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The Sinhalese are an indigenous and native people in Sri Lanka, and have lived there for over 2500 years. The Sinhalese are also known as "Hela" or "Sinhela". These synonyms find their origins in the two words: Sinha (meaning "lion") and Hela (meaning "pristine"). The name Sinhala translates to "Lion People" and refers the descent of the legendary founder of the Sinhalese people, the prince Vijaya. Vijaya the prince who first settled in the island (with 500 followers in 6th century BC) was supposed to have had a lion for a grandfather according to legend. We are of Indo-Aryan descent, and speak 'Sinhala', the oldest of the living Indo-Aryan languages. The Sinhalese have the oldest, continuously recorded history in the world-the story of our race can be traced back over 2500 years.The Sinhalese invented the sluicegate a 1000 years before the rest of the world, and are considered to have built the most sophisticated irrigation systems in the world according to British excavation engineers.One of the greatest contributions of the Sinhalese people to the cultural development of South and South East Asia and to world literature is the creation of a historic literature