Kandy and Matara – played significant role. In Kandy, Valivita Saranankara, who lived during the reign of Kirti Sri Rajasimha, revived the classical Sinhala tradition which flourished in Kotte. A major part of the literary activity was in writing the biographies of kings and nobles in prose and poetry and revival of folk tradition.
The Dutch established the first printing press of Sri Lanka in Colombo in 1737 with the objective of printing Christian literature in Sinhala and Tamil. The press was first used to print posters which announced the orders and proclamations issued by the Dutch East India Company. The first book printed in Sinhalese was: Singaleasch Gobasdo - Book, It was printed in 1737. The second printed in Sinhalese in the same year was a manual on the cultivation of pepper. Its Tamil translation was published in 1741. Several books on religious matters were published in Sinhala and Tamil till the Dutch rule ended in 1796.
The compilation of the historical work Yalpana Vaipava Malai took place during the Dutch period. It was composed by Mailvagana Pulavar of Mathagal in 1796, the last year of Dutch rule at the request of Jan Maccara, the Dutch Governor of Jaffna. His authorities were earlier writings such as the Kailaya Malai, Vaiya Padal, Pararajasekaran Ula and Raja Murai (Royal Chronicles) the oldest of which was certainly not earlier than the Fourteenth or the Fifteenth Century AD, Yalpana Vaipava Malai, Rasanayagam says, “Yalpana Vaipava Malai was a faithful account of all that was available at that time.” Yalpana Vaipava Malai was printed several years later and was translated into English by C. Britto.Treaty of Amiens
By the end of the 18th Century Dutch power was on the decline and the power of Britain and France was on the rise. They tried to capture the Dutch colonies. The British East India Company formed at Madras in 1639 captured Tamil Nadu and the adjoining areas established the Madras Presidency. In 1796 the east India Company captured the territories controlled by the Dutch in Sri Lanka.
France which had captured Pondicherry and Karaikaal on the western coast of South India tried to take control of the Dutch possessions in Sri Lanka. This competition was brought to an end on March 25, 1802 when the French Republic and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Amiens. The treaty was signed by Joseph Bonaparte and Marquess Cornwallis on behalf of France and the United Kingdom. Under the treaty the United Kingdom recognised the French Republic which it had claimed as part of its possession from 1340.
To that treaty the territories under the control of the United Kingdom and France were annexed in a series of schedules. Jaffna and Kotte are listed in separate schedules. Anthony Hensman who wrote on this subject in the Daily Mirror two years ago says, “
A whole world of historical and political exploration and discovery is open to those genuine scholars, both of the majority and minorities, to examine the original documents, beginning with the Treaties of Malvana, Nallur and Kandy, subscribed by the ancient peoples of the country, under their time-honoured and traditional, separate and distinctive, historical and political identities, and extending to the treaties between the Portuguese crown and the V.O.C. of 1658, and between the latter and the British crown in 1803. If the protocol copies of these treaties are not with the Colombo archives, the originals would be with the archives in Lisbon, the Hague and London. The schedules and maps which form a substantive part of these treaties should make interesting and revelatory reading.
Kandyan Treaty of 1638
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| King Rajasinghe II |
The treaty known as the Kandyan Treaty of 1638 was signed William Jacobsz Coster, a commander and vice commander of the Dutch Naval Forces, for theDutch East India Company and King Rajasinghe II on May 23, 1638 inBatticaloa. The treaty secured the terms under which the two nations would cooperate in defending the Kandyan Kingdom from the Portuguese. The treaty mentions the Kandyan Kingdom which the Portuguese were trying to capture as a nation.
The Kandyan Convention
The British East India Company that captured the Dutch territories in Sri Lanka administered them as part of the Madras Presidency. The British government, realizing the strategic importance of Sri Lanka decided to take them over from the company. It sent Fredrick North to take over the administration. It declared Sri Lanka a crown colony in 1802 and appointed North as the first British governor.
North decided to bring the entire island under the British rule and captured Vanni by defeating its ruler Bandara Vanniyan. His next target was the Kandyan Kingdom. While North was making secret preparations a plot was hatched by the most powerful chief of the royal court. Maha Adikaram Pilimatalawe. His plan was to obtain the help of the British to depose the king and take his place.
Pilimatalawe met North secretly at Sitawaka and requested the British to take possession of the Kandyan Kingdom and help him to be the king. In return he promised liberal trade concessions. North did not evince interest in Pilimatalawe’s scheme. He decided to make use of the dissension in the royal court to bring the Kandyan Kingdom under the British rule.
The King smelt the plot and broke away from the plotting Pilimatalawe. North started implementing his plan to take over the Kandyan Kingdom. He sent Gen. Hay Macdowall to Kandy to meet the king and negotiate a deal to make the Kandyan Kingdom a British protectorate. The king turned down the offer.
Lieut-Gen. Sir Robert Brownrigg assumed duties as the Governor on March 11, 1812. He decided to make use of the confusion in Kandy to capture it. He and his deputy D'Oyly received Ehelepola Maha Adikaram ho succeeded Pilimatalawe at the Governor's residence in Mount Lavinia. The Governor promised him his favour and protection if he rebelled against the king.
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Art work of the Kandyan convention (English translation) |
Four days later the king was bound, plundered of his valuables and dragged away with the greatest indignity by the supporters of Ehelepola, and was brought to Colombo for deportation to Vellore in South India, where his consorts and other kith and kin were based.
Two weeks after the capture of the king, on March 2, 1815, the Kandyan Convention (treaty proceedings) was held in the same Audience Halll where the king used to preside. This time Governor Robert Brownrigg presided. The historic date was 2 March, 1815.
He received Maha Nilame Ehelapola, and the Dissawas led by Molligoda. Ehelepola, together with John D'Oyly of the British Civil Service who engineered the coup.
The treaty was read by D'Oyly in English and Mudaliyar de Saram in Sinhala declaring that Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe and all his family were forever excluded from the throne.
