Volume 1 / Part 3 — CHAP. II.

THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF CEYLON.

Divested of the insipid details which overlay them, the annals of Ceylon present comparatively few stirring incidents, and still fewer events of historic importance to repay the toil of their perusal. They profess to record no occurrence anterior to the advent of the last Buddha, the great founder of the national faith, who was born on the borders of Nepaul in the seventh century before Christ.

In the theoretic doctrines of Buddhism "Buddhas"[1] are beings who appear after intervals of inconceivable extent; they undergo transmigrations extending over vast spaces of time, accumulating in each stage of existence an increased degree of merit, till, in their last incarnation as men, they attain to a degree of purity so immaculate as to entitle them to the final exaltation of "Buddha-hood," a state approaching to incarnate divinity, in which they are endowed with wisdom so supreme as to be competent to teach mankind the path to ultimate bliss.

Their precepts, preserved orally or committed to writing, are cherished as bana or the "word;" their doctrines are incorporated in the system of dharma or "truth;" and, at their death, instead of entering on a new form of being, either corporeal or spiritual, they are absorbed into Nirwana, that state of blissful unconsciousness akin to annihilation which is regarded by Buddhists as the consummation of eternal felicity.

Gotama, who is represented as the last of the series of Buddhas[1], promulgated a religious system in India which has exercised a wider influence over the Eastern world than the doctrines of any other uninspired teacher in any age or country.[2] He was born B.C. 624 at Kapila-Vastu (a city which has no place in the geography of the Hindus, but which appears to have been on the borders of Nepaul); he attained his superior Buddha-hood B.C. 588, under a bo-tree[3] in the forest of Urawela, the site of the present Buddha Gaya in Bahar; and, at the age of eighty, he died at Kusinara, a doubtful locality, which it has been sought to identify with the widely separated positions of Delhi, Assam, and Cochin China.[4]

In the course of his ministrations Gotarna is said to have thrice landed in Ceylon. Prior to his first coming amongst them, the inhabitants of the island appear to have been living in the simplest and most primitive manner, supported on the almost spontaneous products of the soil. Gotama in person undertook their conversion, and alighted on the first occasion at Bintenne, where there exists to the present day the remains of a monument erected two thousand years ago[1] to commemorate his arrival. His second visit was to Nagadipo in the north of the island, at a place whose position yet remains to be determined; and the "sacred foot-print" on Adam's Peak is still worshipped by his devotees as the miraculous evidence of his third and last farewell.

To the question as to what particular race the inhabitants of Ceylon at that time belonged, and whence or at what period the island was originally peopled, the Buddhist chronicles furnish no reply. And no memorials of the aborigines themselves, no monuments or inscriptions, now remain to afford ground for speculation. Conjectures have been hazarded, based on no sufficient data, that the Malayan type, which extends from Polynesia to Madagascar, and from Chin-India to Taheite, may still be traced in the configuration, and in some of the immemorial customs, of the people of Ceylon.[1]

But the greater probability is, that a branch of the same stock which originally colonised the Dekkan extended its migrations to Ceylon. All the records and traditions of the peninsula point to a time when its nations were not Hindu; and in numerous localities[1], in the forests and mountains of the peninsula, there are still to be found the remnants of tribes who undoubtedly represent the aboriginal race.

The early inhabitants of India before their comparative civilisation under the influence of the Aryan invaders, like the aborigines of Ceylon before the arrival of their Bengal conquerors, are described as mountaineers and foresters who were "rakshas" or demon worshippers; a religion, the traces of which are to be found to the present day amongst the hill tribes in the Concan and Canara, as well as in Guzerat and Cutch. In addition to other evidences of the community of origin of these continental tribes and the first inhabitants of Ceylon, there is a manifest identity, not alone in their popular superstitions at a very early period, but in the structure of the national dialects, which are still prevalent both in Ceylon and Southern India. Singhalese, as it is spoken at the present day, and, still more strikingly, as it exists as a written language in the literature of the island, presents unequivocal proofs of an affinity with the group of languages still in use in the Dekkan; Tamil, Telingu, and Malayalim. But with these its identification is dependent on analogy rather than on structure, and all existing evidence goes to show that the period at which a vernacular dialect could have been common to the two countries must have been extremely remote.[1]

Though not based directly on either Sanskrit or Pali, Singhalese at various times has been greatly enriched from both sources, and especially from the former; and it is corroborative of the inference that the admixture was comparatively recent; and chiefly due to association with domiciliated strangers, that the further we go back in point of time the proportion of amalgamation diminishes, and the dialect is found to be purer and less alloyed. Singhalese seems to bear towards Sanskrit and Pali a relation similar to that which the English of the present day bears to the combination of Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman French, which serves to form the basis of the language. As in our own tongue the words applicable to objects connected with rural life are Anglo-Saxon, whilst those indicative of domestic refinement belong to the French, and those pertaining to religion and science are borrowed from Latin[1]; so, in the language of Ceylon, the terms applicable to the national religion are taken from Pali, those of science and art from Sanskrit, whilst to pure Singhalese belong whatever expressions were required to denote the ordinary wants of mankind before society had attained organisation.[2]

B.C. 543Whatever momentary success may have attended the preaching of Buddha, no traces of his pious labours long survived him in Ceylon. The mass of its inhabitants were still aliens to his religion, when, on the day of his decease, B.C. 543, Wijayo[1], the discarded son of one of the petty sovereigns in the valley of the Ganges[2] effected a landing with a handful of followers in the vicinity of the modern Putlam.[3] Here he married the daughter of one of the native chiefs, and having speedily made himself master of the island by her influence, he established his capital at Tamana Neuera[4], and founded a dynasty, which, for nearly eight centuries, retained supreme authority in Ceylon.

