1: Besides the Mahawanso, Rajaratnacari, and Rajavali, the other native chronicles relied on by Turnour in compiling his epitome were the Pujavali, composed in the thirteenth century, the Neekaasangraha, written A.D. 1347, and the Account of the Embassy to Siam in the reign of Raja Singha II., A.D. 1739-47, by WILBAAGEDERE MUDIANSE.
2: By the help of TURNOUR'S translation of the Mahawanso and the versions of the Rajaratnacari and Rajavali, published by Upham, two authors have since expanded the Epitome of the former into something like a connected narrative, and those who wish to pursue the investigation of the early story of the island, will find facilities in the History of Ceylon, published by KNIGHTON in 1845, and in the first volume of Ceylon and its Dependencies, by PRIDHAM, London, 1849. To facilitate reference I have appended a Chronological List of Singhalese Sovereigns, compiled from the historical epitome of Turnour. See Note B. at the end of this chapter.
Besides evidence of a less definite character, there is one remarkable coincidence which affords grounds for confidence in the faithfulness of the purely historic portion of the Singhalese chronicles; due allowance being made for that exaggeration of style which is apparently inseparable from oriental recital. The circumstance alluded to is the mention in the Mahawanso of the Chandragupta[1], so often alluded to by the Sanskrit writers, who, as Sir William Jones was the first to discover, is identical with Sandracottus or Sandracoptus, the King of the Prasii, to whose court, on the banks of the Ganges, Megasthenes was accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator, about 323 years before Christ. Along with a multitude of facts relating to Ceylon, the Mahawanso contains a chronologically connected history of Buddhism in India from B.C. 590 to B.C. 307, a period signalized in classical story by the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, and by the Embassy of Megasthenes to Palibothra,—events which in their results form the great link connecting the histories of the West and East, but which have been omitted or perverted in the scanty and perplexed annals of the Hindus, because they tended to the exaltation of Buddhism, a religion loathed by the Brahmans.
1: The era and identity of Sandracottus and Chandragupta have been accurately traced in MAX MÜLLER'S History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 298, &c.
The Prasii, or people of Megadha, occupy a prominent place in the history of Ceylon, inasmuch as Gotama Buddha, the great founder of the faith of its people, was a prince of that country, and Mahindo, who finally established the Buddhist religion amongst them, was the great-grandson of Chandagutto, a prince whose name thus recorded in the Mahawanso[1] (notwithstanding a chronological discrepancy of about sixty years), may with little difficulty be identified with the "Chandragupta" of the Hindu Purána, and the "Sandracottus" of Megasthenes.
1: Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 21. See also WILSON'S Notes to the Vishnu Purána, p. 468.
This is one out of the many coincidences which demonstrate the authenticity of the ancient annals of Ceylon; and from sources so venerable, and materials so abundant, I propose to select a few of the leading events, sufficient to illustrate the origin, and explain the influence of institutions and customs which exist at the present day in Ceylon, and which, from time immemorial, have characterised the inhabitants of the island.
So far as I am aware, no map has ever been produced, exhibiting the comparative geography of Ceylon, and placing its modern names in juxtaposition with their Sanskrit and Pali.
LANGKÂ OR TÂMBRAPARNI.
(CEYLON)
according to
The Sanscrit Pali & Singhalese Authorities.
NB The modern Names are given in Italics.
By
Sir J. Emerson Tennet
N.B. The names of subordinate or cotemporary Princes are printed in Italics.
NOTE.—The Singhalese vowels a, e, i, o, u are to be pronounced as in French or Italian.
Divested of the insipid details which overlay them, the annals of Ceylon present comparatively few stirring incidents, and still fewer events of historic importance to repay the toil of their perusal. They profess to record no occurrence anterior to the advent of the last Buddha, the great founder of the national faith, who was born on the borders of Nepaul in the seventh century before Christ.
In the theoretic doctrines of Buddhism "Buddhas"[1] are beings who appear after intervals of inconceivable extent; they undergo transmigrations extending over vast spaces of time, accumulating in each stage of existence an increased degree of merit, till, in their last incarnation as men, they attain to a degree of purity so immaculate as to entitle them to the final exaltation of "Buddha-hood," a state approaching to incarnate divinity, in which they are endowed with wisdom so supreme as to be competent to teach mankind the path to ultimate bliss.
1: A sketch of the Buddhist religion may be seen in Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S History of Christianity in Ceylon, ch. v. London, 1850. But the most profound and learned dissertations on Buddhism as it exists in Ceylon, will be found in the works of the Rev. R. SPENCE HARDY, Eastern Monachism, Lond. 1850, and A Manual of Buddhism, Lond. 1853.
Their precepts, preserved orally or committed to writing, are cherished as bana or the "word;" their doctrines are incorporated in the system of dharma or "truth;" and, at their death, instead of entering on a new form of being, either corporeal or spiritual, they are absorbed into Nirwana, that state of blissful unconsciousness akin to annihilation which is regarded by Buddhists as the consummation of eternal felicity.
