But the greater probability is, that a branch of the same stock which originally colonised the Dekkan extended its migrations to Ceylon. All the records and traditions of the peninsula point to a time when its nations were not Hindu; and in numerous localities1, in the forests and mountains of the peninsula, there are still to be found the remnants of tribes who undoubtedly represent the aboriginal race. The early inhabitants of India before their comparative civilisation under the influence of the Aryan invaders, like the aborigines of Ceylon before the arrival of their Bengal conquerors, are described as mountaineers and foresters who were "rakshas" or demon worshippers; a religion, the traces of which are to be found to the present day amongst the hill tribes in the Concan and Canara, as well as in Guzerat and Cutch. In addition to other evidences of the community of origin of these continental tribes and the first inhabitants of Ceylon; there is a manifest identity, not alone in their popular superstitions at a very early period, but in the structure of the national dialects, which are still prevalent both in Ceylon and Southern India. Singhalese, as it is spoken at the present day, and, still more strikingly, as it exists as a written language in the literature of the island, presents unequivocal proofs of an affinity with the group of languages still in use in the Dekkan; Tamil, Telingu, and Malayalim. But with these its identification is dependent on analogy rather than on structure, and all existing evidence goes to show that et ensuite Chingalais." - RIBEYRO, Hist. de Ceylan, pref. du trad. It is only necessary to observe in reference to this hypothesis that it is at variance with the structure of the Singhalese alphabet, in which n and g form but one letter. DE BARROS and DE COUTO likewise adhere to the theory of a mixed race, originating in the settlement of Chi nese in the south of Ceylon, but they refer the event to a period subsequent to the seizure of the Singhalese king and his deportation_to China in the fifteenth century. DE BARROS, Dec. iii. ch. i.; DE COUTO Dec. v. ch. 5. 1 1 LASSEN, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i. p 199. 362. the period at which a vernacular dialect could have been common to the two countries must have been extremely remote.1 Though not based directly on either Sanscrit or Pali, Singhalese at various times has been greatly enriched from both sources, and especially from the former; and it is corroborative of the inference that the admixture was comparatively recent; and chiefly due to association with domiciliated strangers, that the further we go back in point of time the proportion of amalgamation diminishes, and the dialect is found to be purer and less alloyed. Singhalese seems to bear towards Sanscrit and Pali a relation similar to that which the English of the present day bears to the combination of Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman French, which serves to form the basis of the language. As in our own tongue the words applicable to objects connected with rural life are Anglo-Saxon, whilst those indicative of domestic refinement belong to the French, and those pertaining to religion and science are borrowed from Latin2; so, in the language of Ceylon, the terms applicable to the national religion are taken from Pali, those of science and art from Sanscrit, whilst to pure Singhalese belong whatever expressions were required to denote the ordinary wants of mankind before society had attained organisation.3 Whatever momentary success may have attended the preaching of Buddha, no traces of his pious labours long survived him in Ceylon. The mass of its inhabitants 1 The Mahawanso, (ch. xiv.) attests that at the period of Wijayo's conquest of Ceylon, B. c. 543, the language of the natives was different from that spoken by himself and his companions, which, as they came from Bengal, was in all probability Pali. Several centuries afterwards, A.D. 339, the dialect of the two races was still different, and some of the sacred writings were obliged to be translated from Pali into the Sihala language.-Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. xxxviii. p. 247. At a still later period, A.D. 410, a learned priest from Maghada translated the Attah-Katha from Singhalese into Pali.-Ib. p. 253. See also DE ALWIS, Sidath-Sangara, p. 19. 2 See TRENCH on the Study of Words. 3 See DE ALWIS, Sidath-Sangara, p. xlviii. B.C. 543. were still aliens to his religion, when, on the day of his decease, B. C. 5431, Wijayo, the discarded son of one of the petty sovereigns in the valley of the Ganges, effected a landing with a handful of followers in the vicinity of the modern Putlam.2 Here he married the daughter of one of the native chiefs, and having speedily made himself master of the island by her influence, he established his capital at Tamana Neura3, and founded a dynasty, which, for nearly eight centuries, retained supreme authority in Ceylon. mons, The people whom he mastered with so much facility are described in the sacred books as Yakkos or "de"and Nagas" or "snakes;" designations which the Buddhist historians are supposed to have employed in order to mark their contempt for the uncivilised aborigines, in the same manner that the aborigines in the Dekkan were denominated goblins and demons by the Hindus from the fact that, like the Yakkos of Ceylon, they too were demon worshippers. The Nagas, another section of the same superstition, worshipped the Cobra de Capello as an emblem of the destroying power. These appear to have chiefly inhabited the northern and western coasts of Ceylon, and the Yakkos the interiors; and, notwithstanding their alleged bar 1 TURNOUR has demonstrated that the alleged concurrence of the death of Buddha and the landing of Wijayo is a device of the sacred annalists, in order to give a pious interest to the latter event, which took place about sixty years later. Introd. Maha wanso, p. liii. li. 2 BURNOUF conjectures that the point from which Wijayo set sail for Ceylon was the Godavery, where the name of Bandar-maha-lanka (the Port of the Great Lanka), still commemorates the event. Journ. Asiat. vol. xviii. p. 134. DE COUTO, recording the Singhalese tradition as collected by the Portuguese, says he landed at Preaturé (Percatorre), between Trincomalie and Jaffna-patam, -~ and that the first city founded by him was Mantotte.