INTRODUCTION. THE circumstances under which "The EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF CEYLON," which is appended to this pamphlet, was compiled, are explained in the following letter:— To the Editor of the Ceylon Almanac. SIR,-In compliance with your request, I have the pleasure to send you a chronological table of the kings of Ceylon, compiled from the native annals extant in this island. In the comparatively short period that this colony has been a British possession, several histories, besides minor historical notices, of Ceylon have already been published in English. The individuals to whom we are indebted for those works, unacquainted themselves with the native languages, and misguided by the persons from whom they derived their information, have concurred in representing that there were no authentic historical records to be found in Ceylon. CORDINER affords no information regarding them; and falls at once into an anachronism of 471 years, by applying the following remark to the Buddha worshipped in Ceylon: "Sir W. Jones, on taking the medium of four several dates, fixes the time of Buddha, or the ninth great incarnation of Vishnu, in year 1014 before the birth of Christ." the PERCEVAL asserts, that "the wild stories current among the natives throw no light whatever on the ancient history of the island: the earliest period at which we can look for any authentic information is the arrival of the Portuguese under Almeida, in 1505." BERTOLACCI, in his valuable statistical work, states, "we learn, from tradition, that Ceylon possessed in former times a larger population and a much higher state of cultivation than it now enjoys: although we have no data to fix, with any degree of certainty, the exact period of this prosperity, yet the fact is incontestable. The signs which have been left, and which we observe upon the island, lead us gradually back to the remotest antiquity." PHILALETHES, professedly writing "The History of Ceylon from the earliest period," which is prefixed to the last edition of KNOX's historical relation of the island, dates the commencement of the Wejayan dynasty |