Gotama, who is represented as the last of the series of Buddhas[1], promulgated a religious system in India which has exercised a wider influence over the Eastern world than the doctrines of any other uninspired teacher in any age or country.[2] He was born B.C. 624 at Kapila-Vastu (a city which has no place in the geography of the Hindus, but which appears to have been on the borders of Nepaul); he attained his superior Buddha-hood B.C. 588, under a bo-tree[3] in the forest of Urawela, the site of the present Buddha Gaya in Bahar; and, at the age of eighty, he died at Kusinara, a doubtful locality, which it has been sought to identify with the widely separated positions of Delhi, Assam, and Cochin China.[4]
1: There were twenty-four Buddhas previous to the advent of Gotama, who is the fourth in the present Kalpa or chronological period. His system of doctrine is to endure for 5000 years, when it will be superseded by the appearance and preaching of his successor.—Rajaratnacari, ch. i. p. 42.
2: HARDY'S Eastern Monachism, ch. i. p. 1. There is evidence of the widely-spread worship of Buddha in the remotely separated individuals with whom it has been sought at various times to identify him. "Thus it has been attempted to show that Buddha was the same as Thoth of the Egyptians, and Turm of the Etruscans, that he was Mercury, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, the Woden of the Scandinavians, the Manes of the Manichæans, the prophet Daniel, and even the divine author of Christianity." (PROFESSOR WILSON, Journ. Asiat. Soc., vol. xvi. p. 233.) Another curious illustration of the prevalence of his doctrines may be discovered in the endless variations of his name in the numerous countries over which his influence has extended: Buddha, Budda, Bud, Bot, Baoth, Buto, Budsdo, Bdho, Pout, Pote, Fo, Fod, Fohi, Fuh, Pet, Pta, Poot, Phthi, Phut, Pht, &c.—POCOCKE'S India in Greece, appendix, 397. HARDY'S Buddhism, ch. vii. p. 355. HARDY in his Eastern Monachism says, "There is no country in either Europe or Asia, except those that are Buddhist, in which the same religion is now professed that was there existent at the time of the Redeemer's death," ch. xxii. p. 327.
3: The Pippul, Ficus religiosa.
4: Professor H.H. WILSON has identified Kusinara or Kusinagara with Kusia in Gorakhpur, Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc., vol xvi. p. 246.
In the course of his ministrations Gotarna is said to have thrice landed in Ceylon. Prior to his first coming amongst them, the inhabitants of the island appear to have been living in the simplest and most primitive manner, supported on the almost spontaneous products of the soil. Gotama in person undertook their conversion, and alighted on the first occasion at Bintenne, where there exists to the present day the remains of a monument erected two thousand years ago[1] to commemorate his arrival. His second visit was to Nagadipo in the north of the island, at a place whose position yet remains to be determined; and the "sacred foot-print" on Adam's Peak is still worshipped by his devotees as the miraculous evidence of his third and last farewell.
1: By Dutugaimunu, B.C. 164. For an account of the present condition of this Dagoba at Bintenne, see Vol. II. Pt. IX. ch. ii.
To the question as to what particular race the inhabitants of Ceylon at that time belonged, and whence or at what period the island was originally peopled, the Buddhist chronicles furnish no reply. And no memorials of the aborigines themselves, no monuments or inscriptions, now remain to afford ground for speculation. Conjectures have been hazarded, based on no sufficient data, that the Malayan type, which extends from Polynesia to Madagascar, and from Chin-India to Taheite, may still be traced in the configuration, and in some of the immemorial customs, of the people of Ceylon.[1]
1: Amongst the incidents ingeniously pressed into the support of this conjecture is the use by the natives of Ceylon of those double canoes and boats with outriggers, which are never used on the Arabian side of India, but which are peculiar to the Malayan race in almost every country to which they have migrated; Madagascar and the Comoro islands, Sooloo, Luzon, the Society Islands, and Tonga. PRITCHARD'S Races of Man, ch. iv. p. 17. For a sketch of this peculiar canoe, see Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. i.
There is a dim tradition that the first settlers in Ceylon arrived from the coasts of China. It is stated in the introduction to RIBEYRO'S History of Ceylon, but rejected by VALENTYN, ch, iv. p. 61.
The legend prefixed to RIBEYRO is as follows. "Si nous en croyons les historiens Portugais, les Chinois out été les premiers qui ont habité cette isle, et cela arriva de cette manière. Ces peuples étoient les maîtres du commerce de tout l'orient; quelques unes de leurs vaisseaux furent portéz sur les basses qui sont près du lieu, que depuis on appelle Chilao par corruption au lieu de Cinilao. Les équipages se sauvèrent à terre, et trouvant le pais bon et fertile ils s'y établirent: bientôt après ils s'allièrent avec les Malabares, et les Malabares y envoyoient ceux qu'ils exiloient et qu'ils nominoient Galas. Ces exiles s'étant confondus avec les Chinois, de deux noms n'en out fait qu'un, et se sont appellés Chin-galas 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 Chinese 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.
