History
See also: History of Eastern TamilsThere is little scholarly consensus over the presence of the Sri Lankan Tamil people in Sri Lanka, also known as Eelam in early Tamil literature, prior to the medieval Chola period (circa 10th century AD). One theory states that there was not an organized Sri Lankan Tamil people presence in Sri Lanka until the invasions from what is now South India in the 12th century AD; another theory contends that Tamil people were one of the original inhabitants of the island. Theories about Tamil people's presence in Sri Lanka feed into the cycle of ethnic conflict.
Read more about this topic: Sri Lankan Tamil People
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“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)