Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 81

Before the arrival of Wijayo, B.C. 543, agriculture was unknown in Ceylon, and grain, if grown at all, was not systematically cultivated.

The Yakkhos, the aborigines, subsisted, as the Veddahs, their lineal descendants, live at the present day, on fruits, honey, and the products of the chase. Rice was distributed by Kuweni to the followers of Wijayo, but it was "rice procured from the wrecked s.h.i.+ps of mariners."[l] And two centuries later, so scanty was the production of native grain, that Asoca, amongst the presents which he sent to his ally Devenipiatissa, included "one hundred and sixty loads of hill paddi from Bengal."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 49.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xi. p. 70.]

A Singhalese narrative of the "Planting of the Bo-tree," an English version of which will be found amongst the translations prepared for Sir Alexander Johnston, mentions the fact, that rice was still imported into Ceylon from the Coromandel coast[1] in the second century before Christ.

[Footnote 1: UPHAM, _Sacred Books of Ceylon,_ vol. iii. p. 231.]

_Irrigation_.--It was to the Hindu kings who succeeded Wijayo, that Ceylon was indebted for the earliest knowledge of agriculture, for the construction of reservoirs, and the practice of irrigation for the cultivation of rice.[1]

[Footnote 1: A very able report on irrigation in some of the districts of Ceylon has been recently drawn up by Mr. BAILEY, of the Ceylon Civil Service; but the author has been led into an error in supposing that, "it cannot be to India that we must look for the origin of tanks and ca.n.a.ls in Ceylon," and that the knowledge of their construction was derived through "the Arabian and Persian merchants who traded between Egypt and Ceylon." Mr. Bailey rests this conclusion on the a.s.sertion that the first Indian ca.n.a.l of which we have any record dates no farther back than the middle of the fourteenth century. There was nothing in common between the shallow ca.n.a.ls for distributing the periodical inundation of the Nile over the level lands of Egypt (a country in which rice was little known), and the gigantic embankments by which hills were so connected in Ceylon as to convert the valleys between them into inland lakes; and there was no similarity to render the excavation of the one a model and precedent for the construction of the other.

Probably the lake Moeris is what dwells in the mind of those who ascribe proficiency in irrigation to the ancient Egyptians; but although Herodotus a.s.serts it to have been an excavation, _cheiropoietoz kai orukte_ (lib. ii. 149), geologic investigation has shown that Moeris is a natural lake created by the local depression of that portion of the Arsinoite nome. Neither Strabo nor Pliny, who believed it to be artificial, ascribed its origin to anything connected with irrigation, for which, in fact, its level would render it unsuitable. Nature had done so much for irrigation in Egypt, that art was forestalled; and even had it been otherwise, and had the natives of that country been adepts in the science, or capable of teaching it, the least qualified imparters of engineering knowledge would have been the Arab and Persian mariners, whose lives were spent in coasting the sh.o.r.es of the Indian Ocean. It is true that in Arabia itself, at a very early period, there is the tradition of the great artificial lake of Aram, in Yemen, about the time of Alexander the Great (SALE'S _Koran_, Introd. p.7); and evidence still more authentic shows that the practice of artificial irrigation was one of the earliest occupations of the human race. The Scriptures; in enumerating the descendants of Shem, state that "unto Eber were born two sons, and the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided." (_Genesis,_ ch. x. ver. 25.) In this pa.s.sage according to CYRIL C. GRAHAM, the term _Peleg_ has a profounder meaning, and the sentence should have been translated--"_for in his days the earth was cut into ca.n.a.ls" (Cambridge Essay_,1858.)

