2: Tae-ping, b. dcclxxxvii. p. 5.
3: Taou-e ché-lëŏ. "Account of Island Foreigners," quoted in the "Foreign Geography" b. xviii. p. 15. Se-yĭ-ke foo-choo. Ib. "At daybreak every morning the people are summoned, and exhorted to repeat the passages of Buddha, in order to remove ignorance and open the minds of the multitude. Discourses are delivered upon the principles of vacancy (nirwana?) and abstraction from all material objects, in order that truth maybe studied in solitude and silence, and the unfathomable point of principle attained free from the distracting influences of sound or smell."—Tsĭh-foo yaen-kwei, A.D. 1012, b. dcccclxi. p. 5.
The cities of Ceylon in the sixth century are stated, in the "History of the Leang Dynasty," to have been encompassed by walls built of brick, with double gates, and the houses within were constructed with upper stories.[1] The palace of the king, at Anarajapoora, in the eleventh century, was sufficiently splendid to excite the admiration of these visitants, "the precious articles with which it was decorated being reflected in the thoroughfares."[2]
1: Leang-shoo, A.D. 630, b. liv. p 11.
2: Tsĭh-foo yaen-kwei, b. dcccclxi. p. 5.
The Chinese authors, like the Greeks and Arabians, are warm in their praises of the patriotism of the Singhalese sovereigns, and their active exertions for the improvement of the country, and the prosperity of the people.[1] On state occasions, the king, "carried on an elephant, and accompanied by banners, streamers, and tom-toms, rode under a canopy[2], attended by a military guard."[3]
1: Ibid.
2: The "chatta," or umbrella, emblematic of royalty.
3: Leang-shoo. b. liv. p. 10.
Throughout all the Chinese accounts, from the very earliest period, there are notices of the manners of the Singhalese, and even minute particulars of their domestic habits, which attest a continued intercourse and an intimate familiarity between the people of the two countries.[1] In this important feature the narratives of the Arabs, who, with the exception of the pilgrimage made with difficulty to Adam's Peak, appear to have known only the sea-coast and the mercantile communities established there, exhibit a marked difference when compared with those of the Chinese; as the latter, in addition to their trading operations in the south of the island, made their way into the interior, and penetrated to the cities in the northern districts. The explanation is to be found in the identity of the national worship attracting as it did the people of China to the sacred island, which had become the great metropolis of their common faith, and to the sympathy and hospitality with which the Singhalese welcomed the frequent visits of their distant co-religionists.