Blog Archives

Chinese Admiral Zheng He’s trilingual stela in Galle-by admiral Ravindra c Wijegunaratne Source:Island A plaque erected to mark the opening of a new electronic library at the Attorney General’s Department was removed because the writing thereon was only in Sinhala and English, and Tamil had been left out. This reminded me of a stone plaque bearing the date 15th February 1409 put up by Chinese Admiral Zheng He at Galle harbour during one of his grand voyages to Sri Lanka, India and the African Continent. Zheng He was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral , and court eunuch during China’s early Ming Dynasty. Born as Ma He or Ma Sanbao into a Muslim family in 1371, he later adopted the surname Zheng conferred by the Yongle Emperor. He completed seven historical voyages to do trade and gather knowledge from other parts of world. He died in 1433, at the ...