But historical testimony exists which removes all obscurity from the inquiry as to who were the instructors of the Singhalese. The most ancient books of the Hindus show that the practice of ca.n.a.l-making was understood in India at as early a period as in Egypt. Ca.n.a.ls are mentioned in the _Rayamana_, the story of which belongs to the dimmest antiquity; and when Baratha, the half-brother of Rama, was about to search for him in the Dekkan, his train is described as including "labourers, with carts, bridge-builders, carpenters, and diggers of ca.n.a.ls." (_Ramayana_, CARY'S Trans., vol. iii. p. 228.) The _Mahawanso,_ removes all doubt as to the person by whom the Singhalese were instructed in forming works for irrigation, by naming the Brahman engineer contemporary with the construction of the earliest tanks in the fourth century before the Christian era. (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.) Somewhat later, B.C. 262, the inscription on the rock at Mihintala ascribes to the Malabars the system of managing the water for the rice lands, and directs that "according to the supply of water in the lake, the same shall be distributed to the lands of the wihara _in the manner formerly regulated by the Tamils._" (_Notes to_ TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 90.) To be convinced of the Tamil origin of the tank system which subsists to the present day in Ceylon, it is only necessary to see the tanks of the Southern Dekkan. The innumerable excavated reservoirs or _colams_ of Ceylon will be found to correspond with the _culams_ of Mysore; and the vast _erays_ formed by drawing a bund to intercept the water flowing between two elevated ridges, exhibit the model which has been followed at Pathavie, Kandelai, Menery, and all the huge constructions of Ceylon, But whoever may have been the original instructors of the Singhalese in the formation of tanks, there seems every reason to believe that from their own subsequent experience, and the prodigious extent to which they occupied themselves in the formation of works of this kind, they attained a facility unsurpa.s.sed by the people of any other country. It is a curious circ.u.mstance in connection with this inquiry, that in the eighth century after Christ, the King of Kashmir despatched messengers to Ceylon to bring back workmen, whom he employed in constructing an artificial lake. (_Raja-Tarangini_, Book iv. sl. 505.) If it were necessary to search beyond India for the origin of cultivation in Ceylon, the Singhalese, instead of borrowing a system from Egypt, might more naturally have imitated the ingenious devices of their own co-religionists in China, where the system of irrigation as pursued in the military colonies of that country has been a theme of admiration in every age of their history. (See _Journal Asiatique,_ 1850, vol. lvi.

pp. 341, 346.) And as these colonies were planted not only in the centre of the empire but on its north-west extremities towards Kaschgar and the north-east of India, where the new settlers occupied themselves in draining marshes and leading streams to water their arable lands, the probabilities are that their system may have been known and copied by the people of Hindustan.]

The first tank in Ceylon was formed by the successor of Wijayo, B.C.

504, and their subsequent extension to an almost incredible number is ascribable to the influence of the Buddhist religion, which, abhorring the destruction of animal life, taught its mult.i.tudinous votaries to subsist exclusively upon vegetable food. Hence the planting of gardens, the diffusion of fruit-trees and leguminous vegetables[1], the sowing of dry grain[2], the formation of reservoirs and ca.n.a.ls, and the reclamation of land "in situations favourable for irrigation."

[Footnote 1: Beans, designated by the term of _Masa_ in the _Mahawanso_, were grown in the second century before Christ, ch, xxiii. p, 140,]

[Footnote 2: The "cultivation of a crop of hill rice" is mentioned in the _Mahawanso_ B.C. 77, ch. x.x.xiv. p. 208.]

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of this system of water cultivation, in a country like the north of Ceylon, subject to periodical droughts. From physical and geological causes, the mode of cultivation in that section of the island differs essentially from that practised in the southern division; and whilst in the latter the frequency of the rains and abundance of rivers afford a copious supply of water, the rest of the country is mainly dependent upon artificial irrigation, and on the quant.i.ty of rain collected in tanks; or of water diverted from streams and directed into reservoirs.

As has been elsewhere[1] explained, the mountain ranges which tower along the south-western coast, and extend far towards the eastern, serve in both monsoons to intercept the trade winds and condense the vapours with which they are charged, thus ensuring to those regions a plentiful supply of rain. Hence the harvests in those portions of the island are regulated by the two monsoons, the _yalla_ in May and the _maha_ in November; and seed-time is adjusted so as to take advantage of the copious showers which fall at those periods.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Part I. ch. ii p. 67.]

But in the northern portions of Ceylon, owing to the absence of mountains, this natural resource cannot be relied on. The winds in both monsoons traverse the island without parting with a sufficiency of moisture; droughts are of frequent occurrence and of long continuance; and vegetation in the low and scarcely undulated plains is mainly dependent on dews and whatever damp is distributed by the steady sea-breeze. In some places the sandy soil rests upon beds of madrepore and coral rock, through which the scanty rain percolates too quickly to refresh the soil; and the husbandman is entirely dependent upon wells and village tanks for the means of irrigation.

In a region exposed to such vicissitudes the risk would have been imminent and incessant, had the population been obliged to rely on supplies of dry grain alone, the growth of which must necessarily have been precarious, owing to the possible failure or deficiency of the rains. Hence frequent famines would have been inevitable in those seasons of prolonged dryness and scorching heat, when "the sky becomes as bra.s.s and the earth as iron."

