CEYLON AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
Although mysterious rumours of the wealth and wonders of India had reached the Western nations in the heroic ages, and although travellers at a later period returning from Persia and the East had spread romantic reports of its vastness and magnificence, it is doubtful whether Ceylon had been heard of in Europe[1] even by name till the companions of Alexander the Great, returning from his Indian expedition, brought back accounts of what they had been told of its elephants and ivory, its tortoises and marine monsters.[2]
1: Nothing is more strikingly suggestive of the extended renown of Ceylon and of the different countries which maintained an intercourse with the island, than the number and dissimilarity of the names by which it has been known at various periods throughout Europe and Asia. So remarkable is this peculiarity, that LASSEN has made "the names of Taprobane" the subject of several learned disquisitions (De Taprobane Insula veter. cogn. Dissert. sec. 2, p. 5; Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i. p. 200, note viii. p. 212, &c.); and BURNOUF has devoted two elaborate essays to their elucidation, Journ. Asiat. 1826, vol. viii. p. 129. Ibid., 1857, vol. xxxiii. p. 1.
In the literature of the Brahmans, Lanka, from having been the scene of the exploits of Rama, is as renowned as Ilion in the great epic of the Greeks. "Taprobane," the name by which the island was first known to the Macedonians, is derivable from the Pali "Tamba panni." The origin of the epithet will be found in the Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 56. and it is further noticed in the present work, Vol. I. P. 1. ch. i. p. 17, and P. III. ch. ii. p. 330.—It has likewise been referred to the Sanskrit "Tambrapani;" which, according to LASSEN, means "the great pond," or "the pond covered with the red lotus," and was probably associated with the gigantic tanks for which Ceylon is so remarkable. In later times Taprobane was exchanged for Simundu, Palai-simundu, and Salike, under which names it is described by PTOLEMY, the author of the Periplus, and by MARCIANUS of Heraclæa. Palai-simundu, LASSEN conjectures to be derived from the Sanskrit Pali-simanta, "the head of the sacred law," from Ceylon having become the great centre of the Buddhist faith (De Taprob., p. 16; Indische Alter. vol. i. p. 200); and Salike he regards merely as a seaman's corruption of "Sinhala or Sihala," the name chosen by the Singhalese themselves, and signifying "the dwelling place of lions." BURNOUF suggests whether it may not be Sri-Lanka, or "Lanka the Blessed."
Sinhala, with the suffix of "diva," or "dwipa" (island), was subsequently converted into "Silan-dwipa" and "Seren-diva," whence the "Serendib" of the Arabian navigators and their romances; and this in later times was contracted into Zeilan by the Portuguese, Ceylan by the Dutch, and Ceylon by the English. VINCENT, in his Commentary on the Periplus of the Erythræan Sea, vol. ii. p. 493, has enumerated a variety of other names borne by the island; and to all these might be further added those assigned to it in China, in Siam, in Hindustan, Kashmir, Persia, and other countries of the East. The learned ingenuity of BOCHART applied a Hebrew root to expound the origin of Taprobane (Geogr. Sac. lib. ii. ch. xxviii.); but the later researches of TURNOUR, BURNOUF, and LASSEN have traced it with certainty to its Pali and Sanskrit origin.
2: GOSSELIN, in his Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens, tom. iii. p. 291, says that Onesicritus, the pilot of Alexander's fleet, "avoit visité la Taprobane pendant un nouveau voyage qu'il eut ordre de faire." If so, he was the first European on record who had seen the island; but I have searched unsuccessfully for any authority to sustain this statement of GOSSELIN.
So vague and uncertain was the information thus obtained, that STRABO, writing upwards of two centuries later, manifests irresolution in stating that Taprobane was an island[1]; and POMPONIUS MELA, who wrote early in the first century of the Christian era, quotes as probable the conjecture of HIPPARCHUS, that it was not in reality an island, but the commencement of a south-eastern continent[2]; an opinion which PLINY records as an error that had prevailed previous to his own time, but which he had been enabled to correct by the information received from the ambassador who had been sent from Ceylon to the Emperor Claudius.[3]
1: STRABO, l. ii. c.i.s. 14, c.v.s. 14, [Greek: einai phasi nêson]; l. xv. c.i.s. 14. OVID was more confident, and sung of—
" ... Syene
Aut ubi Taprobanen Indica cingit aqua."
Epst. ex Ponto, l. 80
2: "Taprobanen aut grandis admodum insula aut prima pars orbis alterius Hipparcho dicitur."—P. MELA, iii. 7. "Dubitare poterant juniores num revera insula esset quam illi pro veterum Taprobane habebant, si nemo eousque repertus esset qui eam circumnavigasset: sic enim de nostra quoque Brittania dubitatum est essetne insula antequam illam circumnavigasset Agricola."—Dissertatio de Ætate et Amtore Peripli Maris Erythræi; HUDSON, Geographiæ Veter. Scrip. Grac. Min.., vol. i. p. 97.
3: PLINY, 1. vi. c. 24.
In the treatise De Mundo, which is ascribed to ARISTOTLE[1], Taprobane is mentioned incidentally as of less size than Britain; and this is probably the earliest historical notice of Ceylon that has come down to us[2] as the memoirs of Alexander's Indian officers, on whose authority Aristotle (if he be the author of the treatise "De Mundo") must have written, survive only in fragments, preserved by the later historians and geographers.
1: I have elsewhere disposed of the alleged allusions of Sanchoniathon to an island which was obviously meant for Ceylon. (See [Note (A)] end of this chapter.) The authenticity of the treatise De Mundo, as a production of ARISTOTLE, is somewhat doubtful (SCHOELL, Literat. Grecque, liv. iv. c. xl.); and it might add to the suspicion of its being a modern composition, that Aristotle should do no more than mention the name and size of a country of which Onesicritus and Nearchus had just brought home accounts so surprising; and that he should speak of it with confidence as an island; although the question of its insularity remained somewhat uncertain at a much later period.
