She got her name, Shomaliya, as she offered the soft and sweet foods?

සෞම්‍ය ප්‍රනීත ආහාර පූජා කිරීම නිසාම ශොමලිය වුවාද ?

 I feel that the language translators experience a mental struggle when they change and translate names of people and places. They experience this in a strong way when they get involved with a difference of a sequence of few names.  The incidents of this nature can be identified. Why? it weakens the ability of the flow of the smooth words to the mind. This situation can be understood by comparing and analyzing this weakness with the words to follow.

One such name change which was identified by us can be presented as follows. Suppawāsā Kōliya Dheethaa (සුපපවාසා කෝලිය ධීතා) and Suppiyā (සුප්පියා) mentioned in Anguththara Nikayatthakatha (Anguththara Nikāyatthakathā) is the best example for this. (Anguththara Nikāyatthakathā, Page 333,334). Suppawāsā has been presented as the most honored one among the females who offesr sweet and tasty foods. Even though both these incidents had been explained as something happened in India, this difference itself proved that the real incident had been occurred in Heladiva. This could be identified based on the above mentioned mental distortion.  

The inscription no 140, Wāgollakada, found in the “Lanka Shilaalekana Sangrahaya” gives some room to identify one Ūpāsikā having connections with this name. The name “ශොමලිය - Shomaliya” found in this inscription has been changed as “සුපපවාසා කෝලිය - Suppawāsā Kōliya”. This inscription is given below.

140         උපශික ශොමලිය ලෙණෙ (I.C.P. 11)
140         upashaka shomaliya lene (I.C.P. 11)

The script block of this inscription cannot be seen. The reason for that should be further investigated. We can assume that this name would have been used for her as she had offered soft and tasty foods. We find numerous examples for this from the Buddhist history. Hence, this assumption certainly will support the idea that the most sacred Bosath (Bōsath) had attended in to his enlightenment in this Heladiva.

{The English translation of 'බුද්ධෝත්පත්තිය හෙළදිවයි' (Buddha was born in  Heladiva) - Part – 18}

Translated by Amal Meemanage (amalmeemanage@gmail.com)