Chunnakam

Chunnakam (Tamil: சுன்னாகம், Sinhalese: හුණුගම Hunugama) is a town, located six miles north of the city of Jaffna. It is one of the important commercial centers in Jaffna. The original name of Chunnakam is Mayilani.

In Northern Sri Lanka, Chunnakam is only second to Jaffna in terms of population density and commercial activities in and around its neighborhoods.

Etymology

According to Tamil scholars, name Chunnakam derived from two Tamil words, Chunnam+Gramam, Chunnam means Limestone and Gramam means village, Limestone are widely found in the nearby areas, on the contrary some Sinhala scholars argue the word Chunnakam is from the Sinhala origin as 'Gama' in Sinhala means village and they also argue in Chunnakam. However, the claims did not yield any scientific proofs to substantiate their claims to be true. One of the great Sri Lanka Tamil poets, Kumarasamy pulavar gave a new definition to its name in his poem beginning as முடிவில்லா துறை சுன்னாகத்தான் வழி ... , from which, scholars believe that the rising Sun from the East reflecting on the temple of Siva located on the presentday station road, has the impression of seeing a shinny mountain, which is presumably the Heaven, the home of Lord Siva made him to inspire for the poem mentioned above here, சுன்னாகம் can be divided into two parts of nouns as சுல் + நாகம் = சுன்னாகம், where சுல் means silver and நாகம் means mountain giving the compound noun the meaning as "Shinny Mountain"