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.