Authors : Ahmad Sunawari Long, Kamarudin Salleh, Ahamed Sarjoon Razick and Khaidzir Hj Ismail
Abstract: The District Moneragala, also called as ‘Wellassa’ by its ancient residents, is one of the 22 electoral districts of Sri Lanka. It is located in the Province of Uva in the South Eastern part of Sri Lanka. In Moneragala, the Sinhalese are the predominant group which comprises 94.5% of the total population, the Tamils 3.3% and the Muslims 2.17%. The main objective of this study is to find the uniqueness of Wellassa (Moneragala) as a strategic station of commercial passage in the medieval history of Sri Lanka. It is an unfilled gap and there is no more academic research on the abovementioned area. Thus, this study takes this gap to be bridged throughout an academic field survey as a qualitative nature of research. In order to carry out this research, there has been used the folktales and utterances prevailed among the native public as well as the census reports and the ancient tombs. As the finding of this study, due to the location of Wellassa in the centre of the ancient trading route which was from Kandyan Kingdom to Eastern and Southern Provinces of Sri Lanka, it was concerned as a centre and a strategic station of Foreign and local trading activities which held between the Muslims of respective regions through this route during the medieval time.
Ahmad Sunawari Long, Kamarudin Salleh, Ahamed Sarjoon Razick and Khaidzir Hj Ismail, 2016. Wellassa (Moneragala): A Strategic Station of Commercial Passage in the History of Sri Lanka. The Social Sciences, 11: 728-734.