Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 90

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 65, 66.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxv. p. 155.]

The capital at that time contained the temples of numerous religions, besides public gardens, and baths; to which were afterwards added, halls for dancing and music, ambulance halls, rest-houses for travellers[1], alms-houses[2], and hospitals[3]; in which animals, as well as men, were tenderly cared for. The "corn of a thousand fields" was appropriated by one king for their use[4]; another set aside rice to feed the squirrels which frequented his garden[5]; and a third displayed his skill as a surgeon, in treating the diseases of elephants, horses, and snakes.[6]

The streets contained shops and bazaars[7]; and on festive occasions, barbers and dressers were stationed at each of the gates, for the convenience of those resorting to the city.[8]

[Footnote 1: These rest-houses, like the Choultries of India, were constructed by private liberality along all the leading highways and forest roads. "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men."--_Jer_. ix. 2.]

[Footnote 2: Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.]

[Footnote 3: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 39; _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 67; HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, p. 485.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxviii. UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 246.]

[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xvii. p. 249.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 244, 245.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 139.]

[Footnote 8: _Ibid_., ch. xxviii. p. 170; ch. x.x.xix. p. 214.]

The _Lankawistariyaye_, or "Ceylon Ill.u.s.trated," a Singhalese work of the 7th century, gives a geographical summary of the three great divisions of the island, Rohuna, Maya, and Pihiti, and dwells with obvious satisfaction on the description of the capital of that period.

The details correspond so exactly with another fragment of a native author, quoted by Colonel Forbes[1], that both seem to have been written at one and the same period; they each describe the "temples and palaces, whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky, the streets spanned by arches bearing flags, the side ways strewn with black sand, and the middle sprinkled with white, and on either side vessels containing flowers, and niches with statues holding lamps. There are mult.i.tudes of men armed with swords, and bows and arrows. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people pa.s.s and repa.s.s, jugglers, dancers, and musicians of all nations, with chank sh.e.l.ls and other instruments ornamented with gold.

The distance from the princ.i.p.al gate to the south gate, is four gows; and the same from the north to the south gate. The princ.i.p.al streets are Moon Street, Great King Street, Hinguruwak, and Mahawelli Streets,--the first containing eleven thousand houses, many of them two stories in height. The smaller streets are innumerable. The palace has large ranges of buildings, some of them two and three stories high, and its subterranean apartments are of great extent."

[Footnote 1: _Eleven Years in Ceylon,_ vol. i. p. 235. But there is so close a resemblance in each author to the description of the ancient capital of the kings of Ayoudhya (Oude) that both seem to have been copied from that portion of the Ramayana. See the pa.s.sage quoted in Mrs.

Spier's _Life in Ancient India,_ ch. iv. p. 99.]

The native descriptions of Anaraj.a.poora, in the 7th century, are corroborated by the testimony of the foreign travellers who visited it about the same period. Fa Hian says, "The city is the residence of many magistrates, grandees, and foreign merchants; the mansions beautiful, the public buildings richly adorned, the streets and highways straight and level, and houses for preaching built at every thoroughfare."[1] The _Leang-shu,_ a Chinese history of the Leang Dynasty, written between A.D. 507-509, describing the cities of Ceylon at that period, says, "The houses had upper stories, the walls were built of brick, and secured by double gates."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Foe-Koue-k[)i],_ ch, x.x.xviii. p. 334.]

[Footnote 2: _Leang-shu,_ B, liv. p. 10.]

_Carriages and Horses._--Carriages[1] and chariots[2] are repeatedly mentioned as being driven through the princ.i.p.al cities, and carts and waggons were accustomed to traverse the interior of the country.[3] At the same time, the frequent allusions to the clearing of roads through the forests, on the approach of persons of distinction, serve to show that the pa.s.sage of wheel carriages must have been effected with difficulty[4], along tracks prepared for the occasion, by freeing them of the jungle and brushwood. The horse is not a native of Ceylon, and those spoken of by the ancient writers must have been imported from India and Arabia. White horses were especially prized, and those mentioned with peculiar praises were of the "Sindhawo" breed, a term which may either imply the place whence they were brought, or the swiftness of their speed.[5] In battle the soldiers rode chargers[6], and a pa.s.sage in the _Mahawanso_ shows that they managed them by means of a rope pa.s.sed through the nostril, which served as a bridle.[7]

Cosmas Indicopleustes, who considered the number of horses in Ceylon in the 6th century to be a fact of sufficient importance to be recorded, adds that they were imported from Persia, and the merchants bringing them were treated with special favour and encouragement, their s.h.i.+ps being exempted from all dues and charges. Marco Polo found the export of horses from Aden and Ormus to India going on with activity in the 13th century.[8]

[Footnote 1: B.C. 307, _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80, 81; B.C. 204, Ib., ch. xxi. p. 128. A carriage drawn by four horses is mentioned, B.C. 161, _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xi. p. 186.]