2: Fabricius, in the supplemental volume of his Codex Pseudepigraphi veteris Testamenti, Hamb., A.D. 1723, says: "Samarita, Genesis, viii. 4, tradit Noæ arcam requievisse super montem [Greek: tês] Serendib sive Zeylan."—P. 30; and it was possibly upon this authority that it has been stated in Kitto's Cyclopoedia of Biblical Literature, vol. i. p. 199, as "a curious circumstance that in Genesis, viii. 4, the Samaritan Pentateuch has Sarandib, the Arabic name of Ceylon," instead of Ararat, as the resting place of the ark. Were this true, it would give a triumph to speculation, and serve by a single but irresistible proof to dissipate doubt, if there were any, as to the early intercourse between the Hebrews and that island as the country from which Solomon drew his triennial supplies of ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings, x. 22). Assuming the correctness of the opinion that the Samaritan Pentateuch is as old as the separation of the tribes in the reign of Rehoboam, B. C. 975-958, this would not only furnish a notice of Ceylon far anterior to any existing authority; but would assign an antiquity irreconcilable with historical evidence as to its comparatively modern name of "Serendib." The interest of the discovery would still be extraordinary, even if the Samaritan Pentateuch be referred to the later date assigned to it by Frankel, who adduces evidence to show that its writer had made use of the Septuagint. The author of the article in the Biblical Cyclopoedia is however in error. Every copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch, both those printed in the Paris Polyglot and in that of Walton, as well as the five MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which contain the eighth chapter of Genesis, together with several collations of the Hebrew and Samaritan text, make no mention of Sarandib, but all exhibit the word "Ararat" in its proper place in the eighth chapter of Genesis. "Ararat" is also found correctly in BLAYNET'S Pentat, Hebroeo-Samarit., Oxford, 1790.
But there is another work in which "Sarandib" does appear in the verse alluded to. PIETRO DELLA VALLE, in that most interesting letter in which he describes the manner in which he obtained at Damascus, in A.D. 1616, a manuscript of the Pentateuch on parchment in the Hebrew language, but written in Samaritan characters; relates that along with it he procured another on paper, in which not only the letters, but the language, was Samaritan—"che non solo è seritto con lettere Samaritane, ma in lingua anche propria de' Samaritani, che è un misto della Ebraica e della Caldea."—Viaggi, &c., Lett. da Aleppo, 15. di Giugno A.D. 1616.
The first of these two manuscripts is the Samaritan Pentateuch, the second is the "Samaritan version" of it. The author and age of the second are alike unknown; but it cannot, in the opinion of Frankel, date earlier than the second century, or a still later period. (DAVISON'S Biblical Criticism, vol. i, ch. xv. p. 242.) Like all ancient targums, it bears in some particulars the character of a paraphrase; and amongst other departures from the literal text of the original Hebrew, the translator, following the example of Onkelos and others, has substituted modern geographical names for some of the more ancient, such as Gerizim for Mount Ebal (Deut. xxvii. 4), Paneas for Dan, and Ascalon for Gerar; and in the 4th verse of the viiith chapter of Genesis he has made the ark to rest "upon the mountains of Sarandib." Onkelos in the same passage has Kardu in place of Ararat. See WALTON'S Polyglot, vol. i. p. 31; BASTOW, Bibl. Dict. 1847, vol. i. p. 71.
According to the Mahawanso, the epithet of Sihale-dwipa, the island of lions, was conferred upon Ceylon by the followers of Wijayo, B.C. 543 (Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 51), and from this was formed, by the Arabian seamen, the names Silan-dip and Seran-dib. The occurrence of the latter word, therefore, in the "Samaritan Pentateuch," if its antiquity be referable to the reign of Rehoboam, would be inexplicable; whereas no anachronism is involved by its appearance in the "Samaritan version," which was not written till many centuries after the Wijayan conquest.
There is another manuscript, written on bombycine, in the Bodleian Library, No. 345, described as an Arabic version of the Pentateuch, written between the years 884 and 885 of the Hejira, A.D. 1479 and 1480, and ascribed to Aba Said, son of Abul Hassan, "in eo continetur versio Arabica Pentateuchi quæ ex textu Hebræico-Samaritano non ex versione ilia quæ dialecto quadam peculieri Samaritanis quondam vernacula Scripta est."—Cat. Orient. MSS. vol. I. p. 2. In this manuscript, also, the word Sarendip instead of Ararat, occurs in the passage in Genesis descriptive of the resting of the ark.
From their compilations, however, it appears that the information concerning Ceylon collected by the Macedonian explorers of India, was both meagre and erroneous. ONESICRITUS, as he is quoted by Strabo and Pliny, propagated exaggerated statements as to the dimensions of the island[1] and the number of herbivorous cetacea[2] found in its seas; the elephants he described as far surpassing those of continental India both in courage and in size.[3]
1: These early errors as to the and position of Ceylon will be found explained elsewhere. See [Vol. I. P. 1. ch. i. p. 81.]
2: STRABO, xv. p. 691. The animal referred to by the informants of Onesicritus was the dugong, whose form and attitudes gave rise to the fabled mermaid. See Ælian, lib. xvi. ch. xviii., who says it has the face of a woman and spines that resemble hair.
3: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 24.
MEGASTHENES, twenty years after the death of Alexander the Great, was accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator to the court of Sandracottus, or Chandra-Gupta, the King of the Prasii, from whose country Ceylon had been colonised two centuries before by the expedition under Wijayo.[1] It was, perhaps, from the latter circumstance and the communication subsequently maintained between the insular colony and the mother country, that Megasthenes, who never visited any part of India south of the Ganges, and who was, probably, the first European who ever beheld that renowned river[1], was nevertheless enabled to collect many particulars relative to the interior of Ceylon. He described it as being divided by a river (the Mahawelli-ganga?) into two sections, one infested by wild beasts and elephants, the other producing gold and gems, and inhabited by a people whom he called Palæogoni[2], a hellenized form of Pali-Putra, "the sons of the Pali," the first Prasian colonists.
1: See [Vol. I. P. III. ch. iii. p. 336.]
2: ROBEBTSON'S Ancient India, sec. ii.
3: SCHWANBECK'S Megasthenes, Fragm. xviii.; SOLINUS POLYHISTOR, lii. 3; PLINY, lvi. ch. 24. ÆLIAN, in compiling his Natura Animalium, has introduced the story told by MEGASTHENES, and quoted by STRABO, of cetaceous animals in the seas of Ceylon with heads resembling oxen and lions; and this justifies the conjecture that other portions of the same work referring to the island may have been simultaneously borrowed from the same source. SCHWANBECK, apparently on this ground, has included among the Fragmenta incerta those passages from ÆLIAN, lib, xvi. ch. 17, 18, in which he says, and truly, that in Taprobane there were no cities, but from five to seven hundred villages built of wood, thatched with reeds, and occasionally covered with the shells of large tortoises. The sea coast then as now was densely covered with palm-trees (evidently coco-nut and Palmyra), and the forests contained elephants so superior to those of India that they were shipped in large vessels and sold to the King of Calinga (Northern Circars). The island, he says, is so large that "those in the maritime districts never hunted in the interior, and those in the interior had never seen the sea."
Such was the scanty knowledge regarding India communicated to Europe by those who had followed the footsteps of conquest into that remote region; and although eighteen centuries elapsed from the death of Alexander the Great before another European power sought to establish its dominion in the East, a new passion had been early implanted, the cultivation of which was in the highest degree favourable to the acquisition and diffusion of geographical knowledge. In an age before the birth of history[1], the adventurous Phoenicians, issuing from the Red Sea, in their ships, had reached the shores of India, and centuries afterwards their experienced seamen piloted the fleets of Solomon in search of the luxuries of the East.[2]
1: A compendious account of the early trade between India and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean will be found in PARDESSUS's Collection des Lois Maritimes antérieures au XVIII^e siècle, tom. i. p. 9.
