Note 1 — Tale II. (continued 2)

I know not whether this placing together of lions and tigers is to be ascribed to unacquaintance with their habits, or to idealism. Though both natives of parts of India they have not even the same districts assigned them by nature. So inimical are they also to each other, and so unlikely to herd together, that it has been supposed the tiger has exterminated the lion wherever they have met. (Ritter, Asien, vol. iv. zweite Hälfte, 689, 703, 723.) Indian fable established the lion as the king of beasts—Mrigarâga. Amara, the Indian Lexicographer, places him at the head of all beasts. The ordinary Sanskrit name is Sinha, which some translate “the killer,” from sibh, to kill. The same word (sinhanâda) stands for the roaring of the lion and for a war cry. Sinhâsana, literally a lion-seat, stands for a throne; for the lion was the typical ruler. The fables always make him out as powerful, just, temperate, and willing to take the advice of others, but often deceived by his counsellors. The lion also gave its name to the island of Ceylon, which to the Greeks was known as Taprobane, from Tâmbapanni or Tâmrapani, the capital built by Vigaja, its first historical settler (said by the natives to come from tâmra, red, and pâni, hand, because he and his companions being worn out with fatigue on their arrival lay down upon the ground and found it made their hands red; but tamra (neut.) means also red sandalwood, and parna is a leaf, which makes a more probable interpretation, but there is also another deriving from “a red swamp”). But this name passed quite out of use both among native and Greek writers in the early part of the first century. Ptolemy calls it Σαλικὴ, the Indian word being Sinhala, the Pali, Sîhala = “resting-place of the lion” (i.e. the courageous warriors, the companions of Vigaja). Kosmas has Σίελεδίβα = Sinhaladvipa, “the island Sinhala.” In the writings of the Chinese pilgrims it is called Sengkiolo, which they render “lion’s kingdom.” In the southern dialects of India l is often changed into r, and thus in Marcellinus Ammianus we find the name has become Serendivus. Out of this came zeilau and our Ceylon. In our word “Singhalese” we have a plainer trace of the lion’s share in the appellation.