ILAM (Eelam) = Sinhala Homeland !

This article appearing in today's The Nation paper throws more light to expose the 'Tamils Homeland' fantasy with a fine analysis of the Tamil lexicon meaning of the word Eelam itself which means the Sinhala Land. Lt Col. (Retd) Anil Amarasekera, a prolific writer and a scholar finely analyses some critical reasons behind the defeat of the LTTE in his latest article. The first reason he highlights is based on the fact that 'false claims cannot and will not succeed'. Therefore, the defeat of the LTTE is simply a story of the Truth's triumph over the falsehood.

I quote the relevant paragraph of his article which brilliantly exposes the fact that the word Eelam means none other than the Sinhala Land        

"With regard to territorial claims made by the LTTE the word ILAM (Eelam), comes into much prominence. It is, apparently, being used to connote the impression of "a land of the Tamils". Indeed, the Tamil word ILAM was never before used in that sense. On the contrary, this Tamil word ILAM did not refer to Tamil land but to the "Land of the Sinhala people". None other establishes this than the Tamil lexicon published under the authority of the highest seat of Tamil learning - the University of Madras. Page 328 of this Tamil lexicon has the following entry: ILAM, n< Pali, Sinhala, 1. Ceylon. What it says is that ILAM means the land of the Sinhala people. The Tamil word given as the meaning of ILAM reads "SINHALUM". The term ILA in Tamil means "SINHALA", having its origin in the word HELA, by which term the ancient people of LANKA were known. Thus ILAKKACHU in Tamil means "Sinhala Coins"- ILA means Sinhala, Kachchu means Coins. Similarly, since NADU means LAND, ILANADU means the Sinhala land. According to the said lexicon the word ILANADU was derived from ILAM. The foregoing establishes the fact that the word ILAM (Eelam) never referred to any Tamil land but always signified the Sinhala land. Therefore, if one were to ask for ILAM (Eelam), what is being asked for is the traditional homeland of the Sinhala people. Therefore, such false claims cannot and will not succeed and that perhaps is one reason for the defeat of the LTTE."

So the time is ripe for those who are in search of a homeland for Tamils to change its name first foremost and then start the search to locate where it truly exists. But it is certainly not in Sri Lanka!