2: It has been conjectured, and not without reason, that it may possibly have been from Ceylon and certainly from Southern India that the fleets of Solomon were returning when "once in every three years came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."—I Kings, x. 22, II Chron., xx. 21. An exposition of the reasons for believing that the site of Tarshish may be recognised in the modern Point de Galle will be found in a subsequent chapter descriptive of that ancient emporium. See also [Note A] at the end of this chapter.
Egypt, under the Ptolemies, became the seat of that opulent trade which it had been the aim of Alexander the Great to divert to it from Syria. Berenice was built on the Red Sea, as an emporium for the ships engaged in Indian voyages, and Alexandria excelled Tyre in the magnitude and success of her mercantile operations.
The conquest of Egypt by Augustus, so far from checking, served to communicate a fresh impulse to the intercourse with India, whence all that was costly and rare was collected in wanton profusion, to minister to the luxury of Rome. A bold discovery of the same period imparted an entirely new character to the navigation of the Indian Ocean. The previous impediment to trade had been the necessity of carrying it on in small vessels, that crept cautiously along the windings of the shore, the crews being too ignorant and too timid to face the dangers of the open sea. But the courage of an individual at length solved the difficulty, and dissipated the alarm. Hippalus, a seaman in the reign of Claudius, observing the steady prevalence of the monsoons[1], which blew over the Indian Ocean alternately from east to west, dared to trust himself to their influence, and departing from the coast of Arabia, he stretched fearlessly across the unknown deep, and was carried by the winds to Muziris, a port on the coast of Malabar, the modern Mangalore.
1: Arabic "maussam." I believe the root belongs to a dialect of India, and signifies "seasons." VINCENT fixes the discovery of the monsoons by Hippalus about the year A.D. 47, although it admits of no doubt that the periodical prevalence of the winds must have been known long before, if not partially taken advantage of by the seamen of Arabia and India. Periplus, &c., vol. ii, pp. 24—57.
An exploit so adventurous and so triumphant, rendered Hippalus the Columbus of his age, and his countrymen, to perpetuate his renown, called the winds which he had mastered by his name.[1] His discovery gave a new direction to navigation, it altered the dimensions and build of the ships frequenting those seas [2], and imparted so great an impulse to trade, that within a very brief period it became a subject of apprehension at Rome, lest the empire should be drained of its specie to maintain the commerce with India. Silver to the value of nearly a million and a half sterling, being annually required to pay for the spices, gems, pearls, and silks, imported through Egypt.[3] An extensive acquaintance was now acquired with the sea-coast of India, and the great work of Pliny, compiled less than fifty years after the discovery of Hippalus, serves to attest the additional knowledge regarding Ceylon which had been collected during the interval.
1: Periplus, &c., HUDSON, p. 32; PLINY, lib. vi, ch. 26. A learned disquisition on the discovery of the monsoons will be found in VINCENT's Commerce of the Ancients, vol. i. pp. 47, 253; vol. ii. pp. 49; 467; ROBERTSON's India, sec. ii.
2: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 24.
3: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. 26. The nature of this rich trade is fully described by the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, who was himself a merchant engaged in it.
Pliny, writing in the first century, puts aside the fabulous tales previously circulated concerning the island[1]; he gives due credit to the truer accounts of Onesicritus and Megasthenes, and refers to the later works of ERATOSTHENES and ARTEMIDORUS[2] the geographers, as to its position, its dimensions, its cities, its natural productions, and as to the ignorance of navigation exhibited by its inhabitants. All this, he says, was recorded by former writers, but it had fallen to his lot to collect information from natives of Ceylon who had visited Rome during his own time under singular circumstances. A ship had been despatched to the coast of Arabia to collect the Red Sea revenues, but having been caught by the monsoon it was carried to Hippuros, the modern Kudra-mali, in the north-west of Ceylon, near the pearl banks of Manaar. Here the officer in command was courteously received by the king, who, struck with admiration of the Romans and eager to form an alliance with them, despatched an embassy to Italy, consisting of a Raja and suite of three persons.[3]
1: I have not thought it necessary to advert to the romance of JAMBULUS, the scene of which has been conjectured, but without any justifiable grounds, to be laid in Ceylon; and which is strangely incorporated with the authentic work of DIODORUS SICULUS, written in the age of Augustus. DIODORUS professes to give it as an account of the recent discovery of an island to which it refers; a fact sufficiently demonstrative of its inapplicability to Ceylon, the existence of which had been known to the Greeks three hundred years before. It is the story of a merchant made captive by pirates and carried to Æthiopia, where, in compliance with a solemn rite, he and a companion were exposed in a boat, which, after a voyage of four months, was wafted to one of the Fortunate Islands, in the Southern Sea, where he resided seven years, whence having been expelled, he made his way to Palibothra, on the Ganges, and thence returned to Greece. In the pretended account of this island given by JAMBULUS I cannot discover a single attribute sufficient to identify it with Ceylon. On the contrary, the traits which he narrates of the country and its inhabitants, when they are not manifest inventions, are obviously borrowed from the descriptions of the continent of India, given by CTESIAS and MEGASTHENES. PRINSEP, in his learned analysis of the Sanchi Inscription, shows that what JAMBULUS says of the alphabet of his island agrees minutely with the character and symbols on the ancient Buddhist lats of Central India. Journ. Asiat. Soc. Ben., vol. vi. p. 476. WILFORD, in his Essay on the Sacred Isles of the West, Asiat. Res. x. 150, enumerates the statements of JAMBULUS which might possibly apply to Sumatra, but certainly not to Ceylon, an opinion in which he had been anticipated by RAMUSIO, vol. i. p. 176. LASSEN, in his Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. iii. p. 270, assigns his reasons for believing that Bali, to the east of Java, must be the island in which JAMBULUS laid the scene of his adventures. DIODORUS SICULUS, lib. ii. ch. lv., &c. An attempt has also been made to establish an identity between Ceylon and the island of Panchoea, which Diodoras describes in the Indian Sea, between Arabia and Gedrosia (lib. v. 41, &c.); but the efforts of an otherwise ingenious writer have been unsuccessful. See GROVER's Voice from Stonehenge, P. i. p. 95.
2: PLINY, lib. xxii. ch. liii. iv. ch. xxiv. vii. ch. ii.