The Kandyans were assured that their new rulers would respect their laws, institutions and customs and that the religion of the Buddha would be inviolable.
Nobles who had assisted the British invasion were restored to the rule of their original provinces with the promise that their privileges and powers would be respected so long as they carried out their administration with the general policy of the British government.
Signatories to the Treaty were Governor Brownrigg, Ehelepola and the Dissawas Molligoda, Pilimatalawe the elder, Pilimatalawa Junior, Monerawila, Molligoda the younger, Dullewe, Ratwatte, Millawa, Galgama and Galegoda. The signatures were witnessed by D'Oyly, now British resident in Kandy and Deputy Secretary James Sutherland.
Two further conferences were held at the Audience Hall. One week later Governor Brownrigg received the Ven. Kobbekaduwa Mahanayaka Thera of Malwatte and the Ven. Yatawatte Mahanayaka Thera of Asgiriya. He gave them his personal assurance on behalf of the British Crown that the Sangha would be protected and the temples held sacred.
This conference was immediately followed by another to discuss with the chiefs the return of the sacred Dalada to the temple of the Tooth and the tutelary deities to their sanctuaries in the Devasanghinda.
The Kandy Convention consisted 12 clauses. The summary:
1. Sri Wickrema Rajasinha, the Malabari king to forfeit all claims to the throne of Kandy.The British kept their promise given to the Kandyans. It was administered as a separate unit till 1833 when the three territories- Kotte, Jaffna and Kandy were brought under a centralized administration. Kandy was a separate autonomous unit for 18 years (1815- 1833), Jaffna enjoyed that status for 214 years (1619- 1833) ans Kotte for 237 years (1596- 1833).
2. The king is declared fallen and deposed and the hereditary claim of his dynasty, abolished and extinguished.
3. All his male relatives are banished from the island.
4. The dominion is vested in the sovereign of the British Empire, to be exercised through colonial governors, except in the case of the Adikarams, Disavas, Mohottalas, Korales, Vidanes and other subordinate officers reserving the rights, privileges and powers within their respective ranks.
5. The religion of the Buddha is declared inviolable and its rights to be maintained and protected.
6. All forms of physical torture and mutilations are abolished.
7. The Governor alone can sentence a person to death and all capital punishments to take place in the presence of accredited agents of the government.
8. All civil and criminal justice over Kandyan to be administered according to the established norms and customs of the country, the government reserving to itself the rights of interposition when and where necessary.
9. Over non-Kandyans the position to remain according to British law.
10. The proclamation annexing the Three and Four Korales and Sabaragamuwa is repealed.
11. The dues and revenues to be collected for the King of England as well as for the maintenance of internal establishments in the island.
12. The Governor alone would facilitate trade and commerce."
Malvana Convention, Kandyan Convention and the Treaty of 1638 provide indirect proof for the separate autonomous existence of Jaffna for 214 years. Nallur Convention, Treaty of 1658 and Treaty of Amiens provide direct proff for Jaffna’s autonomy.
Cat's eye nebula
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen, NGC 6543, nicknamed the "Cat's Eye Nebula." Hubble reveals surprisingly intricate structures including concentric gas shells, jets of high-speed gas and unusual shock-induced knots of gas. Estimated to be 1,000 years old, the nebula is a visual "fossil record" of the dynamics and late evolution of a dying star. A preliminary interpretation suggests that the star might be a double-star system. The suspected companion star also might be responsible for a pair of high-speed jets of gas that lie at right angles to this equatorial ring. If the companion were pulling in material from a neighboring star, jets escaping along the companion's rotation axis could be produced. These jets would explain several puzzling features along the periphery of the gas lobes. Like a stream of water hitting a sand pile, the jets compress gas ahead of them, creating the "curlicue" features and bright arcs near the outer edge of the lobes. The twin jets are now pointing in different directions than these features. This suggests the jets are wobbling, or precessing, and turning on and off episodically. This color picture, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, is a composite of three images taken at different wavelengths. (red, hydrogen-alpha; blue, neutral oxygen, 6300 angstroms; green, ionized nitrogen, 6584 angstroms). The image was taken on September 18, 1994. NGC 6543 is 3,000 light- years away in the northern constellation Draco. The term planetary nebula is a misnomer; dying stars create these cocoons when they lose outer layers of gas. The process has nothing to do with planet formation, which is predicted to happen early in a star's life.
Big bang
Big Bang Theory
Approximately 13.7 billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstruct the primordial chronology of events known as the big bang.
Quantum theory suggests that moments after the explosion at 10 -43 second, the four forces of nature; strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity were combined as a single "super force"(Wald). Elementary particles known as quarks begin to bond in trios, forming photons, positrons and netrinos and were created along with their antiparticles. There are minuscule amounts of protons and neutrons at this stage; approximately 1 for every one billion photons, neutrinos or electrons (Maffei). The density of the Universe in its first moment of life is thought to have been 1094g/cm3 with the majority of this being radiation. For each billion pairs of these heavy particles (hadrons) that were created, one was spared annihilation due to particle-antiparticle collisions. The remaining particles constitute the majority of our universe today (Novikov).
During this creation and annihilation of particles the universe was undergoing a rate of expansion many times the speed of light. Known as the inflationary epoch, the universe in less than one thousandth of a second doubled in size at least one hundred times, from an atomic nucleus to 1035 meters in width. An isotropic inflation of our Universe ends at 10-35 second that was almost perfectly smooth. If it were not for a slight fluctuation in the density distribution of matter, theorists contend, galaxies would have been unable to form (Parker).
