Sinhalese - The Bengali and Tamil connections

The Mahavamsa, the great chronicle of Sri Lanka was written in the 5^th century AD. It recounts the migration of Prince Vijaya and his male followers from Bengal to Sri Lanka circa 500 BC.

The Mahavamsa further states that Vijaya and his followers married noble maidens from southern Madura, in the Tamil Pandyan kingdom, thus making the Sinhalese a mixture of North and South Indians from the very beginning.

This mix has been confirmed by multiple DNA studies.

Three studies indicate a predominant Bengali descent with significant Tamil admixture:

(1) The Mystery of Sinhalese Origins: An Alu perspective - S. Mastana (2007)

An Alu polymorphism analysis of Sinhalese from Colombo in 2007 using Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati (Patel) and Punjabi as parental populations found different proportions of genetic contributions:

Statistical Method	Bengali	Tamil	North Western
Point Estimate	57.49%	42.5%	-
Maximum Likelihood Method	88.07%	-	-
Using Tamil, Bengali and North West as parenteral population	50-66%	11-30%	20-23%

(2) Population genetic study of three VNTR loci (D2S44, D7S22m and D12S11) in five ethnically defined populations of the Indian subcontinent. - Papiha SS (1996) 

An VNTR study from 1996 also found over 70-82% of Sinhalese genes to originate from Bengali admixture:

Parenteral population	Bengali	Tamil	Gujarati	Punjabi
Using Tamil and Bengali as parenteral population	70.03%	29.97%	-
Using Tamil, Bengali and Gujarati as parenteral population	71.82%	16.38%	11.82%
Using Bengali, Gujarati and Punjabi as parenteral population	82.09%	-	15.39%	2.52%

(3) The Legend of Prince Vijaya - A Study of Sinhalese origins. R.L. Kirk (1976) 

"The genetic distance study agrees with this in giving low values for the distance between the Sinhalese and Tamils and Keralites.

The lowest distance value for the Sinhalese however, for fθ is with the Bengalis, but the differences in genetic distance between the Sinhalese and Tamils on the one hand and the Sinhalese and Bengalis on the other are not great. 

Indeed Bengalis are closer to the south Indian populations included in these comparisons than they are to the other Indian populations in the north and north-west."

Two other studies suggest a predominant South Indian descent with significant Bengali admixture:

(1) Genetic affinities of Sri Lankan populations. Kshatriya GK, Human Biology (1995).

"The study of genetic admixture revealed that the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka have a higher contribution from the Tamils of southern India (69.86%) compared with the Bengalis of northeast India (25.41%), whereas the Tamils of Sri Lanka have received a higher contribution from the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka (55.20%) compared with the Tamils of India (16.63%)."

(2) Genetic relationships between Indians and their neighbouring populations. Roychoudhury AK (1985)

The differences between the studies can perhaps be explained by caste and regional variations amongst the Sinhalese.

Regardless, the above genetic evidence all confirm the migration of men from the Bengal region and the mixing of North and South Indians in the early formation of the Sinhalese. 

The below chart suggests that on average the Sinhalese lie in between North and South Indian populations genetically:



Interestingly, both the Sinhalese and SL Tamils are partially enriched with the Aryan R1a1 y chromosome. This enrichment is absent in Tamil Nadu castes with the exception of the Brahmins and Jains. 

Possible Sinhala paternal ancestry of a segment of the SL Tamils may partly account for this R1a1 enrichment. 

Source: Mustak 2019

Source: Kivisild 2003

Source: Kivisild 2003

Source: Kivisild 2003

Source: Poznik 2016