What an unspeakable blessing that against such, calamities a security should have been found by the introduction of a grain calculated to germinate under water; and that a perennial supply of the latter, not only adequate for all ordinary purposes, but sufficient to guard against extraordinary emergencies of the seasons, should have been provided by the ingenuity of the people, aided by the bounteous care of their sovereigns. It is no matter of surprise that the kings who devoted their treasures and their personal energies to the formation of tanks and ca.n.a.ls have ent.i.tled their memory to traditional veneration, as benefactors of their race and country. In striking contrast, it is the pithy remark of the author of the _Rajavali_, mourning over the extinction of the Great Dynasty and the decline of the country, that "_because the fertility of the land was decreased_ the kings who followed were no longer of such consequence as those who went before."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 238]

Simultaneously with the construction of works for the advancement of agriculture, the patriarchal village system, copied from that which existed from the earliest ages in India[1], was established in the newly settled districts; and each hamlet, with its governing "headman" its artisans, its barber, its astrologer and washerman, was taught to conduct its own affairs by its village council; to repair its tanks and watercourses, and to collect two harvests in each year by the combined labour of the whole village community.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p.67.]

Between the agricultural system of the mountainous districts and that of the lowlands, there was at all times the same difference which still distinguishes the tank cultivation of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny from the hanging rice lands of the Kandyan hills. In the latter, reservoirs are comparatively rare, as the natives rely on the certainty of the rains, which seldom fail at their due season in those lofty regions.

Streams are conducted by means of channels ingeniously carried round the spurs of the hills and along the face of acclivities, so as to fertilise the fields below, which in the technical phrase of the Kandyans are "_a.s.soedamised_" for the purpose; that is, formed into terraces, each protected by a shallow ledge over which the superfluous water trickles, from the highest level into that immediately below it; thus descending through all in succession till it escapes in the depths of the valley.

For the tillage of the lands with which the temples were so largely endowed in all quarters of the island, the sacred communities had a.s.signed to them certain villages, a portion of whose labour was the property of the wihara[1]: slaves were also appropriated to them, and an instance is mentioned in the fifth century[2], of the inhabitants of a low-caste village having been bestowed on a monastery by the king Aggrabodhi, "in order that the priests might derive their service as slaves."[3] Sharing in a prerogative of royalty, some of the temples had, moreover, a right to the compulsory labour of the community; and in one of the inscriptions carved on the rock at Mihintala, the "Raja-kariya writer" is enumerated in the list of temple officers.[4]

The temple lands were occasionally let to tenants whose rent was paid either in "land-fees," or in kind.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. x.x.xvii. p. 247.]

[Footnote 2: Rock inscriptions at Mihintala and at Dambool.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_ ch, xlii. TURNOUR, MS. translation.]

[Footnote 4: TURNOUR'S _Epitome, Appendix,_ p. 88.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid_ pp. 86, 87.]

_Farm-stock._--The only farm-stock which appears to have been kept for tillage purposes, were buffaloes, which, then as now, were used in treading the soft mud of the irrigated rice-fields, preparatory to casting in the seed. Cows are alluded to in the _Mahawanso_, but never in connection with labour; and although b.u.t.ter is spoken of, it is only that of the buffalo.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii p. 163.]

_Gardens_.--Probably the earliest enclosures attempted in a state of incipient civilisation, were gardens for the exclusion of wild animals from fruit trees and vegetables, when these were first cultivated for the use of man; and to the present day, the frequent occurrence of the termination "_watte_" in the names of places on the map of Ceylon, is in itself an indication of the importance attached to them by the villagers. The term "garden," however, conveys to an European but an imperfect idea of the character and style of these places; which in Ceylon are so similar to the native gardens in the south of India, as to suggest a community of origin. Their leading features are lines of the graceful areca palms, groves of oranges, limes, jak-trees, and bread fruit; and irregular clumps of palmyras and coconuts. Beneath these, there is a minor growth, sometimes of cinnamon or coffee bushes; and always a wilderness of plaintains, guavas and papaws; a few of the commoner flowers; plots of brinjals (egg plants) and other esculents; and the stems of the standard trees are festooned with climbers, pepper vines, tomatas, and betel.

_The Coco-nut Palm_.--It is curious and suggestive as regards the coco-nut, which now enters so largely into the domestic economy of the Singhalese, that although it is sometimes spoken of in the _Mahawanso_ (but by no means so often as the palmyra), no allusion is ever made to it as an article of diet, or an element in the preparation of food, nor is it mentioned, before the reign of Prakrama I., A.D. 1153[1], in the list of those fruit-trees, the planting of which throughout the island is repeatedly recorded, as amongst the munificent acts of the Singhalese kings.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii.]

As the other species of the same genus of palms are confined to the New World[1], a doubt has been raised whether the coco-nut be indigenous in India, or an importation. If the latter, the first plant must have been introduced anterior to the historic age; and whatever the period at which the tree may have been first cultivated, a time is indicated when it was practically unknown in Ceylon by the fact, that a statue, without date or inscription, is carved in high relief in a niche hollowed out of a rock to the east of Galle, which tradition says is the monument to the Kustia Raja, an Indian prince, whose claim to remembrance is, that he _first_ taught the Singhalese the use of the coco-nut.[2]

[Footnote 1: BROWN'S _Notes_ to TUCKEY'S _Expedition to the Congo_, p.