3: "Legatos quatuor misit principe eoram Rachia."—PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24. This passage is generally understood to indicate four ambassadors, of whom the principal was one named Rachias. CASIE CHITTY, in a learned paper on the early History of Jaffna, offers another conjecture that "Rachia" may mean Arachia, a Singhalese designation of rank which exists to the present day; and in support of his hypothesis he instances the coincidence that "at a later period a similar functionary was despatched by the King Bhuwaneka-Bahu VIII. as ambassador to the court of Lisbon."—Journal Ceylon Asiat. Soc., p. 74, 1848. The event to which he refers is recorded in the Rajavali: it is stated that the king of Cotta, about the year 1540, "caused a figure of the prince his grandson to be made of gold, and sent the same under the care of Sallappoo Arachy, to be delivered to the King of Portugal. The Arachy having arrived and delivered the presents to the King of Portugal, obtained the promise of great assistance," &c.—Rajavali, p. 286. See also VALENTYN, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, ch. vi.; TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 49; RIBEYRO'S History, trans, by Lee, ch. v. But as the embassy sent to the Emperor Claudius would necessarily have been deputed by one of the kings of the Wijayan dynasty, it is more than probable that the rank of the envoy was Indian rather than Singhalese, and that "Rachia" means raja rather than arachy.
It may, however, be observed that Rackha is a name of some renown in Singhalese annals. Rackha was the general whom Prakrama Bahu sent to reduce the south of Ceylon when in arms in the 12th century (Mahawanso, ch. lxxiii.); and it is also the name of one of the heroes of the Paramas. WILFORD, As. Res., vol. ix. p. 41.
The Singhalese king of whom this is recorded was probably Chanda-Mukha-Siwa, who ascended the throne A.D. 44, and was deposed and assassinated by his brother A.D. 52. He signalised his reign by the construction of one of those gigantic tanks which still form the wonders of the island.[1] From his envoys Pliny learned that Ceylon then contained five hundred towns (or more properly villages), of which the chief was Palæsimunda, the residence of the sovereign, with a population of two hundred thousand souls.
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 218; TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 21; AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS mentions another embassy which arrived from Ceylon in the reign of the Emperor Julian, l. xx. c. 7, and which consequently must have been despatched by the king Upa-tissa II. I have elsewhere remarked, that it was in this century that the Singhalese appear to have first commenced the practice of sending frequent embassies to distant countries, and especially to China. (See chapter on the [Knowledge of Ceylon] possessed by the Chinese.)
They spoke of a lake called Megisba, of vast magnitude, and giving rise to two rivers, one flowing by the capital and the other northwards, towards the continent of India, which was most likely an exaggerated account of some of the great tanks, possibly that of Tissaweva, in the vicinity of Anarajapoora. They described the coral which abounds in the Gulf of Manaar; and spoke of marble, with colours like the shell of the tortoise; of pearls and precious stones; of the luxuriance of the soil, the profusion of all fruits except that of the vine, the natural wealth of the inhabitants, the mildness of the government, the absence of vexatious laws, the happiness of the people, and the duration of life, which was prolonged to more than one hundred years. They spoke of a commerce with China, but it was evidently overland, by way of India and Tartary, the country of the Seres being visible, they said, beyond the Himalaya mountains.[1] The ambassadors described the mode of trading among their own countrymen precisely as it is practised by the Veddahs in Ceylon at the present day[2]; the parties to the barter being concealed from each other, the one depositing the articles to be exchanged in a given place, and the other, if they agree to the terms, removing them unseen, and leaving behind what they give in return.
It is impossible to read this narrative of Pliny without being struck with its fidelity to truth in many particulars; and even one passage, to which exception has been taken as an imposture of the Singhalese envoys, when they manifested surprise at the quarters in which the sun rose and set in Italy, has been referred[3] to the peculiar system of the Hindus, in whose maps north and south are left and right; but it may be explained by the fact of the sun passing overhead in Ceylon, in his transit to the northern solstice; instead of hanging about the south, as in Italy, after acquiring some elevation above the horizon.
1: "Ultra montes Emodos Seras quoque ab ipsis aspici notos etiam commercio."—PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24.
2: See the chapter on the Veddahs, Vol. II. Part II. ch. iii.
3: See WILFORD'S Sacred Islands of the West, Asiat. Res., vol. x. p. 41.
The rapid progress of navigation and discovery in the Indian seas, within the interval of sixty or seventy years which elapsed between the death of Pliny and the compilation of the great work of Ptolemy is in no instance more strikingly exhibited than on comparing the information concerning Taprobane, which is given by the latter in his "System of Geography,"[1] with the meagre knowledge of the island possessed by all his predecessors. From his position at Alexandria and his opportunites of intercourse with mariners returning from their distant voyages, he enjoyed unusual facilities for ascertaining facts and distances, and in proof of his singular diligence he was enabled to lay down in his map of Ceylon the position of eight promontories upon its coast, the mouths of five principal rivers, four bays, and harbours; and in the interior he had ascertained that there were thirteen provincial divisions, and nineteen towns, besides two emporiums on the coast; five great estuaries which he terms lakes[2], two bays, and two chains of mountains, one of them surrounding Adam's Peak, which he designates as Maloea—the name by which the hills that environ it are known in the Mahawanso. He mentions the recent change of the name to Salike (which Lassen conjectures to be a seaman's corruption of the real name Sihala[3]); and he notices, in passing, the fact that the natives wore their hair then as they do at the present day, in such length and profusion as to give them an appearance of effeminacy, "[Greek: mallois gynaikeiois eis hapan anadedemenos]."[4]
1: PTOLEMY, Geog. lib. vii. c. 4, tab. xii, Asiæ. In one important particular a recent author has done justice to the genius and perseverance of Ptolemy, by demonstrating that although mistaken in adopting some of the fallacious statements of his predecessors, he has availed himself of better data by which to fix the position of Ceylon; so that the western coast in the Ptolemaic map coincides with the modern Ceylon in the vicinity of Colombo. Mr. COOLEY, in his learned work on Claudius Ptolemy and the Nile, Lond. 1854, has successfully shown that whilst forced to accept those popular statements which he had no authentic data to check, Ptolemy conscientiously availed himself of the best materials at his command, and endeavoured to fix his distances by means of the reports of the Greek seamen who frequented the coasts which he described, constructing his maps by means of their itineraries and the journals of trading voyages. But a fundamental error pervades all his calculations, inasmuch as he assumed that there were but 500 stadia (about fifty geographical miles) instead of sixty miles to a degree of a great circle of the earth; thus curtailing the globe of one sixth of its circumference. Once apprised of this mistake, and reckoning Ptolemy's longitudes and latitudes from Alexandria, and reducing them to degrees of 600 stadia, his positions may be laid down on a more correct graduation; otherwise "his Taprobane, magnified far beyond its true dimensions, appears to extend two degrees below the equator, and to the seventy-first meridian east of Alexandria (nearly twenty degrees too far east), whereas the prescribed reduction brings it westward and northward till it covers the modern Ceylon, the western coasts of both coinciding at the very part near Colombo likely to have been visited by shipping."—Pp. 47, 53, See also SCHOELL, Hist, de la Lit. Grecque, l. v. c. lxx.