[Footnote 2: B.C. 307, _Mahawanso_, ch, xv. p. 84; ch xvi. p. 103.]

[Footnote 3: B.C. 161, "a merchant of Anaraj.a.poora proceeded with carts to the Malaya division near Adam's Peak to buy ginger and saffon"

(_Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 167); and in the 3rd century after Christ a wheel chariot was driven from the capital to the Kalaweva tank twenty miles N.W. of Dambool.--_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 260. See _ante_ Vol. II. p. 445.]

[Footnote 4: FORBES suggests that on such journeys the carriages must have been pushed by men, as horses could not possibly have drawn them in the hill country (vol. ii. p. 86).]

[Footnote 5: _Sigham_, swift; _dhawa_, to run; _Mahawanso_, ch, xxiii.

p. 142,186.]

[Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii. p. 132; ch. xxiii. 142.]

[Footnote 7: The Prince Dutugaimunu, when securing the mare which afterwards carried him in the war against Elala, "seized her by the throat and boring her nostril with the point of his sword, secured her with his rope."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 60.]

[Footnote 8: _Marco Polo_, ch. xx, s. ii,: ch. xl.]

_Domestic Furniture._--Of the furniture of the private dwellings of the Singhalese, such notices as have come down to us serve to show that their intercourse with other Buddhist nations was not without its influence on their domestic habits. Chairs[1], raised seats[2], footstools[3], and metal lamps[4], were articles comparatively unknown to the Hindus, and were obviously imitated by the Singhalese from the East, from China, Siam, or Pegu.[5] The custom which prevails to the present day of covering a chair with a white cloth, as an act of courtesy in honour of a visitor, was observed with the same formalities two thousand years ago[6]. Rich beds[7] and woollen carpets[8] were in use at the same early period, and ivory was largely employed in inlaying the more sumptuous articles.[9] Coco-nut sh.e.l.ls were used for cups and ladles[10]; earthenware for jugs and drinking cups[11]; copper for water-pots, oil-cans, and other utensils; and iron for razors, needles, and nail-cutters.[12] The _pingo_, formed of a lath cut from the stem of the areca, or the young coco-nut palm, and still used as a yoke in carrying burdens, existed at an early period[13], in the same form in which it is borne at the present day. It is identical with the _asilla_ an instrument for the same purpose depicted on works of Grecian art[14]

and on the monuments of Egypt.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80; ch. xv. p. 84; _Rajaratnacari_ p. 134.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xiii. p. 82.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., xxvii. p. 164.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.x. p. 182; ch. x.x.xii. p. 192.]

[Footnote 5: _Asiatic Researches,_ vol. vi. p. 437. Chairs are shown on the sculptures of Persepolis; and it is probably a remnant of Grecian civilisation in Bactria that chairs are still used by the mountaineers of Balkh and Bokhara.]

[Footnote 6: B.C. 307, King Devenipiatissa caused a chair to be so prepared for Mahindo.]

[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 84; ch. xxiii. p. 129. A four-post bed is mentioned B.C. 180. _Mahawanso._ ch. xxiv. p. 148.]

[Footnote 8: Ibid., ch. xiv. p. 82.]

[Footnote 9: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 163.]

[Footnote 10: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii. p. 104.]

[Footnote 11: _Ibid_., ch. xv. p. 85.]

[Footnote 12: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 134.]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid.,_ p. 103. This implement is identical with the "yoke" so often mentioned in the Old and New Testament as an emblem of bondage and labour; and figured, with the same significance; on Grecian sculpture gems. See _ante_. Vol. I. Pt. i ch iii. p. 114]

[Footnote 14: ARISTOTLE, _Rhet_. i 7.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EGYPTIAN YOKE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SINGHALESE PINGO.]

_Form of Government_--The form of government was at all times an unmitigated despotism; the king had ministers, but only to relieve him of personal toil, and the inst.i.tution of Gam-sabes, or village munic.i.p.alities, which existed in every hamlet, however small, was merely a miniature council of the peasants, in which they settled all disputes about descent and proprietors.h.i.+p, and maintained the organisation essential to their peculiar tillage; facilitating at the same time the payment of dues to the crown, both in taxes and labour.

_Revenue_.--The main sources of revenue were taxes, both on the land and its produce; and these were avowedly so oppressive in amount, that the merit of having reduced or suspended their a.s.sessment, was thought worthy of being engraved on rocks by the sovereigns who could claim it.

In the inscription at the temple of Dambool, A.D. 1187, the king boasts of having "enriched the inhabitants who had become impoverished by inordinate taxes, and made them opulent by gifts of land, cattle, and slaves, by relinquis.h.i.+ng the revenues for five years, and restoring inheritances, and by annual donations of five times the weight of the king's person in gold, precious stones, pearls, and silver; and from an earnest wish that succeeding kings should not again impoverish the inhabitants of Ceylon by levying excessive imposts, he fixed the revenue at a moderate amount, according to the fertility of the land."[1]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_ App. p. 95; _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xiv. p.

211]