B.C. 543.The people whom he mastered with so much facility are described in the sacred books as Yakkhos or "demons,"[1] and Nagas[2], or "snakes;" designations which the Buddhist historians are supposed to have employed in order to mark their contempt for the uncivilised aborigines[3], in the same manner that the aborigines in the Dekkan were denominated goblins and demons by the Hindus[4], from the fact that, like the Yakkhos of Ceylon, they too were demon worshippers. The Nagas, another section of the same superstition, worshipped the cobra de capello as an emblem of the destroying power. These appear to have chiefly inhabited the northern and western coasts of Ceylon, and the Yakkhos the interior[5]; and, notwithstanding their alleged barbarism, both had organised some form of government, however rude.[6] The Yakkhos had a capital which they called Lankapura, and the Nagas a king, the possession of whose "throne of gems"[7] was disputed by the rival sovereign of a neighbouring kingdom. So numerous were the followers of this gloomy idolatry of that time in Ceylon, that they gave the name of Nagadipo[8], the

Island of Serpents, to the portion of the country which they held, in the same manner that Rhodes and Cyprus severally acquired the ancient designation of Ophiusa, from the fact of their being the residence of the Ophites, who introduced serpent-worship into Greece.[9]

But whatever were the peculiarities of religion which distinguished the aborigines from their conquerors, the attention of Wijayo was not diverted from his projects of colonisation by any anxiety to make converts to his own religious belief. The earliest cares of himself and his followers were directed to implant civilisation, and two centuries were permitted to elapse before the first effort was made to supersede the popular worship by the inculcation of a more intellectual faith.

NOTE.

DESCRIPTION IN THE MAHAWANSO OF THE LANDING OF WIJAYO.

The landing of Wijayo in Ceylon is related in the 7th chapter of the Mahawanso, and Mr. TURNOUR has noticed the strong similarity between this story and Homer's account of the landing of Ulysses in the island of Circe. The resemblance is so striking that it is difficult to conceive that the Singhalese historian of the 5th century was entirely ignorant of the works of the Father of Poetry. Wijayo and his followers, having made good their landing, are met by a "devo" (a divine spirit), who blesses them and ties a sacred thread as a charm on the arm of each. One of the band presently discovers the princess in the person of a devotee, seated near a tank, and she being a magician (Yakkhini) imprisons him and eventually the rest of his companions in a cave. The Mahawanso then proceeds: "all these persons not returning, Wijayo, becoming alarmed, equipping himself with the five weapons of war, proceeded after them, and examined the delightful pond: he could perceive no footsteps but those leading down into it, and there he saw the princess. It occurred to him his retinue must surely have been seized by her, and he exclaimed, 'Pray, why dost not thou produce my attendants?' 'Prince,' she replied, 'from attendants what pleasure canst thou derive? drink and bathe ere thou departest.' Seizing her by the hair with his left hand, whilst with his right he raised his sword, he exclaimed, 'Slave, deliver my followers or die.' The Yakkhini terrified, implored for her life; 'Spare me, prince, and on thee will I bestow sovereignty, my love, and my service.' In order that he might not again be involved in difficulty he forced her to swear[1], and when he again demanded the liberation of his attendants she brought them forth, and declaring 'these men must be famishing,' she distributed to them rice and other articles procured from the wrecked ships of mariners, who had fallen a prey to her. A feast follows, and Wijayo and the princess retire to pass the night in an apartment which she causes to spring up at the foot of a tree, curtained as with a wall and fragrant with incense." It is impossible not to be struck with a curious resemblance between this description and that in the 10th book of the Odyssey, where Eurylochus, after landing, returns to Ulysses to recount the fate of his companions, who, having wandered towards the palace of Circe, had been imprisoned after undergoing transformation into swine. Ulysses hastens to their relief, and having been provided by Mercury with antidotes, which enabled him to resist the poisons of the sorceress, whom he discovers in her retreat, the story proceeds:—

The story of Wijayo's interview with Kuweni is told in nearly the same terms as it appeared in the Mahawanso in the Rajavali, p. 172.

Another classical coincidence is curious: we are strongly reminded of Homer's description of the Syrens by the following passage, relative to the female Rakshasis, or demons, by whom Ceylon was originally inhabited, which is given in the memoirs of HIOUEN-THSANG, the Chinese traveller in the 7th century, as extracted by him from the Buddhist Chronicles. "Elles épiaient constamment les marchands qui abordaient dans l'isle, et se changeant en femmes d'une grande beauté elles venaient au-devant d'eux avec des fleurs odorantes et au son des instruments de musique, leur adressaient des paroles bienveillantes et les attiraient dans la ville de fer. Alors elles leur offraient un joyeux festin et se livraient au plaisir avec eux: puis elles les enfermaient dans un prison de fer et les mangeaient l'un après l'autre."[1]