page_title: Trincomalee
section_title: Earliest history
hierarchical_section_title: Trincomalee / History / Earliest history
context_page_description: Trincomalee also known as Gokanna/Gokarna, is the administrative headquarters of the Trincomalee District and major resort port city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Located on the east coast of the island overlooking the Trincomalee Harbour, 237 kilometres north-east of Colombo, 182 kilometres south-east of Jaffna and 111 kilometres miles north of Batticaloa, Trincomalee has been one of the main centres of Sri Lankan Tamil language speaking culture on the island for over two millennia. With a population of 99,135, the city is built on a peninsula of the same name, which divides its inner and outer harbours. People from Trincomalee are known as Trincomalians and the local authority is Trincomalee Urban Council. Trincomalee city is home to the famous Koneswaram temple from where it developed and earned its historic Tamil name Thirukonamalai. The town is home to other historical monuments such as the Bhadrakali Amman Temple, Trincomalee, the Trincomalee Hindu Cultural Hall and, opened in 1897, the Trincomalee Hindu College. Trincomalee is also the site of the Trincomalee railway station and an ancient ferry service to Jaffna and the south side of the harbour at Muttur.
context_section_description: Trincomalee which is a natural deep-water harbour has attracted seafarers, trader and pilgrims from Europe, Middle East, Africa, China, East Asia and Australasia since ancient times. Trinco, as it is commonly called, has been a seaport and Hindu pilgrimage center since 400 BCE. The earliest epigraphical inscriptions found in Trincomalee city are in the Tamil language. The Tamil settlement at the port of Trincomalee was one of the oldest settlements on the island. One inscription from 900–1000 CE belonging to the Chola Dynasty excavated near where the promontory's first temple stood is from a sluice and also concerns Koneswaram, as do the 10th century Nilaveli inscriptions.
  Ancient texts, as well as an inscription unearthed by archeologists among its Hindu archaeological remains, call it Gokarna in Sanskrit. Over its long history, Trincomalee, and specifically the Swami Rock promontory, has housed several Kovil temples to deities of the Hindu pantheon, as well as a Buddhist vihara and a Christian Catholic church, both introduced following invasions. A descendant of Ellalan of Anuradhapura, Kulakkottan, directed renovations of the Hindu temples and oversaw settlement of Tamils for their upkeep. Sacrificial and other cult practices at the Trincomalee promontory have been documented since the Yakkha period, and were noted during the reigns of Pandukabhaya of Anuradhapura, Maha Naga of Anuradhapura and Manavanna of Anuradhapura until the publication of The Life of Alexander Alexander in 1830. The worship of Eiswara is noted to have been the original worship of the island and the deity worshiped by Kuveni, the ancient Yakkha queen; Charles Pridham, Jonathan Forbes and George Turnour state that it is probable there is no more ancient form of worship existing than that of Eiswara upon his sacred promontory.
  In the earliest known literary reference to the Siva temple, Mahabharata, the Hindu epic written between 400–100 BCE, the temple of Gokarna bay is in the middle of the ocean and is the island shrine of Uma's consort, known in the three worlds and worshiped by all natives of the island including the Nagas, Yakkhas, Siddhars and Devas, peoples from the subcontinent, the rivers, ocean and mountains. Fasting there for three nights in worship of Siva as Ishana, one acquireth the merit of the horse-sacrifice, and the status of Ganapatya. By staying there for twelve nights, one's soul is cleansed of all sins. Mahabharata continues that the shrine is the next pilgrimage spot for Hindus en route south following Kanyakumari of the early Pandyan kingdom and Tamraparni island (Kudiramalai). In the same time period, the Ramayana in written form describes how King Ravana and his mother had worshipped Siva at the shrine, when the former wanted to remove the temple of Koneswaram when his mother was in ailing health around 2000 BCE. This literature continues that as the king was heaving the rock, Lord Siva made him drop his sword. As a result of this a cleft was created on the rock, today called Ravana Vettu – meaning Ravana's Cleft. Upon her death, her last rites were performed at the Kanniya Hot water springs in the Kanniya suburb of Trincomalee city.
  The Siva-worshipping Siddhar Patanjali's birth at the city in 180 BCE and its connections to another Siddhar Agastya from at least the 5th–4th century BCE suggests that Yoga Sun Salutation originated on the promontory of Trincomalee. One of Trincomalee's suburbs, Kankuveli is home to ruins of the Tamil Siddhar medical university established by Agastya, the "Agathiyar Thapanam", which alongside his other shrines at Sivan Oli Padam Malai, helped spread Tamraparniyan science across the continent during the pre-classical era. The Vayu Purana refers to the Siva temple on Trikuta hill on the eastern coast of Lanka once again in the 3rd century.
  Another mention is found in the 5th century CE Mahavamsa where King Vijaya brought his nephew Panduvasdeva to land at the bay in the 4th century BC. The Yalpana Vaipava Malai asserts that Vijaya restored the Koneswaram temple and the other four Eswarams upon 
caption: Prima Flour Factory to the right, Trincomalee city
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