-Decade, v. 1. 1. c. 5. 3 See a note at the end of this chapter, on the landing of Wijayo in Ceylon, as described in the Maha wanso. 4 Mahawanso, c. vii. FA HIAN, Foě-kouě-ki, ch. xxxvii. 5 Rajavali, p. 169. 6 REINAUD, Introd. to Aboulfeda, vol. i. sec. iii. p. ccxvi. See also CLOUGH'S Singhalese Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 2. MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S History of India, B. iv. ch. 11. p. 216. 8 The first descent of Gotama Buddha in Ceylon was amongst the Yakkos at Bintenne; in his second 112 543. barism, both had organised some form of government, B.C. however rude.1 The Yakkos had a capital which they called Lankapura, and the Nagas a king, the possession of whose "throne of gems was disputed by the rival sovereign of a neighbouring kingdom. So numerous were the followers of this gloomy idolatry of that time in Ceylon, that they gave the name of Nagadipo3, the Island of Serpents, to the portion of the country which they held, in the same manner that Rhodes and Cyprus severally acquired the ancient designation of Ophiusa, from the fact of their being the residence of the Ophites, who introduced serpent-worship into Greece.1 But whatever were the peculiarities of religion which distinguished the aborigines from their conquerors, the attention of Wijayo was not diverted from his projects of colonisation by any anxiety to make converts to his own religious belief. The earliest cares of himself and his followers were directed to implant civilisation, and two centuries were permitted to elapse before the first effort was made to supersede the popular worship by the inculcation of a more intellectual faith. visit he converted the "Naga King of Kalyani," near Colombo, Mahawanso, ch. i. p. 5. inhabitants of Ceylon were a colony 1 FABER, Origin of Idolatry, b. ii. chapter on Ophiolatria, vol. i. p. 480, ch. vii. p. 440. 2 Mahawanso, ch. i. But STRABO affords a a still more striking illustration of the Mahawanso, in calling the serpent worshippers of Ceylon "Serpents," since he states that in Phrygia and on the Hellespont the people who were styled optoyevis,or the Serpent races, actually retained a physical affinity with the snakes with whom they were popularly identified, “èvravða μv9evovoi roig Οφιογενεῖς συγγέννειάν τινα ἔχειν πρὸς rove opus.”—Strabo, lib. xiii. c. 588. 3 TURNOUR was unable to determine the position on the modern map of the ancient territory of Nagadipo.Introd. p. xxxiv. CASIE CHITTY, in a paper in the Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society, 1848, p. 71. endeavours to identify it with Jaffna. The Rajaratnacari places it at the present Kalany, on the river of that name near Colombo (vol. ii. p. 22). The Mahawanso in many passages alludes to the existence of Naga kingdoms on the continent of India, PLINY alludes to the same fable showing that at that time serpent | (lib. vii.). And OVID, from the inworship had not been entirely ex- cident of Cadmus' having sown the tinguished by Brahmanism in the dragon's teeth (that is, implanted Dekkan, and affording an additional Ophiolatria in Greece), calls the ground for conjecture that the first Athenians Serpentigenæ. NOTE. DESCRIPTION IN THE MAHAWANSO OF THE LANDING OF WIJAYO. THE landing of Wijayo in Ceylon is related in the 7th chapter of the Mahawanso, and Mr. TURNOUR has noticed the strong similarity between this story and Homer's account of the landing of Ulysses in the island of Circe. The resemblance is so striking that it is difficult to conceive that the Singhalese historian of the 5th century was entirely ignorant of the works of the Father of Poetry. Wijayo and his followers, having made good their landing, are met by a "devo" (a divine spirit), who blesses them and ties a sacred thread as a charm on the arm of each. One of the band presently discovers the princess in the person of a devotee, seated near a tank, and she being a magician (Yakkini) imprisons him and eventually the rest of his companions in a cave. The Mahawanso then proceeds: "all these persons not returning, Wijayo, becoming alarmed, equipping himself with the five weapons of war, proceeded after them, and examined the delightful pond: he could perceive no footsteps but those leading down into it, and there he saw the princess. It occurred to him his retinue must surely have been seized by her, and he exclaimed, 'Pray, why dost not thou produce my attendants?' 'Prince,' she replied, from attendants what pleasure canst thou derive? drink and bathe ere thou departest.' Seizing her by the hair with his left hand, whilst with his right he raised his sword, he exclaimed, Slave, deliver my followers or die.' The Yakkini terrified, implored for her life; Spare me, prince, and on thee will I bestow sovereignty, my love, and my service.' In order that he might not again be involved in difficulty he forced her to swear', and when he again demanded the liberation of his attendants she brought them forth, and declaring these men must be famishing,' she distributed to them rice and other articles procured from the wrecked ships of mariners, who had fallen a prey to her. A feast follows, and Wijayo and the princess retire to pass the night in an apartment which she causes to spring up at the foot of a tree, curtained as with a wall and fragrant with incense." It is impos 1 Εἰ μὴ μοι τλαίης γε, θεά, μέγαν ὅρκον ὀμόσσαι Odys. x. l. 343. |