URLs & Kandyan Surnames
Surnames have been of great importance to society in traditional Sri Lanka for centuries. This has been especially significant for the people living in the Kandy region of the country which was called ‘kanda uda rata’ in the language of Sinhala, meaning the region/territory on the mountains. This was the last region of the country that finally succumb to the invading colonial rule in the year 1815.
The ruling class of the traditional society in Sri Lanka has revolved around the aristocratic families similar to mediaeval Europe, Arabia, Russia, India and many around the globe.
Surnames and naming of
names/places have been of such significance in the society of the Kandy. British colonial rulers have taken great effort to study and document those family names
and interconnection between the aristocratic society in the kingdom of the
Kandy, which is reflected by the well-documented and published book “A Gazetteer of
the Central Province of Ceylon” by A.C.Lawrie in 1896 who was a district judge
of the Kandy from 1873 to 1892.
Subsequently, similar to scholars like Professor
T.Wimalananda, in 1962 in his book written in the Sinhala language ‘Udarata maha kerella’ and similar scholarly works revealed that village
names were given based on the industries that the village was assigned. 'Ratnapura' is the city of gems, 'Pilimathalawa' (pilima + thalana)
– the place of metal workers of bronze, silver, and gold. Family clusters were called ‘casts’ based on industries people engaged in. Ex: nawandana – metal workers, gamaralala – farmers. Family names are given based on the industry people are engaged
in. Ex: suraba (sura+abanna)
– witch craftsmen, ridee nanda – women who do the laundry works,
etc.
The following
picture was taken by the author during a visit to the village of Walawela,
Matale which depicts a notice to the public saying that the building has been constructed
for the memory of a demised village woman name Ranetana.
Translation of the notice:
Dedicated to the memory of demised 'upasaka mathawa',
P.G.Ranethana born on 1924.09.07 who was killed by a wild elephant attack on
1995.09.14 at the 7th-mile post of Thalagoda. This construction was done by her children for her memory.
The author learned that P.G. abbreviated for 'pahala gedara' means a house situated at a lower elevation. 'Ranethana' means female professional goldsmith. 'uapasaka mathawa' is used for aged, Buddhist, ordinary village women.
Usually, the names of the aristocratic
families in the kingdom of Kandy are longer and often consist of several names
in front of their surnames representing the breed, charisma, personality and
the inherent statuary position of power in the society. Example is 'Monarawila Rajapaksha Wickramasinghe Bandara Nayaka Mudiyanse Ralahami, Maha Disava' of Matale (Gazetteer,1896 page 603). As the name implies 'Maha Disava' is the statutory position of power, the highest
authority in the region of Matale. The rest of the names imply the character
and charisma of the individual, Rajapaksha – meaning loyalty to the king,
Wickramasinghe – Brave as a lion, Nayaka – leader, Bandara – commonly used for the elite families of farmers, Mudiyanse Ralahami- Commonly used for
the privileged class of families but lower than the aristocrats.
In summary, the surname of the people in
the Kandyan region has encoded the profession, gender (male/female), religion,
age (in relative accuracy), social status place of living or address which
complete substitute for the birth certificate of contemporary society. The full
surname name is the representation of a collection of various
aspects/dimensions of the individual.
What
is the understanding of digital technology?
“Digital technologies are electronic tools,
systems, devices and resources that generate, store or process data. Well-known
examples include social media, online games, multimedia and mobile phones" (Victoria,2019).
“Digital technology enables immense
amounts of information to be compressed on small storage devices that can be
easily preserved and transported. Digitization also quickens data transmission
speeds. Digital technology has transformed how people communicate, learn, and
work” (
This defines the fundamental requirement of
digital technology as to the ability to compress, preserve and securely
transport between point to point in the shortest possible time.
As we all know binary systems (binary code)
comprise zeros and ones which are the core of digital technology. The binary
code was first introduced to the modern world by Gottfried Leibniz in
1689. He referred to the 9th century BC Chinese text called “Ching” or
‘Book of Changes’, which used 64 hexagrams of six-bit visual binary code.
This again proves that history is a great
teacher, very core of today’s digital technology is nothing more than the
repetitive phenomenon which even existed in the 9th Century BC in
China. Therefore, there would not be future progress unless gaining of in-depth
insights and knowledge of the history of ourselves and the world around us.
Importance
of naming in digital objects (DOI)
“Transacting
digital content requires that the entities being managed have unique names
denoting a specific referent. These names must have some agreed meaning so that
one computer system knows what the names and attributes of another computer
system denote. This
paper discusses principles of naming and meaning on digital networks and
existing common naming mechanisms. It then describes the Digital Object
Identifier (DOI) system for identifying content objects in the digital environment
” (Research Paper)
Therefore, it’s clear that a ‘name’ with encoded multidimensional characteristics, meaning representation of different characteristics/dimensions by the same name or a combination of two or more names provides greater flexibility and capacity to express the detailed description of the object in the focus or digital web terminology - Unit Resource. The subject of the web development term URL, Unit Resource Locator (URL), is used to direct the location of the resource on the web.
Therefore this article intends to spark the
scholarly desire to initiate research on potential unexplored technology of
naming systems in Sri Lanka, especially in the regions of the old Kandyan
kingdom to fuel the innovations of the digital transformation in the 21st
century.
An investigative analysis to inspire
research and innovations.
By
The Analyst
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