456.]

[Footnote 2: The earliest mention of the coco-nut in Ceylon occurs in the _Mahawanso_, which refers to it as known at Rohuna to the south, B.

c, 161 ( ch. xxv. p. 140). "The milk of the small red coco-nut" is stated to have been used been used by Dutugaimunu in preparing cement for building the Ruanwelle dagoba (_Mah_. ch. x.x.x. p. 169). The south-west of the island, and especially the _margin of the sea_ is still the locality in which the tree is found in greatest abundance in Ceylon. Hither, if originally self-sown, it must have been floated and flung ash.o.r.e by the waves; and as the north-east coast, though washed by a powerful current, is almost altogether dest.i.tute of these palms, it is obvious that the coco-nut; if carried by sea from some other sh.o.r.e, must have been brought during the south-west monsoon from the coast near Cape Comorin, aeLIAN notices as one of the leading peculiarities in the appearance of the sea coast of Ceylon, that the palm trees (by which, as the south of the island was the place of resort, he most probably means the coco-nut palms) grew in regular quincunxes, as if planted by skilful hands in a well ordered garden. [Greek: "He nesos, hen kalousi Taprobanen, echei phoinikonas men thaumastes pephuteumenous eis stoichon, hosper oun en tois habrois ton paradeison oi touton meledonoi phuteuousi ta dendra ta skiadephora."]--Lib. xvi. cp. 18. The comparative silence of the _Mahawanso_ in relation to the coco-nut may probably be referable to the fact that its author resided and wrote in the interior of the island; over which, unlike the light seeds of other plants, its ponderous nuts could not have been distributed accidentally, where down to the present time it has been but partially introduced, and nowhere in any considerable number. Its presence throughout Ceylon is always indicative of the vicinity of man, and at a distance from the sh.o.r.e it appears in those places only where it has been planted by his care. The Singhalese believe that the coco-nut will not flourish "unless you walk under it and talk under it:" but its proximity to human habitations is possibly explained by the consideration that if exposed in the forest, it would be liable, when young, to be forced down by the elephants, who delight in its delicate leaves. See DAVY'S _Angler in the Lake Districts, p._ 245.]

The mango, the jambo, and several other fruits are particularised, but the historical books make no mention either of the pine-apple or the plantain, which appear to have been of comparatively recent introduction. Pulse is alluded to at an early date under the generic designation of "Masa."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 140.]

_Rice and Curry._--Rice in various forms is always spoken of as the food, alike of the sovereign, the priests, and the people; rice prepared plainly, conjee (the water in which rice is boiled), "rice mixed with sugar and honey, and rice dressed with clarified b.u.t.ter."[1] Chillies are now and then mentioned as an additional condiment.[2] The _Rajavali_ speaks of curry in the second century before Christ[3] and the _Mahawanso_ in the fifth century after.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. x.x.xii. p. 196.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxv, p. 158; ch. xxvi. p. 160.]

[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, pp. 196, 200, 202.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, TURNOUR'S MS. translation, ch. x.x.xix.

KNOX says that curry is a Portuguese word, _carre_ (_Relation_, &c., part i. ch. iv. p. 12), but this is a misapprehension. Professor H.H.

WILSON, in a private letter to me, says, "In Hindustan we are accustomed to consider 'curry' to be derived from, _tarkari_, a general term for esculent vegetables, but it is probably the English version of the Kanara and Malayalam _kadi_; p.r.o.nounced with a hard _r_, 'kari' or 'kuri,' which means sour milk with rice boiled, which was originally used for such compounds as curry at the present day. The Karnata _majkke-kari_ is a dish of rice, sour milk, spices, red pepper, &c, &c."]

Although the taking of life is sternly forbidden in the ethical code of Buddha, and the most prominent of the obligations undertaken by the priesthood is directed to its preservation even in the instances of insects and animalculae, casuistry succeeded so far as to fix the crime on the slayer, and to exonerate the individual who merely partook of the flesh.[1] Even the inmates of the wiharas and monasteries discovered devices for the saving of conscience, and curried rice was not rejected in consequence of the animal ingredients incorporated with it. The ma.s.s of the population were nevertheless vegetarians, and so little value did they place on animal food, that according to the accounts furnished to EDRISI by the Arabian seamen returning from Ceylon, "a sheep sufficient to regale an a.s.sembly was to be bought there for half a drachm."[2]

[Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism,_ ch. iv. p. 24; ch. ix. p. 92; ch. xvi. p. 158. HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. vii. p. 327.]