The universe at this point was an ionized plasma where matter and radiation were inseparable. Additionally there were equal amounts of particles and antiparticles. The ratio of neutrons and protons albeit small is equal. When the universe aged to one hundredth of a second old neutrons begin to decay on a massive scale. This allows for free electrons and protons to combine with other particles. Eventually the remaining neutrons combine with protons to form heavy hydrogen (deuterium). These deuterium nuclei combine in pairs and form helium nuclei. The formation of matter from energy is made possible by photons materializing into baryons and antibaryons with their subsequent annihilations transforming them into pure energy (Maffei). Because of these collisions and annihilations matter was unable to remain viable for more than a few nanoseconds before a bombardment of electrons would scatter these photons. Like water trapped inside a sponge, radiation is so dense (1014g/cm3) that no light is visible. Known as the "Epoch of Last Scattering" the temperature has now dropped to a mere 1013K with the Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear and Electromagnetic interactions now able to exert their force. (Chown)
As the gas cloud expands one full second after the initial explosion and the temperature of our Universe has dropped to ten billion degrees, photons no longer have the energy to disrupt the creation of matter as well as transform energy into matter. After three minutes and a temperature of one billion degrees, protons and neutrons were slowing down enough in order to allow nucleosynthesis to take place. Atomic nuclei of helium was produced as two protons and neutrons each bonded. For every helium nuclei formed there were about ten protons left over allowing for twenty-five percent of the Universe to be comprised of helium. The next important phase of the expansion occurred around thirty minutes later when the creation of photons increased through the annihilation of electron-positron pairs. The fact that the universe began with slightly more electrons than positrons has insured that our Universe was able to form the way it has (Parker).
The universe for the next 300,000 years will then begin to expand and cool to a temperature of 10,000°K. These conditions allowed for helium nuclei to absorb free floating electrons and form helium atoms. Meanwhile hydrogen atoms were bonding together and forming lithium. It is here that the density of the universe has expanded to the point where light can be perceived. Until this point photons continued to be trapped within matter. Finally the expansion allowed for light and matter to go there separate ways as radiation becomes less and less dense. Matter and radiation therefore too, were bonded no longer and the oldest fossils in the Universe were born (Peebles).
In 1814 the science of spectroscopy was launched by William Wollaston, an English physicist who noticed that there were several dark lines that separated the continuous spectrum of the Sun. These lines came to the attention of Joseph von Fraunhofer, a German optician and physicist who carefully plotted the position of those lines. Then in 1850 German physicist's Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen refined the spectroscope. They then learned to heat different elements to incandescence and using the spectroscope identified an elements corresponding lines on the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum(Parker).
In 1863 Sir William Huggins, an amateur astronomer viewed a nearby star through his 8 inch refractor with a spectroscope attached. He found what he had originally hypothesized, the same spectrum lines that were observed in our own Sun. Meanwhile, Kirchhoff and Bunsen had successfully categorized the spectrum lines of many elements including those of hydrogen, sodium and magnesium. Huggins found these same spectrum lines in the distant stars he had observed and correctly predicted that some of the same elements that Kirchhoff and Bunsen were cataloging were emanating from these celestial bodies (Parker).
Christian Doppler of Austria discovered twenty years earlier that the frequency of a sound wave was dependent on the relative position of the source of the sound. As a sound moves away from an observer the pitch will lower. Likewise if the source is not moving but the observer is, there will be a corresponding change in the wave frequency of the sound. Doppler theorized on this same shift for light waves yet it was the French physicist Armand Fizeau who proved in 1848 that when a celestial object moves away from an observer, the lines in the visible spectrum would shift toward the red end. Conversely, when an object moves toward the observer, Fizeau found that the lines in the spectrum shifted toward the blue end. Huggins observed a shift in the hydrogen lines of Sirius toward the red end of the spectrum. This "redshift" indicated that Sirius was moving away from us. A few years later he was able to calculate the radial velocity of the star Sirius at between 26 to 36 miles per second (Parker).
During the 1890's the Lick Observatory in California began to track and chart the radial velocity (which is actually the velocity at which the line of sight that the star is observed) of many stars, as well as gaseous and planetary nebulae. Astronomers at Lick calculated the measurements of 400 stars including their radial speed and velocity. In 1910 Vesto Slipher measured the velocity of the Andromeda Nebula at 300 km per second, thirty times greater than previously observed. Four years later, Slipher had confirmed the radial velocities of 14 spiral nebula, with the overwhelming majority shifting to the red end of the spectrum. Slipper's observations showed that the majority of spirals he measured were moving away from us (Parker).
Around 1913 several astronomers, among them Edwin Hubble, used a variable star known as a Cepheid (a star that fluctuates in intensity) to measure their period-luminosity relationship. This would accurately determine the distance to any Cepheid in the observable vicinity. Hubble became the first astronomer to discover an independent galaxy outside the confines of the Milky Way. Hubble calculated the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy to be 900,000 light years away; larger than the predicted size of our own galaxy. Using the radial velocity measurements of Slipher along with Hubble's own calculations he began to notice a correlation between the distance of these galaxies and their radial velocities. The proof was conclusive: the further away a galaxy was relative to the Earth, the greater the velocity of that galaxy. Hubble had irrefutable proof that the Universe was expanding. By 1936 Hubble had received data from galaxies more than 100 million light years away. The redshifts at this distance were so large that the spectral lines had changed color (Weinberg).
As astronomers were collecting data on the Universe based on their observations, theorists were busy developing models that attempted to explain the cosmos. Recently equipped with Albert Einstien's Theory of Relativity, Einstein was one of the first to attempt an explanation of the physical Universe. Einstein believed the Universe to have a static, uniform, isotropic distribution of matter. Einstein's own calculations however proved to result in the exact opposite, an oscillating universe that had the potential for expansion or contraction. He was certain that the universe was stable. Einstein was compelled to amend his original equation. He used the term cosmological constant, which created a spherical, four-dimensional closed universe (Parker).
