Note 1 — CHAP. III.
Reading edition
: Gampola.
2: Sŭh-Wan-hëen tung-kaou, book ccxxxvi p. 12.
3: See note at the end of this chapter.
4: Ming-shè, b. cccxxvi. p. 5. M. STANISLAS JULIEN intimates that the forthcoming volume of his version of the Si-yu-ki will contain the eleventh book, in which an account will be given of the expedition of Ching Ho.—Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales, tom. i. p. 26. In anticipation of its publication, M. JULIEN has been so obliging as to make for me a translation of the passage regarding Ceylon, but it proves to be an annotation of the fifteenth century, which, by the inadvertence of transcribers, has become interpolated in the text of Hiouen-Thsang. It contains, however, no additional facts or statements beyond the questionable one before alluded to, that the sacred tooth of Buddha was amongst the spoils carried to Pekin by Ching Ho.
5: Woo-hëŏ-pëen, b. lxviii p. 5. See also the Ta-tsing yĭh-tung, a topographical account of the Manchoo empire, a copy of which is among the Chinese books in the British Museum. In the very imperfect version of the Rajavali, published by Upham, this important passage is rendered unintelligible by the want of fidelity of the translator, who has transformed the conqueror into a "Malabar," and ante-dated the event by a century. (Rajavali, p. 263.) I am indebted to Mr. De Alwis, of Colombo, for a correct translation of the original, which is as follows: "In the reign of King Wijayo-bahu, the King of Maha (great) China landed in Ceylon with an army, pretending that he was bringing tribute; King Wijayo-bahu, believing his professions (because it had been customary in the time of King Prakrama-bahu for foreign countries to pay tribute to Ceylon), acted incautiously, and he was treacherously taken prisoner by the foreign king. His four brothers were killed, and with them fell many people, and the king himself was carried captive to China." DE COUTO, in his continuation of DE BARROS, has introduced the story of the capture of the king by the Chinese; but he has confounded the dates, mystified the facts, and altered the name of the new sovereign to Pandar, which is probably only a corruption of the Singhalese Banda, "a prince."—DE COUTO, Asia, &c., dec. v. lib. i. c. vi. vol. ii. part i. p. 51. PURCHAS says: "The Singhalese language is thought to have been left there by the Chinois, some time Lord of Zeilan."—Pilgrimage, c. xviii. p. 552. The adventures of Ching Ho, in his embassy to the nations of the Southern Ocean, have been made the ground-work of a novel, the Se-yung-ke, which contains an enlarged account of his exploits in Ceylon; but fact is so overlaid with fiction that the passages are not worth extracting.