2: It is observable that Ptolemy in his list distinguishes those indentations in the coast which he described as bays, [Greek: kolpos], from the estuaries, to which he gives the epithet of "lakes," [Greek: limên]. Of the former he particularises two, the position of which would nearly correspond with the Bay of Trincomalie and the harbour of Colombo. Of the latter he enumerates five, and from their position they seem to represent the peculiar estuaries formed by the conjoint influence of the rivers and the current, and known by the Arabs by the term of "gobbs." A description of them will be found at Vol. I. Part I. ch. i. p. 43.
3: May it not have an Egyptian origin "Siela-Keh," the land of Siela?
4: The description of Taprobane given by Ptolemy proves that the island had been thoroughly circumnavigated and examined by the mariners who were his informants. Not having penetrated the interior to any extent, their reports relative to it are confined to the names of the principal tribes inhabiting the several divisions and provinces, and the position of the metropolis and seat of government. But respecting the coast, their notes were evidently minute and generally accurate, and from them Ptolemy was enabled to enumerate in succession the bays, rivers, and harbours, together with the headlands and cities on the seaborde in consecutive order; beginning at the northern extremity, proceeding southward down the western coast, and returning along the east to Point Pedro. Although the majority of the names which he supplies are no longer susceptible of identification on the modern map, some of them can be traced without difficulty—thus his Ganges is still the Mahawelli-ganga; his Maagrammum would appear, on a first glance, to be Mahagam, but as he calls it the "metropolis," and places it beside the great river, it is evidently Bintenne, whose ancient name was "Maha-yangana" or "Ma-ha-welli-gam." His Anurogrammum, which he calls [Greek: Basileion], "the royal residence," is obviously Anarajapoora, the city founded by Anuradha five hundred years before Ptolemy was born (Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 50, x. 65, &c.). It may have borne in his time the secondary rank of a village or a town (gam or gramma), and afterwards acquired the higher epithet of Anuradha-porra, the "city" of Anuradha, after it had grown to the dimensions of a capital. The province of the Modutti in Ptolemy's list has a close resemblance in name, though not in position, to Mantotte; the people of Rayagam Corle still occupy the country assigned by him to the Rhogandani—his Naga dibii are identical with the Nagadiva of the Mahawanso; and the islet to which he has given the name of Bassa, occupies nearly the position of the Basses, which it has been the custom to believe were so called by the Portuguese—"Baxos" or "Baixos," sunken rocks. It is curious that the position in which he has placed the elephant plains or feeding grounds, [Greek: elephantôn nomoi], to the south-east of Adam's Peak, is the portion of the island about Matura, where, down to a very recent period, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English successively held their annual battues, not only for the supply of the government studs, but for export to India. Making due allowance for the false dimensions of the island assumed by Ptolemy, but taking his account of the relative positions of the headlands, rivers, harbours, and cities, the accompanying map affords a proximate idea of his views of Taprobane and its localities as propounded in his Geography.
Post-scriptum. Since the above was written, and the map it refers to was returned to me from the engraver, I have discovered that a similar attempt to identify the ancient names of Ptolemy with those now attached to the supposed localities, was made by Gosselin; and a chart so constructed will be found (No. xiv.) appended to his Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens, t. iii. p. 303. I have been gratified to find that in the more important points we agree; but in many of the minor ones, the want of personal knowledge of the island involved Gosselin in errors which the map I have prepared will, I hope, serve to rectify.—J.E.T.
CEYLON, ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY AND PLINY
The extent and accuracy of Ptolemy's information is so surprising, that it has given rise to surmises as to the sources whence it could possibly have been derived.[1] But the conjecture that he was indebted to ancient Phoenician or Tyrian authorities whom he has failed to acknowledge, is sufficiently met by the consideration that these were equally accessible to his predecessors. The abundance of his materials, especially those relating to the sea-borde of India and Ceylon, is sufficient to show that he was mainly indebted for his facts to the adventurous merchants of Egypt and Arabia, and to works which, like the Periplus of the Erythroean Sea (erroneously ascribed to ARRIAN the historian, but written by a merchant probably of the same name), were drawn up by practical navigators to serve as sailing directions for seamen resorting to the Indian Ocean.[2]
1: HEEREN, Hist. Researches, vol. ii. Appendix xii.
2: LASSEN, De Taprob. Ins. p. 4. From the error of Ptolemy in making the coast of Malabar extend from west to east, whilst its true position is laid down in the Periplus, VINCENT concludes that he was not acquainted with the Periplus, as, anterior to the invention of printing, cotemporaries might readily be ignorant of the productions of each other (VINCENT, vol. ii. p. 55). Vincent assigns the composition of the Periplus to the reign of Claudius or Nero, and Dodwell to that of M. Aurelius, but Letronne more judiciously ascribes it to the period of Severus and Caracalla, A.D. 198,210, fifty years later than Ptolemy. The author, a Greek of Alexandria and a merchant, never visited Ceylon, though he had been as far south as Nelkynda (the modern Neliseram), and the account which he gives from report of the island is meagre, and in some respects erroneous. ARRIANI Periplus Maris Eryth.; HUDSON, vol. i. p. 35; VINCENT, vol. ii. p. 493.
So ample was the description of Ceylon afforded by Ptolemy, that for a very long period his successors, AGATHEMERUS, MARCIANUS of Heraclea, and other geographers, were severally contented to use the facts originally collected by him.[1] And it was not till the reign of Justinian, in the sixth century, that COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, by publishing the narrative of Sopater, added very considerably to the previous knowledge of the island.
1: AGATHEMERUS, Hudson Geog., l. ii. c. 7,8.; MARCIANUS HERACLEOTA, Periplus, Hudson, p. 26. STEPHANUS BYZANTINUS, in verbo "Taprobane." Instead of the expression of PTOLEMY that Taprobane [Greek: ekaleito palai Simoundon], which MARCIANUS had rendered [Greek: Palaisimioundou], STEPHANUS transposes the words as if to guard against error, [Greek: palai men ekaleito Simoundou], &c. The prior authority of PTOLEMY, however, serves to prolong the mystery, as he calls the capital Palæsimundum.