Around the same time the Dutch astronomer Willem deSitter used Einstein's general theory of relativity to develop his own model of the Universe. His model was unique in that it did not take into consideration the existence of matter in the Universe. However it did go beyond Einstein's model in that it predicted the redshift, even though de Sitter felt it was an illusion, and did not at the time link it to any recession of celestial objects. The academic community of 1930 did not fully embrace either model of the universe. Then the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society in England was made aware that three years previous, one of his students had written a theory of the universe independent of the two major forces in cosmological theory. Georges Lemaître created a cosmology that predicted a universe that was forever in a state of expansion. When this theory was rejuvenated by its republication in the journal Monthly Notices, it brought to the table another similar theory that was devised ten years earlier. Aleksander Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, analyzed Einstein's cosmological constant that produced a static universe. Friedmann proved that there are three possibilities for the universe when the cosmological constant is zero. If the matter in the universe is greater than the critical density, the universe would ultimately collapse back onto itself. If the inverse is correct the universe would expand forever. If the universe were flat with a constant of zero at critical density, the universe would again expand infinitely. Both Lemaître and Friedmann's solutions were analyzed by Einstein and were summarily dismissed. It was not until Hubble had proved that galaxies were in fact receding in 1932 that Einstein was forced to drop his static universe model. The observational proof that the universe was expanding, combined with the models of Friedmann and Lemaître that predicted an expanding universe unified the cosmologist and the astronomer in agreement. The only question remained was if the universe is expanding, what was the origination of this expansion? Lemaître used the second law of thermodynamics as his starting point. Based on the assumption that the expansion of the universe was an increase in the disorder of a system, originating from a singularity of neutrons, this primordial nucleus would then explode where an increase in the entropy of the universe would be apparent. On May 9, 1931, Lemaître published his theory of the universe in the journal Nature and it was met with general skepticism (Parker).
George Gamow expounded on Lemaître's work, using recent discoveries in quantum theory. Lemaître formulated his model based on the theory that a giant nucleus began to entropy, breaking down into individual constituents. Gamow believed that a nucleus containing not only neutrons but protons and electrons as well was the starting point. Due to the very high amount of radiant energy in the early universe, temperature would be in excess of one billion degrees Kelvin. At five minutes old, Gamow speculated, this universe would have particles that could not combine. But as the expansion began the temperatures would decrease and nuclear fusion would occur. Atoms would form as protons and neutrons would attach themselves to one another. Gamow then Hypothesized that all the elements in the Universe were created at this time. One year later however, it was proven that Gamow's math didn't stand up to scrutiny as it was shown that atomic mass 5 could not have been created from this primordial nucleus, as well as mass 8 (Gribbin).
Although all of the elements in the universe were proven not to have originated from the Primordial Fireball, the theory gained momentum until it received a worthy adversarial cosmology known as the Steady State Theory. Fred Hoyle (who despairingly coined the term Big Bang) and his colleagues constructed a model of the universe that was widely accepted for religious reasons if not so much for its scientific hypothesis. Hoyle suggested that the universe is infinitely old and has remained in a steady state except that the universe was indeed expanding. However galaxies are not receding from one another but space is constantly being created between galaxies. In order for the average density to remain constant, Hoyle suggested that matter had to be created in these new areas where space was expanding. Only one hydrogen atom needed to be created every year in an area the size of a 100 meter cube to account for the expansion. This spontaneous generation of matter Hoyle argues would allow for the formation of new galaxies between ancient ones and the Universe would maintain its steady state. It would then follow that astronomers would be able to detect young galaxies in the midst's of very old ones. This was one of the many inconsistencies that were found with the Steady State Theory. In the 1950's Steady State Theorists took a heavy blow when radio galaxies were discovered showing that, consistent with big bang Cosmology, galaxies evolved and were very active billions of years ago (Parker).
Finally the empirical evidence big bangers had predicted was observed in 1965 by Bell Labs Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Robert Dicke of Princeton University was the first to search for fossil remains of the big bang. Dicke suggested that the Big bang emanated from a previous universe and that a temperature in excess of one billion degrees was necessary to create our new universe. This energy would in turn produce an infinitesimal amount of radiation that should be measurable to this day. Based on Planck's law that all bodies emit energy that can be documented on an electromagnetic diagram. Depending on the length of the wave they can register anywhere from X rays to radio waves and everything in between. A bodies emission of energy is contingent upon the constituent elements of the body, the amount of surface area of the body and the surface temperature of the body. The body that emits the greatest amount of energy is a so called black body. Using Planck's Black Body Curve as a guide Dicke theorized that the Cosmic Background Radiation of the Big Bang should be about 3° above absolute zero. Dicke's colleague Jim Peebles also concluded that when the Fireball's remnants cooled to 3000° Kelvin nuclei would be able to form and helium was able to form from hydrogen. This left a universe with a mixture of approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, resembling the same amount of helium found in the Sun. Peebles concluded that since the two most abundant elements in the universe were created when the Universe was at 3000° K and since then the universe has expanded by a factor of 1000 the radiation from the Big Bang should have a temperature of about 10° K. Later refinements to these equations revised the estimated temperature to 3° K. Dicke and Peebles were confident that there instruments would be the first to detect this Cosmic Background Radiation (Parker). At the same time Penzias and Wilson were busy attempting to measure radiation from the Milky Way Galaxy. They were narrowing in on their source when they were left with a noise that was interfering with their signal. This noise originated from cosmic radiation and had a temperature of 3°K. It seemed to be coming in from all directions and never fluctuated. With their original research corrupted due to the unexplained noise they resigned themselves to writing a paper on this unexplainable phenomenon. Months later Penzia's discovered that Peebles group was searching for this relic radiation without success. Upon further examination they realized that Penzia and Wilson had stumbled upon the single most important discovery that confirmed the Primordial big bang Explosion(Parker).
