Note 1 — Chapter XXXVIII · AT CEYLON. RISE OF THE KINGDOM. FEATS OF BUDDHA. TOPES AND MONASTERIES. STATUE OF BUDDHA IN JADE. BO TREE. FESTIVAL OF BUDDHA’S TOOTH.
James Legge translation
It is desirable to translate 人民, for which ‘inhabitants’ or ‘people’ is elsewhere sufficient, here by ‘human inhabitants.’ According to other accounts Singhala was originally occupied by Râkshasas or Rakshas, ‘demons who devour men,’ and ‘beings to be feared,’ monstrous cannibals or anthropophagi, the terror of the shipwrecked mariner. Our author’s ‘spirits’ (鬼神) were of a gentler type. His dragons or nâgas have come before us again and again.