As Cosmos is the last Greek writer who treats of Taprobane[1], it may be interesting, before passing to his account of the island, to advert to what has been recorded by the Singhalese chroniclers themselves, as to its actual condition at the period when Cosmas described it, and thus to verify his narrative by the test of historical evidence. It has been shown in another chapter that between the first and the sixth centuries, Ceylon had undergone all the miseries of frequent invasions: that in the vicissitudes of time the great dynasty of Wijayo had expired, and the throne had fallen into the hands of an effeminate and powerless race, utterly unable to contend with the energetic Malabars, who acquired an established footing in the northern parts of the island. The south, too wild and uncultivated to attract these restless plunderers, and too rugged and inaccessible to be overrun by them, was divided into a number of petty principalities, whose kings did homage to the paramount sovereign north of the Mahawelli-ganga. Buddhism was the national religion, but toleration was shown to all others,—to the worship of the Brahmans as well as to the barbarous superstition of the aboriginal tribes. At the same time, the productive wealth of the island had been developed to an extraordinary extent by the care of successive kings, and by innumerable works for irrigation and agriculture provided by their policy. Anarajapoora, the capital, had expanded into extraordinary dimensions, it was adorned with buildings and monuments, surpassing in magnitude those of any city in India, and had already attracted pilgrims and travellers from China and the uttermost countries of the East.
1: There is another curious work which, notwithstanding certain doubts as to its authorship, contains internal evidence entitling it, in point of time, to take precedence of COSMAS. This is the tract "De Moribus Brachmanorum", ascribed to St. Ambrose, and which under the title [Greek: "Peri tôn têz Indiaz kai tôn Brachmanôn">[ has been also attributed to Palladius, but in all probability it was actually the composition of neither. Early in the fifth century Palladius was Bishop of Helenopolis, in Bithynia, and died about A.D. 410. He spent a part of his life in Coptic monasteries, and it is possible that during his sojourn in Egypt, meeting travellers and merchants returning from India, he may have caused this narrative to be taken down from the dictation of one of them. Cave hesitates to believe that it was written by PALLADIUS, "haud facile credem," &c. (Script. Eccles. Hist. Lit.); and the learned Benedictine editors of AMBROSE have excluded it from the works of the latter. They could scarcely have done otherwise when the first chapter of the Latin version opens with the declaration that it was drawn up by its author at the request of "PALLADIUS." "Desiderium mentis tuæ Palladi opus efficere nos compellit," &c. Neither of the two versions can be accepted as a translation of the other, but the discrepancies are not inconsistent, and would countenance the conjecture that the book is the production of one and the same person. Much of the material is borrowed from PTOLEMY and PLINY but the facts which are new could only have been collected by persons who had visited the scenes they describe. The compiler says he had learned from a certain scholar of Thebes that the inhabitants of Ceylon were called Macrobii, because, owing to the salubrity of the climate, the average duration of life was 150 years. The petty kings of the country acknowledged one paramount sovereign to whom they were subject as satraps; this the Theban was told by others, as he himself not allowed to visit the interior. A thousand other islands lie adjacent to Ceylon, and in a group of these which he calls Maniolæ (probably the Attols of the Maldives,) is found the loadstone, which attracts iron, so that a vessel coming within its influence, is seized and forcibly detained, and for this reason the ships which navigate these seas are fastened with pegs of wood instead of bolts of iron.
Ceylon, according to this traveller, has five large and navigable rivers, it rejoices in one perennial harvest, and the flowers and the ripe fruit hang together on the same branch. There are palm trees; both those that bear the great Indian nut, and the smaller aromatic one (the areka). The natives subsist on milk, rice, and fruit. The sheep produce no wool, but have long and silky hair, and linen being unknown, the inhabitants clothe themselves in skins, which are far from inelegantly worked.
Finding some Indian merchants there who had come in a small vessel to trade, the Theban attempted to go into the interior, and succeeded in getting sight of a tribe whom he calls Besadæ or Vesadæ, his description of whom is in singular conformity with the actual condition of the Veddahs in Ceylon at the present day. "They are," he says, "a feeble and diminutive race, dwelling in caves under the rocks, and early accustomed to ascend precipices, with which their country abounds, in order to gather pepper from the climbing plants. They are of low stature, with large heads and shaggy uncut hair."
The Theban proceeds to relate that being arrested by one of the chiefs, on the charge of having entered his territory without permission, he was forcibly detained there for six years, subsisting on a measure of food, issued to him daily by the royal authority. This again presents a curious coincidence with the detention and treatment of Knox and other captives by the kings of Kandy in modern times. He was at last released owing to the breaking out of hostilities between the chief who held him prisoner and another prince, who accused the former before the supreme sovereign of having unlawfully detained a Roman citizen, after which he was set at liberty, out of respect to the Roman name and authority.
This curious tract was first published by CAMERABIUS, but in 1665 Sir EDWARD BISSE, Baronet, and Clarenceux King-at-Arms, reproduced the Greek original, supposing it to be an unpublished manuscript, with a Latin translation. It is incorporated in one of the MSS. of the Pseudo-Callisthenes recently edited by MÜLLER, lib. iii. ch. vii. viii.; DIDOT. Script Groec. Bib., vol. xxvi. Paris, 1846.
With the increasing commercial intercourse between the West and the East, Ceylon, from its central position, half way between Arabia and China, had during the same period risen into signal importance as a great emporium for foreign trade. The transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople served to revive the over-land traffic with India; and the Persians for the first time[1] vied with the Arabs and the merchants of Egypt, and sought to divert the Oriental trade from the Red Sea and Alexandria to the Euphrates and the Tigris.
1: GIBBON, ch. xl.; ROBERTSON'S India, b.i.
Already, between the first and fifth centuries, the course of that trade had undergone a considerable change. In its infancy, and so long as the navigation was confined to coasting adventures, the fleets of the Ptolemies sailed no further than to the ports of Arabia Felx[1], where they were met by Arabian vessels returning from the west coast of India, bringing thence the productions of China, shipped at the emporiums of Malabar. After the discovery of the monsoons, and the accomplishment of bolder voyages, the great entrepôt of commerce was removed farther south; first, from Muziris, the modern Mangalore, to Nelkynda, now Neliseram, and afterwards to Calicut and Coulam, or Quilon. In like manner the Chinese, who, whilst the navigation of the Arabs and Persians was in its infancy, had extended their voyages not only to Malabar but to the Persian Gulf, gradually contracted them as their correspondents ventured further south. HAMZA says, that in the fifth century the Euphrates was navigable as high as Hira, within a few miles of Babylon[2]; and MASSOUDI, in his Meadows of Gold, states that at that time the Chinese ships ascended the river and anchored in front of the houses there.[3] At a later period, their utmost limit was Syraf, in Farsistan[4]; they afterwards halted first at Muziris, next at Calicut[5], then at Coulam, now Quilon[6]; and eventually, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Chinese vessels appear rarely to have sailed further west than Ceylon. Thither they came with their silks and other commodities, those destined for Europe being chiefly paid for in silver[7], and those intended for barter in India were trans-shipped into smaller craft, adapted to the Indian seas, by which they were distributed at the various ports east and west of Cape Comorin.[8]
1: Aden was a Roman emporium; [Greek: Rhomaikon emporion Adanên].—PHILOSTORGIUS, p. 28.