Big Bang theorists made several predictions that have eventually supported the theory. The first is Hubble's observation of the redshift-distance relationship. This relationship enables us to approximate the age of the universe with the help of three separate celestial bodies that all arrive at the same relative result. Hubble used what is known as "standard candles" to build a "cosmic distance ladder." By knowning the distance of certain celestial bodies he would be able to incrementally construct an age for the Universe. These standard candles were: cepheid variables in neighborhood galaxies; bright stars in more distant galaxies and in galaxies millions of parsecs away, the brightness of the galaxy itself was used as a standard candle (Maffei)
Central to the question of the age of the Universe are two important theoretical terms. The Hubble Constant refers to how fast the velocities of the galaxies increase with their distance from the Earth. There is quite a raging debate on the value of this constant ranging from 50 Km/sec per Mpc (Mpc is a Megaparsec, about 3 million light years) to 100 Km/sec per Mpc. This explains the disparity in the ± 5 billion year estimate for the age of the universe. The other constant of importance is known as q that defines the deceleration of the expansion of the universe. Depending on the critical density of the universe that this q constant is based, the universe will prove to be either infinitely expanding as in the flat and open models, or an oscillating closed universe; a big crunch/big bang universe that will ultimately condense back into a singularity and begin the process all over again(Weinberg). Hubble's succesor Allan Sandage predicted a closed universe when he plotted a number of radio galaxies many billions of light years away. The evidence for this closed universe was quickly challanged a few years later and eventually fell out of favor. To this day the Hubble Constant and the q constant remain the two most important unanswered problems in modern cosmology.
Observations have also supported the predictions of theorists that certain elements could only have been created moments after the big bang. Based on the relationship between the amount of helium in the universe and the number of different types of particle "families" researchers concluded that there is one neutrino per family of particles. Due to the current energy density of the universe there will be a corresponding amount of helium produced. This in turn will create different types of neutrinos. When the predicted amount of neutrinos corresponded to what was observed it was another victory for the big bang cosmology(Wald).
After the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in 1965 scientists were eager to extend their research into outerspace through the use of a man-made satellite orbiting the Earth. From this vantage point an unimpeaded opportunity to study this phenomenon would be made available and by late 1989 the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was ready for action. COBE consisted of three seperate experiments. The first instrument was known as the FIRAS, an acronym for the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrometer. This instrument was created to confirm the research previously accumulated that the background radiation does indeed have a black body spectrum (Hoverstein).
The next question COBE attempted to answer was, is the background radiation the same temperature in all directions? Big bang theory states that in order to have mass condense and form galaxies, there must be inhomogeneties left over from the Big bang that will be able to be detectable. The differential microwave radiometer (DMR) was designed to detect anisotropy fluctuations on the scale of 30 millionths of a degree. Inflation theory predicted such fluctuations and that quantum processes at work during the primordial stages of the big bang (when the universe was the size of a proton) allowed for clouds of matter to condense into galaxies (Sawyer).
The final experiment was known as DIRBE. The Differential Infrared Background Experiment was designed to look into the farthest corners of the Universe; upwards of 15 billion light years away from the Earth, and accumulate data on the infrared light of these primordial galaxies. DIRBE data is continuing to be accumulated with no conclusions having been drawn to date (Gribbin). John Mather from the University of California at Berkeley was responsible for the FIRAS experiment. Not long after COBE was positioned into orbit came the exciting data that was eagerly awaited and much anticipated. The background radiation fit the blackbody curve to within 1%. Sixty-seven seperate points of frequency obtained by COBE fir the theoretical blackbody spectrum perfectly! Observation had accurately confirmed what Big bang cosmology had long ago predicted. This finding proved to be the easy part (Parker).
George Smoot and his colleagues also from Cal Berkeley took three arduous years to sort through the billions of bits of data that the DMR provided. His announcement on the 23rd of April, 1992 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Washington, D.C. said it best: "English dosen't have enough superlatives...to convey the story [of the results] , we have observed...15 billion year old fossils that we think were created at the birth of the universe."(Parker). Although the temperature fluctuations were less than thirty millionths of a degree in variation, these areas of temperature and density fluctuation were more than 500 million light years in width. These miniscule perbutations that were formed during the big bang were the very density that was needed in order to create galaxies and thus life itself (Noble).
The Big Bang model that attempts to explain the origin and structure of the universe incorporates the talents of many individuals through the course of more than 150 years of study. Many times facing opposition similar to that of Galileo and Copurnicus, these cosmologists used a deductive approach in solving the greatest question in the history of science. The findings and observations of these emminant scholars forced them to draw the conclusions they arrived at. Every prediction that quantum physics and the theories of relativity have made regarding the origin and the state of the universe have either been observed and confirmed and/or not proven to be false. That is in essence the reason we have arrived at this cosmology, fully confident that our science and technology can look back in time 15 billion years and see the birth of our universe.
Approximately 13.7 billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstruct the primordial chronology of events known as the big bang.
Quantum theory suggests that moments after the explosion at 10 -43 second, the four forces of nature; strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity were combined as a single "super force"(Wald). Elementary particles known as quarks begin to bond in trios, forming photons, positrons and netrinos and were created along with their antiparticles. There are minuscule amounts of protons and neutrons at this stage; approximately 1 for every one billion photons, neutrinos or electrons (Maffei). The density of the Universe in its first moment of life is thought to have been 1094g/cm3 with the majority of this being radiation. For each billion pairs of these heavy particles (hadrons) that were created, one was spared annihilation due to particle-antiparticle collisions. The remaining particles constitute the majority of our universe today (Novikov).
During this creation and annihilation of particles the universe was undergoing a rate of expansion many times the speed of light. Known as the inflationary epoch, the universe in less than one thousandth of a second doubled in size at least one hundred times, from an atomic nucleus to 1035 meters in width. An isotropic inflation of our Universe ends at 10-35 second that was almost perfectly smooth. If it were not for a slight fluctuation in the density distribution of matter, theorists contend, galaxies would have been unable to form (Parker).