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 localities[1], in the forests and mountains of the peninsula, there are still to be found the remnants of tribes who undoubtedly represent the aboriginal race.
1: LASSEN, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i. p. 199, 362.
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 the period at which a vernacular dialect could have been common to the two countries must have been extremely remote.[1]
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 Magadha translated the Attah-Katha from Singhalese into Pali.—Ib. p. 253. See also DE ALWIS, Sidath-Sangara, p. 19.
Though not based directly on either Sanskrit 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 Sanskrit 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 Latin[1]; so, in the language of Ceylon, the terms applicable to the national religion are taken from Pali, those of science and art from Sanskrit, whilst to pure Singhalese belong whatever expressions were required to denote the ordinary wants of mankind before society had attained organisation.[2]
1: See TRENCH on the Study of Words.
2: See DE ALWIS, Sidath-Sangara, p. xlviii.
B.C. 543Whatever 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 were still aliens to his religion, when, on the day of his decease, B.C. 543, Wijayo[1], the discarded son of one of the petty sovereigns in the valley of the Ganges[2] effected a landing with a handful of followers in the vicinity of the modern Putlam.[3] 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 Neuera[4], and founded a dynasty, which, for nearly eight centuries, retained supreme authority in Ceylon.
1: Sometimes spelled Wejaya. 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 Mahawanso, p. liii.
2: To facilitate reference to the ancient divisions of India, a small map is subjoined, chiefly taken from Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde.
MAP OF ANCIENT INDIA.
3: 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, he landed at Preaturé (Pereatorre), between Trincomalie and Jaffna-patam, and that the first city founded by him was Mantotte.—Decade v. l. 1. c. 5.
4: See a note at the end of this chapter, on the landing of Wijayo in Ceylon, as described in the Mahawanso.
B.C. 543.The people whom he mastered with so much facility are described in the sacred books as Yakkhos or "demons,"[1] and Nagas[2], or "snakes;" designations which the Buddhist historians are supposed to have employed in order to mark their contempt for the uncivilised aborigines[3], in the same manner that the aborigines in the Dekkan were denominated goblins and demons by the Hindus[4], from the fact that, like the Yakkhos 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 Yakkhos the interior[5]; and, notwithstanding their alleged barbarism, both had organised some form of government, however rude.[6] The Yakkhos had a capital which they called Lankapura, and the Nagas a king, the possession of whose "throne of gems"[7] 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 Nagadipo[8], 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.[9]
1: Mahawanso, ch. vii.; FA HIAN, Foĕ-kouĕ-ki, ch. xxxvii.
2: Rajavali, p. 169.
3: REINAUD, Introd. to Abouldfeda, vol. i. sec. iii. p. ccxvi. See also CLOUGH'S Singhalese Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 2.
4: MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S, History of India, b. iv. ch. xi. p. 216.
5: The first descent of Gotama Buddha in Ceylon was amongst the Yakkhos at Bintenne; in his second visit he converted the "Naga King of Kalany," near Colombo, Mahawanso, ch. i. p. 5.
6: FABER, Origin of Idolatry, b. ii ch. vii. p. 440.
7: Mahawanso, ch. i.
8: 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, showing that at that time serpent-worship had not been entirely extinguished by Brahmanism in the Dekkan, and affording an additional ground for conjecture that the first inhabitants of Ceylon were a colony from the opposite coast of Calinga.
9: BRYANT'S Analysis of Mythology, chapter on Ophiolatria, vol. i p. 480, "Euboea means Oub-aia, and signifies the serpent island." (Ib.)
But STRABO affords us 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 [Greek: ophiogeneis], or the Serpent races, actually retained a physical affinity with the snakes with whom they were popularly identified, [Greek: "entautha mytheuousi tous Ophiogeneis syngenneian tina echein pros tous oseis."]—STRABO, lib. xiii. c. 588.
PLINY alludes to the same fable (lib. vii.). And OVID, from the incident of Cadmus' having sown the dragon's teeth (that is, implanted Ophiolatria in Greece), calls the Athenians Serpentigenæ.
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.
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 (Yakkhini) 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 Yakkhini 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[1], 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 impossible not to be struck with a curious resemblance between this description and that in the 10th book of the Odyssey, where Eurylochus, after landing, returns to Ulysses to recount the fate of his companions, who, having wandered towards the palace of Circe, had been imprisoned after undergoing transformation into swine. Ulysses hastens to their relief, and having been provided by Mercury with antidotes, which enabled him to resist the poisons of the sorceress, whom he discovers in her retreat, the story proceeds:—