2: HAZMA ISPAHANENSIS, p. 102; REINAUD, Relation, &c., vol. i. p. 35.
3: MASSOUDI, Meadows of Gold, Transl. of SPRENGER, vol. i. p. 246.
4: ABOU-ZEYD, vol. i. p, 14; REINAUD Discours, pp. 44, 78.
5: DULAURIER, Journ. Asiat., vol. xiix, p. 141; VINCENT, vol. ii, pp. 464,507.
6: ABOU-ZEYD, p. 15; REINAUD, Mém. sur l'Inde, p. 201.
7: PLINY, lib. vi. ch. xxvi.; Periplus Mar. Erythr.
8: ROBERTSON, Au Ind., sec. ii. Periplus of the Erythrean Sea describes these Ceylon crafts as rigged vessels, [Greek: histiopepoiêmenois nêusi].
COSMAS was a merchant of Egypt in the reign of Justinian, who, from the extent of his travels, acquired the title of "Indico-pleustes." Retiring to the cloister, he devoted the remnant of his life to the preparation of a work in defence of the cosmography of the Pentateuch from the errors of the Ptolemaic astronomy.[1] He died in the year 550, before his task was completed, and one of the last portions on which he was employed was an account of Taprobane, taken down from the reports of Sopater, a Greek trader whom he had met at Adule in Ethiopia, when on his return from Ceylon.
1: [Greek: Christianikê Topographia], sive Christianorum Opinio de Mundo. This curious book has been printed entire by Montfaucon from a MS. in the Vatican Coll. Patr., vol. ii. p. 333. Paris, 1706 A.D. There is only one other MS. known, which was in Florence; and from it THEVENOT had previously extracted and published the portion relating to India in his Relation des Dic. Voy., vol. i. Paris, 1576 A.D.
Sopater, in the course of business as a merchant, sailed from Adule in the same ship with a Persian bound for Ceylon, and on his arrival he and his fellow-traveller were presented by the officers of the port to the king, who was probably Kumara Das, the friend and patron of the poet Kalidas.[1] The king received them with courtesy, and Cosmas recounts how in the course of the interview Sopater succeeded in convincing the Singhalese monarch of the greater power of Rome as compared with that of Persia, by exhibiting the large and highly finished gold coin of the Roman Emperor in contrast with the small and inelegant silver money of the Shah. This story would, however, appear to be traditional, as Pliny relates a somewhat similar anecdote of the ambassadors from Ceylon in the reign of Claudius, and of the profound respect excited in their minds by the sight of the Roman denarii.
1: Cosmas wrote between A.D. 545 and 550; and the voyage of Sopater to Ceylon had been made thirty years before. Kumaara Das reigned from A.D. 515 to A.D. 524. Vincent has noted the fact that in his interview with the Greek he addressed him by the epithet of Roomi, "[Greek: su Rômeu]," which is the term that has been applied from time immemorial in India to the powers who have been successively in possession of Constantinople, whether Roman, Christian, or Mahommedan. Vol. ii. p. 511, &c.
As Sopater was the first traveller who described Ceylon from personal knowledge, I shall give his account of the island in the words of Cosmas, which have not before been presented in an English translation. "It is," he says, "a great island of the ocean lying in the Indian Sea, called Sielendib by the Indians, but Taprobane by the Greeks. The stone, the hyacinth, is found in it; it lies beyond the pepper country.[1] Around it there are a multitude of exceedingly small islets[2], all containing fresh water and coco-nut palms[3]; these (islands) lie as close as possible together. The great island itself, according to the accounts of its inhabitants, is 300 gaudia[4], or 900 miles long, and as many in breadth. There are two kings ruling at opposite ends of the island[5], one of whom possesses the hyacinth[6], and the other the district, in which are the port and emporium[7], for the emporium in that place is the greatest in those parts."
1: Malabar or Narghyl Arabia.
2: The Maldive Islands.
3: [Greek: Argellia] pro [Greek: nargellia], from narikela, the Sanskrit, and narghyl, Arab, for the "coco-nut palm." GILDEMESTER, Script. Arab. p. 36.
4: "[Greek: Gaudia.">[ It is very remarkable that this singular word gaou, in which Cosmas gives the dimensions of the island, is in use to the present day in Ceylon, and means the distance which a man can walk in an hour. VINCENT, in his Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, has noticed this passage (vol. ii, p. 506), and sayt, somewhat loosely, that the Singhalese gaou, which he spells "ghadia" is the same as the naligiae of the Tamils, and equal to three-eighths of a French league, or nearly one mile and a quarter English. This is incorrect; a gaou in Ceylon expresses a somewhat indeterminate length, according to the nature of the ground to be traversed, a gaou across a mountainous country being less than one measured on level ground, and a gaou for a loaded cooley is also permitted to be shorter than for one unburthened, but on the whole the average may be taken under four miles. This is worth remarking, because it brings the statement made to Sopater by the Singhalese in the sixth century into consistency with the representations of the ambassadors to the Emperor Claudius in the first, although both prove to be erroneous. It is curious that FA HIAN, the Chinese traveller, whose zeal for Buddhism led him to visit India and Ceylon a century and a half before Cosmas, gives an area to the island which approaches very nearly to correctness; although he reverses the direction in which its length exceeds its breadth. Foĕ-kouĕ-ki, c. xxxvii. p. 328.
5: [Greek: "Enantioiallêlôn">[. This may also mean "at war with one another."
6: This has been translated so as to mean the portion of the island producing hyacinth stones ("la partie de l'isle où se trouvent les jacinthes." THEVENOT). But besides that I know of no Greek form of expression that admits of such expansion; this construction, if accepted, would be inconsistent with fact—for the king alluded to held the north of the island, whereas the region producing gems is the south, and in it were also the "emporium," and the harbour frequented by shipping and merchants. I am disposed therefore to accept the term in its simple sense, and to believe that it refers to one particular jewel, for the possession of which the king of Ceylon enjoyed an enviable renown. Cosmas, in the succeeding sentence, describes this wonderful gem as being deposited in a temple near the capital; and Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, says that in the seventh century, a ruby was elevated on a spire surmounting a temple at Anarajapoora "dont l'éclat magnifique illumine tout le ciel."—Vie de Hiouen Thsang, lib. iv. p. 199; Voyages des Pélerins Bouddhistes, lib. xi. v. ii. p. 141. MARCO POLO, in the thirteenth, century, says the "king of Ceylon is reputed to have the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a span in length, the thickness of a man's arm; brilliant beyond description, and without a single flaw. It has the appearance of a glowing fire, and its worth cannot be estimated in money. The Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to this monarch to offer for it the value of a city, but he would not part with it for all the treasures of the world, as it was a jewel handed down by his ancestors on the throne."—Trans. MARSDEN, 4to. 1818. It is most probable that the stone described by Marco Polo was not a ruby, but an amethyst, which is found in large crystals in Ceylon, and which modern mineralogists believe to be the "hyacinth" of the ancients. (DANA'S Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 196.) CORSALI says it was a carbuncle (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 180); and JORDAN DE SEVERAC, about the year 1323, repeats the story of its being a ruby so large that it could not be grasped in the closed hand. (Recueil de Voy., Soc. Geog. Paris. vol. iv. p. 50.) If this resplendent object really exhibited the dimensions assigned to it, the probability is that it was not a gem at all, but one of those counterfeits of glass, in producing which STRABO relates that the artists of Alexandria attained the highest possible perfection (1. xvi. c. 2. sec. 25). Its luminosity by night is of course a fiction, unless, indeed, like the emerald pillar in the temple of Hercules at Tyre, which HERODOTUS describes as "shining brightly by night," it was a hollow cylinder into which a lamp could be introduced. Herod, ii. 44.