The universe at this point was an ionized plasma where matter and radiation were inseparable. Additionally there were equal amounts of particles and antiparticles. The ratio of neutrons and protons albeit small is equal. When the universe aged to one hundredth of a second old neutrons begin to decay on a massive scale. This allows for free electrons and protons to combine with other particles. Eventually the remaining neutrons combine with protons to form heavy hydrogen (deuterium). These deuterium nuclei combine in pairs and form helium nuclei. The formation of matter from energy is made possible by photons materializing into baryons and antibaryons with their subsequent annihilations transforming them into pure energy (Maffei). Because of these collisions and annihilations matter was unable to remain viable for more than a few nanoseconds before a bombardment of electrons would scatter these photons. Like water trapped inside a sponge, radiation is so dense (1014g/cm3) that no light is visible. Known as the "Epoch of Last Scattering" the temperature has now dropped to a mere 1013K with the Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear and Electromagnetic interactions now able to exert their force. (Chown)
As the gas cloud expands one full second after the initial explosion and the temperature of our Universe has dropped to ten billion degrees, photons no longer have the energy to disrupt the creation of matter as well as transform energy into matter. After three minutes and a temperature of one billion degrees, protons and neutrons were slowing down enough in order to allow nucleosynthesis to take place. Atomic nuclei of helium was produced as two protons and neutrons each bonded. For every helium nuclei formed there were about ten protons left over allowing for twenty-five percent of the Universe to be comprised of helium. The next important phase of the expansion occurred around thirty minutes later when the creation of photons increased through the annihilation of electron-positron pairs. The fact that the universe began with slightly more electrons than positrons has insured that our Universe was able to form the way it has (Parker).
The universe for the next 300,000 years will then begin to expand and cool to a temperature of 10,000°K. These conditions allowed for helium nuclei to absorb free floating electrons and form helium atoms. Meanwhile hydrogen atoms were bonding together and forming lithium. It is here that the density of the universe has expanded to the point where light can be perceived. Until this point photons continued to be trapped within matter. Finally the expansion allowed for light and matter to go there separate ways as radiation becomes less and less dense. Matter and radiation therefore too, were bonded no longer and the oldest fossils in the Universe were born (Peebles).
In 1814 the science of spectroscopy was launched by William Wollaston, an English physicist who noticed that there were several dark lines that separated the continuous spectrum of the Sun. These lines came to the attention of Joseph von Fraunhofer, a German optician and physicist who carefully plotted the position of those lines. Then in 1850 German physicist's Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen refined the spectroscope. They then learned to heat different elements to incandescence and using the spectroscope identified an elements corresponding lines on the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum(Parker).
In 1863 Sir William Huggins, an amateur astronomer viewed a nearby star through his 8 inch refractor with a spectroscope attached. He found what he had originally hypothesized, the same spectrum lines that were observed in our own Sun. Meanwhile, Kirchhoff and Bunsen had successfully categorized the spectrum lines of many elements including those of hydrogen, sodium and magnesium. Huggins found these same spectrum lines in the distant stars he had observed and correctly predicted that some of the same elements that Kirchhoff and Bunsen were cataloging were emanating from these celestial bodies (Parker).
Christian Doppler of Austria discovered twenty years earlier that the frequency of a sound wave was dependent on the relative position of the source of the sound. As a sound moves away from an observer the pitch will lower. Likewise if the source is not moving but the observer is, there will be a corresponding change in the wave frequency of the sound. Doppler theorized on this same shift for light waves yet it was the French physicist Armand Fizeau who proved in 1848 that when a celestial object moves away from an observer, the lines in the visible spectrum would shift toward the red end. Conversely, when an object moves toward the observer, Fizeau found that the lines in the spectrum shifted toward the blue end. Huggins observed a shift in the hydrogen lines of Sirius toward the red end of the spectrum. This "redshift" indicated that Sirius was moving away from us. A few years later he was able to calculate the radial velocity of the star Sirius at between 26 to 36 miles per second (Parker).
During the 1890's the Lick Observatory in California began to track and chart the radial velocity (which is actually the velocity at which the line of sight that the star is observed) of many stars, as well as gaseous and planetary nebulae. Astronomers at Lick calculated the measurements of 400 stars including their radial speed and velocity. In 1910 Vesto Slipher measured the velocity of the Andromeda Nebula at 300 km per second, thirty times greater than previously observed. Four years later, Slipher had confirmed the radial velocities of 14 spiral nebula, with the overwhelming majority shifting to the red end of the spectrum. Slipper's observations showed that the majority of spirals he measured were moving away from us (Parker).
Around 1913 several astronomers, among them Edwin Hubble, used a variable star known as a Cepheid (a star that fluctuates in intensity) to measure their period-luminosity relationship. This would accurately determine the distance to any Cepheid in the observable vicinity. Hubble became the first astronomer to discover an independent galaxy outside the confines of the Milky Way. Hubble calculated the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy to be 900,000 light years away; larger than the predicted size of our own galaxy. Using the radial velocity measurements of Slipher along with Hubble's own calculations he began to notice a correlation between the distance of these galaxies and their radial velocities. The proof was conclusive: the further away a galaxy was relative to the Earth, the greater the velocity of that galaxy. Hubble had irrefutable proof that the Universe was expanding. By 1936 Hubble had received data from galaxies more than 100 million light years away. The redshifts at this distance were so large that the spectral lines had changed color (Weinberg).
As astronomers were collecting data on the Universe based on their observations, theorists were busy developing models that attempted to explain the cosmos. Recently equipped with Albert Einstien's Theory of Relativity, Einstein was one of the first to attempt an explanation of the physical Universe. Einstein believed the Universe to have a static, uniform, isotropic distribution of matter. Einstein's own calculations however proved to result in the exact opposite, an oscillating universe that had the potential for expansion or contraction. He was certain that the universe was stable. Einstein was compelled to amend his original equation. He used the term cosmological constant, which created a spherical, four-dimensional closed universe (Parker).
