ABOU-ZEYD describes the frequent conventions of the heads of the national religion, and the attendance of scribes to write down from their dictation the doctrines of Buddhism, the legends of its prophets, and the precepts of its law. This statement has an obvious reference to the important events recorded in the Mahawanso[1] of the reduction of the tenets, orally delivered by Buddha, to their written form, as they appear in the Pittakatayan; to the translation of the Atthakatha, from Singhalese into Pali, in the reign of Mahanamo, A.D. 410-432; and to the singular care displayed, at all times, by the kings and the priesthood, to preserve authentic records of every event connected with the national religion and its history.
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii. p. 207; ch. xxxvii. p. 252.
ABOU-ZEYD adverts to the richness of the temples of the Singhalese, and to the colossal dimensions of their statues, and dwells with particularity on their toleration of all religious sects as attested by the existence there, in the ninth century, of a sect of Manichæans, and a community of Jews.[1]
1: It was to Ceylon that the terrified worshippers of Siva betook themselves in their flight, when Mahmoud of Ghuznee smote the idol and overthrew the temple of Somnaut, A.D. 1025. (FERISHTA, transl. by Briggs, vol. i. p. 71; REINAUD, Introd. to ABOULFEDA, vol. i. p. cccxlix. Mémoires sur l'Inde, p. 270.) Twenty years previously, when the same orthodox invader routed the schismatic Carmathians at Moultan, the fugitive chief of the Sheahs found an asylum in Ceylon. (REINAUD, Journ. Asiat., vol. xlv. p. 283; vol. xlvi. p. 129.) The latter circumstance serves to show that the Mahometans in Ceylon have not been uniformly Sonnees, and it may probably throw light on a fact of much local interest connected with Colombo. There formerly stood there, in the Mahometan Cemetery, a stone with an ancient inscription in Cufic characters, which no one could decipher, but which was said to record the virtues of a man of singular virtue, who had arrived in the island in the tenth century. About the year 1787 A.D., one of the Dutch officials removed the stone to the spot where he was building, "and placed it where it now stands, at one of the steps to his door." This is the account given by Sir Alexander Johnston, who, in 1827, sent a copy of the inscription to the Royal Asiatic Society of London. GILDEMEISTER pronounces it to be written in Carmathic characters, and to commemorate an Arab who died A.D. 848. "Karmathacis quæ dicuntur literis exarata viro cuidam Arabo Mortuo, 948 A.D. posita," Script. Arabi de Rebus Indicis, p. 59. A translation of the inscription by Lee was published in Trans, Roy. Asiat. Soc., vol. i. p. 545, from which it appears that the deceased, Khalid Ibn Abou Bakaya, distinguished himself by obtaining "security for religion, with other advantages, in the year 317 of the Hejira." LEE was disposed to think that this might be the tomb of the Imaum Abu Abd Allah; who first taught the Mahometans the route by which pilgrims might proceed from India to the sacred footstep on Adam's Peak. But besides the discrepancy of the names, the Imaum died in the year A.D. 953, and interred at Shiraz, where Ibn Batata made a visit to his tomb. (Travels, transl. DEFRÉMERY, &c., tom. ii. p. 79.)
EDRISI, in his Geography writing in the twelfth century, confirms the account of Abou-zeyd as to the toleration of all sects in Ceylon, and illustrates it by the fact, that of the sixteen officers who formed the council of the king, four were Buddhists, four Mussulmans, four Christians, and four Jews.—GILDEMEISTER, Script. Arabi, &c., p. 53; EDRISI, 1 clim. sec. 6.
Ibn Wahab, his informant, appears to have looked back with singular pleasure to the delightful voyages which he had made through the remarkable still-water channels, elsewhere described, which form so peculiar a feature in the seaborde of Ceylon, and to which the Arabs gave the obscure term of "gobbs."[1] Here months were consumed by the mariners, amidst flowers and overhanging woods, with the enjoyments of abundant food and exhilarating draughts of arrack flavoured with honey. The natives of the island were devoted to pleasure, and their days were spent in cock-fighting and games of chance, into which they entered with so much eagerness as to wager the joints of their fingers when all else was lost.
1: "Aghbah," Arab. For an account of those of Ceylon, see [Vol. I. Pt I. ch. i. p. 42.] The idea entertained by the Arabs of these Gobbs, will be found in a passage from Albyrouni, given by REINAUD, Fragmens Arabes, &c., 119, and Journ. Asiat. vol. xlv. p. 201. See also EDRISI, Geog., tom. i. p. 73.
But the most interesting passages in the narrative of Abou-zeyd are those which allude to the portion of Ceylon which served as the emporium for the active and opulent trade of which the island was then, in every sense of the word, the centre. Gibbon, on no other ground than its "capacious harbour," pronounces Trincomalie to be the port which received and dismissed the fleets of the East and West.[1] But the nautical grounds are even stronger than the historical for regarding this as improbable;—the winds and the currents, as well as its geographical position, render Trincomalie difficult of access to vessels coming from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf; and it is evident from the narrative of Soleyman and Ibn Wahab, that ships availing themselves of the monsoons to cross the Indian Ocean, crept along the shore to Cape Comorin; and passed close by Adam's Bridge to reach their destined ports.[2]
1: Decline and Fall, ch. xl.