Of the ultimate history of this renowned jewel we have no authentic narrative; but it is stated in the Chinese accounts of Ceylon that early in the fourteenth century an officer was sent by the emperor to purchase a "carbuncle" of unusual lustre. "This served as the ball on the emperor's cap, and was transmitted to succeeding emperors on their accession as a precious heirloom, and worn on the birthday and at the grand courts held on the first day of the year. It was upwards of an ounce in weight, and cost 100,000 strings of cash. Every time a grand levee was held during the darkness of the night, the red lustre filled the palace, and it was for this reason designated 'The Red Palace-Illuminator.'"—Tsih-ke, or Miscellaneous Record, quoted in the Kih che-king-yuen, Mirror of Science, b. xxxiii. p. 1, 2.
7: The port and harbour of Point de Galle.
"The island has also a community of Christians[1], chiefly resident Persians, with a presbyter ordained in Persia, a deacon, and a complete ecclesiastical ritual.[2]
1: Nestorians, whose "Catholicos" resided first at Ctesiphon, and afterwards at Mosul. VINCENT, Periplus, &c., vol. ii, p. 507. For an examination of the hypotheses based on this statement of Cosmas, see Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S History of Christianity in Ceylon, ch. i.
2: [Greek: "Leitourgiat,">[ literally liturgy; which meant originally the pomp and ceremonial of worship as well as the form of prayer.
"The natives and their kings are of different races.[1] The temples are numerous, and in one in particular, situated on an eminence[2], is the great hyacinth, as large as a pine-cone, the colour of fire, and flashing from a distance, especially when catching the beams of the sun—a matchless sight.
1: [Greek: Allophuloi].]
2: Probably that at Mihintala, the sacred hill near Anarajapoora.
"As its position is central, the island is the resort of ships from all parts of India, Persia, and Ethiopia, and, in like manner, many are despatched from it. From the inner[1] countries; I mean China, and other emporiums, it receives silk[2], aloes, cloves, clove-wood, chandana[3], and whatever else they produce. These it again transmits to the outer ports[4],—I mean to Male[5], whence the pepper comes; to Calliana[6], where there is brass and sesamine-wood, and materials for dress (for it is also a place of great trade), and to Sindon[7], where they get musk, castor, and androstachum[8], to Persia, the Homeritic coasts[9], and Adule. Receiving in return the exports of those emporiums, Taprobane exchanges them in the inner ports (to the east of Cape Comorin) sending her own produce along with them to each.
1: [Greek: "tôn endoterôn,">[ the countries inside (that is to the east) of Cape Comorin, as distinguished from the outer ports ([Greek: ta exôtera]) mentioned below, which lie west of it.
2: [Greek: "metaxin.">[ Of this foreign word, applied by the mediæval Greeks to silk in general, as well as to raw silk, PROCOPIUS says:—[Greek: "Ahutê de estin hê metaxa, ex hês eiothasi tên esthêta ergazesthai, hên palai men Hellênes mêdikên, tanun de sêrikên onomazousi.">[—PROCOP. Persic. I. Metaxa, or anciently mataxa, "thread," "yarn," seems to be Latine rather than Greek. The metaxarius was a "yarn-broker;" and the word having got possession of the market, was extended to the woven stuff. The modern Greeks call silk [Greek: metaxa.]
3: [Greek: "tzandana,">[ probably "sandalwood;" sometimes called agallochum.
4: [Greek: "ta exôtera,">[ those lying west of Cape Comorin.
5: Malabar.
6: Bombay.
7: Scinde.
8: [Greek: "androsthachon.">[
9: Southern Arabia, chiefly Hadramaut.
"Sielediba, or Taprobane, lies seaward about five days' sail from the mainland.[1] Then further on the continent is Marallo, which furnishes cochlea[2]; then comes Kaber, which exports 'alabandanum;'[3] and next is the clove country, then China, which exports silk; beyond which there is no other land, for the ocean encircles it on the east. Sielediba being thus placed in the middle as it were of India, and possessing the hyacinth, receives goods from all nations, and again distributes them, thus becoming a great emporium."
1: Cosmas probably means "the more distant ports on" the mainland of India.
2: [Greek: "kochlious,">[ probably chankshells, turbinella rapa. See ABOUZEYD, vol. i. p. 6.
3: [Greek: "alabandanon."
This description of the Indian trade by Cosmas is singularly corroborative of the account that had previously been given by the author of the Periplus; and as the Singhalese have at all times been remarkable for their aversion to the sea, the country-craft[1], thus mentioned by both authorities as engaged in voyages between Ceylon and the countries east and west of Cape Cornorin, must have been manned in part by Malabars, but chiefly by the Arabs and Persians, who, previous to the time of Cosmas, had been induced to settle in large numbers in Ceylon[2], attracted by the activity of its commerce, and the extensive employment for shipping afforded by its transit trade.
1: [Greek: "topika ploia.">[—Periplus.
2: REINAUD, Mém. sur l'Inde, p. 124. and Introd. ABOULFEDA.
Amongst the objects, the introduction of which was eagerly encouraged in Ceylon, Cosmas particularises horses from Persia; the traders in which were exempted from the payment of customs. The most remarkable exports were elephants, which from their size and sagacity were found to be superior to those of India for purposes of war. Hence the renown accorded to Ceylon, as pre-eminently the birthplace of the Asiatic race of elephants.
[Greek: "Mêtera Taprobanên Asiêgeneôn elephantôn.">[ DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, v. 593.
Cosmas observes upon the smallness of their tusks compared with those of Africa, and mentions the strange fact, that ivory was then exported from Ethiopia to India, as well as to Persia and the countries of Europe. He makes other allusions to Ceylon, but the passages extracted above, present the bulk of his information concerning the island.[1]
1: The above translation has been made from THEVENOT's version of Cosmas, which may differ slightly from that of MONTFAUCON, Collect. Nov. Patrum. Paris, 1706, vol. ii. p.