Around the same time the Dutch astronomer Willem deSitter used Einstein's general theory of relativity to develop his own model of the Universe. His model was unique in that it did not take into consideration the existence of matter in the Universe. However it did go beyond Einstein's model in that it predicted the redshift, even though de Sitter felt it was an illusion, and did not at the time link it to any recession of celestial objects. The academic community of 1930 did not fully embrace either model of the universe. Then the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society in England was made aware that three years previous, one of his students had written a theory of the universe independent of the two major forces in cosmological theory. Georges Lemaître created a cosmology that predicted a universe that was forever in a state of expansion. When this theory was rejuvenated by its republication in the journal Monthly Notices, it brought to the table another similar theory that was devised ten years earlier. Aleksander Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, analyzed Einstein's cosmological constant that produced a static universe. Friedmann proved that there are three possibilities for the universe when the cosmological constant is zero. If the matter in the universe is greater than the critical density, the universe would ultimately collapse back onto itself. If the inverse is correct the universe would expand forever. If the universe were flat with a constant of zero at critical density, the universe would again expand infinitely. Both Lemaître and Friedmann's solutions were analyzed by Einstein and were summarily dismissed. It was not until Hubble had proved that galaxies were in fact receding in 1932 that Einstein was forced to drop his static universe model. The observational proof that the universe was expanding, combined with the models of Friedmann and Lemaître that predicted an expanding universe unified the cosmologist and the astronomer in agreement. The only question remained was if the universe is expanding, what was the origination of this expansion? Lemaître used the second law of thermodynamics as his starting point. Based on the assumption that the expansion of the universe was an increase in the disorder of a system, originating from a singularity of neutrons, this primordial nucleus would then explode where an increase in the entropy of the universe would be apparent. On May 9, 1931, Lemaître published his theory of the universe in the journal Nature and it was met with general skepticism (Parker).
George Gamow expounded on Lemaître's work, using recent discoveries in quantum theory. Lemaître formulated his model based on the theory that a giant nucleus began to entropy, breaking down into individual constituents. Gamow believed that a nucleus containing not only neutrons but protons and electrons as well was the starting point. Due to the very high amount of radiant energy in the early universe, temperature would be in excess of one billion degrees Kelvin. At five minutes old, Gamow speculated, this universe would have particles that could not combine. But as the expansion began the temperatures would decrease and nuclear fusion would occur. Atoms would form as protons and neutrons would attach themselves to one another. Gamow then Hypothesized that all the elements in the Universe were created at this time. One year later however, it was proven that Gamow's math didn't stand up to scrutiny as it was shown that atomic mass 5 could not have been created from this primordial nucleus, as well as mass 8 (Gribbin).
Although all of the elements in the universe were proven not to have originated from the Primordial Fireball, the theory gained momentum until it received a worthy adversarial cosmology known as the Steady State Theory. Fred Hoyle (who despairingly coined the term Big Bang) and his colleagues constructed a model of the universe that was widely accepted for religious reasons if not so much for its scientific hypothesis. Hoyle suggested that the universe is infinitely old and has remained in a steady state except that the universe was indeed expanding. However galaxies are not receding from one another but space is constantly being created between galaxies. In order for the average density to remain constant, Hoyle suggested that matter had to be created in these new areas where space was expanding. Only one hydrogen atom needed to be created every year in an area the size of a 100 meter cube to account for the expansion. This spontaneous generation of matter Hoyle argues would allow for the formation of new galaxies between ancient ones and the Universe would maintain its steady state. It would then follow that astronomers would be able to detect young galaxies in the midst's of very old ones. This was one of the many inconsistencies that were found with the Steady State Theory. In the 1950's Steady State Theorists took a heavy blow when radio galaxies were discovered showing that, consistent with big bang Cosmology, galaxies evolved and were very active billions of years ago (Parker).
Finally the empirical evidence big bangers had predicted was observed in 1965 by Bell Labs Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Robert Dicke of Princeton University was the first to search for fossil remains of the big bang. Dicke suggested that the Big bang emanated from a previous universe and that a temperature in excess of one billion degrees was necessary to create our new universe. This energy would in turn produce an infinitesimal amount of radiation that should be measurable to this day. Based on Planck's law that all bodies emit energy that can be documented on an electromagnetic diagram. Depending on the length of the wave they can register anywhere from X rays to radio waves and everything in between. A bodies emission of energy is contingent upon the constituent elements of the body, the amount of surface area of the body and the surface temperature of the body. The body that emits the greatest amount of energy is a so called black body. Using Planck's Black Body Curve as a guide Dicke theorized that the Cosmic Background Radiation of the Big Bang should be about 3° above absolute zero. Dicke's colleague Jim Peebles also concluded that when the Fireball's remnants cooled to 3000° Kelvin nuclei would be able to form and helium was able to form from hydrogen. This left a universe with a mixture of approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, resembling the same amount of helium found in the Sun. Peebles concluded that since the two most abundant elements in the universe were created when the Universe was at 3000° K and since then the universe has expanded by a factor of 1000 the radiation from the Big Bang should have a temperature of about 10° K. Later refinements to these equations revised the estimated temperature to 3° K. Dicke and Peebles were confident that there instruments would be the first to detect this Cosmic Background Radiation (Parker). At the same time Penzias and Wilson were busy attempting to measure radiation from the Milky Way Galaxy. They were narrowing in on their source when they were left with a noise that was interfering with their signal. This noise originated from cosmic radiation and had a temperature of 3°K. It seemed to be coming in from all directions and never fluctuated. With their original research corrupted due to the unexplained noise they resigned themselves to writing a paper on this unexplainable phenomenon. Months later Penzia's discovered that Peebles group was searching for this relic radiation without success. Upon further examination they realized that Penzia and Wilson had stumbled upon the single most important discovery that confirmed the Primordial big bang Explosion(Parker).
Big Bang theorists made several predictions that have eventually supported the theory. The first is Hubble's observation of the redshift-distance relationship. This relationship enables us to approximate the age of the universe with the help of three separate celestial bodies that all arrive at the same relative result. Hubble used what is known as "standard candles" to build a "cosmic distance ladder." By knowning the distance of certain celestial bodies he would be able to incrementally construct an age for the Universe. These standard candles were: cepheid variables in neighborhood galaxies; bright stars in more distant galaxies and in galaxies millions of parsecs away, the brightness of the galaxy itself was used as a standard candle (Maffei)
Central to the question of the age of the Universe are two important theoretical terms. The Hubble Constant refers to how fast the velocities of the galaxies increase with their distance from the Earth. There is quite a raging debate on the value of this constant ranging from 50 Km/sec per Mpc (Mpc is a Megaparsec, about 3 million light years) to 100 Km/sec per Mpc. This explains the disparity in the ± 5 billion year estimate for the age of the universe. The other constant of importance is known as q that defines the deceleration of the expansion of the universe. Depending on the critical density of the universe that this q constant is based, the universe will prove to be either infinitely expanding as in the flat and open models, or an oscillating closed universe; a big crunch/big bang universe that will ultimately condense back into a singularity and begin the process all over again(Weinberg). Hubble's succesor Allan Sandage predicted a closed universe when he plotted a number of radio galaxies many billions of light years away. The evidence for this closed universe was quickly challanged a few years later and eventually fell out of favor. To this day the Hubble Constant and the q constant remain the two most important unanswered problems in modern cosmology.
Observations have also supported the predictions of theorists that certain elements could only have been created moments after the big bang. Based on the relationship between the amount of helium in the universe and the number of different types of particle "families" researchers concluded that there is one neutrino per family of particles. Due to the current energy density of the universe there will be a corresponding amount of helium produced. This in turn will create different types of neutrinos. When the predicted amount of neutrinos corresponded to what was observed it was another victory for the big bang cosmology(Wald).
After the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in 1965 scientists were eager to extend their research into outerspace through the use of a man-made satellite orbiting the Earth. From this vantage point an unimpeaded opportunity to study this phenomenon would be made available and by late 1989 the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was ready for action. COBE consisted of three seperate experiments. The first instrument was known as the FIRAS, an acronym for the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrometer. This instrument was created to confirm the research previously accumulated that the background radiation does indeed have a black body spectrum (Hoverstein).
The next question COBE attempted to answer was, is the background radiation the same temperature in all directions? Big bang theory states that in order to have mass condense and form galaxies, there must be inhomogeneties left over from the Big bang that will be able to be detectable. The differential microwave radiometer (DMR) was designed to detect anisotropy fluctuations on the scale of 30 millionths of a degree. Inflation theory predicted such fluctuations and that quantum processes at work during the primordial stages of the big bang (when the universe was the size of a proton) allowed for clouds of matter to condense into galaxies (Sawyer).
The final experiment was known as DIRBE. The Differential Infrared Background Experiment was designed to look into the farthest corners of the Universe; upwards of 15 billion light years away from the Earth, and accumulate data on the infrared light of these primordial galaxies. DIRBE data is continuing to be accumulated with no conclusions having been drawn to date (Gribbin). John Mather from the University of California at Berkeley was responsible for the FIRAS experiment. Not long after COBE was positioned into orbit came the exciting data that was eagerly awaited and much anticipated. The background radiation fit the blackbody curve to within 1%. Sixty-seven seperate points of frequency obtained by COBE fir the theoretical blackbody spectrum perfectly! Observation had accurately confirmed what Big bang cosmology had long ago predicted. This finding proved to be the easy part (Parker).
George Smoot and his colleagues also from Cal Berkeley took three arduous years to sort through the billions of bits of data that the DMR provided. His announcement on the 23rd of April, 1992 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Washington, D.C. said it best: "English dosen't have enough superlatives...to convey the story [of the results] , we have observed...15 billion year old fossils that we think were created at the birth of the universe."(Parker). Although the temperature fluctuations were less than thirty millionths of a degree in variation, these areas of temperature and density fluctuation were more than 500 million light years in width. These miniscule perbutations that were formed during the big bang were the very density that was needed in order to create galaxies and thus life itself (Noble).
The Big Bang model that attempts to explain the origin and structure of the universe incorporates the talents of many individuals through the course of more than 150 years of study. Many times facing opposition similar to that of Galileo and Copurnicus, these cosmologists used a deductive approach in solving the greatest question in the history of science. The findings and observations of these emminant scholars forced them to draw the conclusions they arrived at. Every prediction that quantum physics and the theories of relativity have made regarding the origin and the state of the universe have either been observed and confirmed and/or not proven to be false. That is in essence the reason we have arrived at this cosmology, fully confident that our science and technology can look back in time 15 billion years and see the birth of our universe.
Galaxies
I have used the most common names for the spiral arms on this map. But occasionally you may find alternative names being used for the spiral arms. This table lists some of the alternative names:
| Common Name | Alternative Name |
|---|---|
| Norma Arm | 3 kiloparsec Arm |
| Scutum-Crux Arm | Centaurus Arm |
| Sagittarius Arm | Sagittarius-Carina Arm |
| Orion Arm | Local Arm |
| Perseus Arm | - |
| Cygnus Arm | Outer Arm |
It should be emphasized that there are almost as many stars between the spiral arms as in the spiral arms. The reason why the arms of spiral galaxies are so prominant is that the brightest stars are found in the spiral arms. Spiral arms are the major regions of star formation in spiral galaxies and this is where most of the major nebulae are found.
nebula
A nebula (from Latin: “mist” [1]; pl. nebulae or nebulæ, with ligature or nebulas) is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas and plasma. It is the first stage of a star‘s cycle. Originally nebula was a general name for any extended astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way (some examples of the older usage survive; for example, the Andromeda Galaxy was referred to as the Andromeda Nebula before galaxies were discovered by Edwin Hubble). Nebulae often form star-forming regions, such as in the Eagle Nebula. This nebula is depicted in one of NASA‘s most famous images, the “Pillars of Creation“. In these regions the formations of gas, dust and other materials ‘clump’ together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually will become big enough to form stars. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets, and other planetary system objects.
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Kate Su (Steward Obs, U. Arizona) et al.
The Earth as well as the planets revolve around the sun. In the same plane as the sun and the planets , in the distant space twelve constellation have been identified as the zodiac. as the earth revolves around the sun, for us who are on the Earth it appears as if he sun is travelling from one constellation to the other.
The constellation are as follows:
Aries , Taurus , Gemini , Cancer , Leo , Virgo
Libra , Scorpius , Sargittarius . Capricon , Aquarius , Pisces.
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