ANCIENT CEYLON
'f !?ANCIENT CEYLON
An Account of the Aborigines
and of Part of the Early
Civilisation
By
H. PARKER ,
. ? ,;'?/.,,
Late of the Irrigation Department, Ceylon ' ^ ^ ., ; "/^Vy
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
LONDON
LUZAC & CO.
PUBLISHERS xo THE INDIA OFFICE
1909 [AH
"' ,*(
, " '.. '\"BUTLER & TANNER, THE &EI,WOO0 PimrOTG WO
FROME, AND LONDON.PREFAC'E
IN the -last thirty years our acquaintance with the interior of Ceylon, a country four-fifths of the size of Ireland, has made great advances. The researches of members of various Government Departments have extended throughout the whole island, until it may now be said that there is no part of it which has not been investigated.
During this period, however, little new information regarding it has been published in England otherwise than in the Journals of various Societies, with the exception of some excellent studies of its natural history; a work by Professor Rhys Davids on the Ancient Coins and Measures; and two books prepared for the Government, one by Mr. Smither, the former Government Architect, containing an architectural description of the dagabas at Anuradhapura, and the otbef^ by Dr. Edward Miiller, giving a first account of the aftc$ieft&' inscriptions. "?'',; -/,
Evidently the time has arrived when part of the 0tlfe0f, recently obtained knowledge of the country should be1 presented to the world. My employment in the Irrigation Department from the middle of 1873 to the end of 1904 having given me opportunities of acquiring some information of the interior of the island, I have therefore prepared the present work, which describes some phases of the early civilisation, beginning with the history, life, and religion of the aborigines, and ending, as regards local matters, with the village games. Although the subjects included in it are dealt with in a disconnected manner, it will be seen that they advance from the primitive stages to more recent times.
The character of such a work must naturally render it more useful to students of the subjects treated of than attractive to the public. For reason it has been my en-VI
PREFACE
deavour as far as possible to furnish accurate and detailed information rather than generalities among which the student might search in vain for the particulars he requires. I may be permitted to express a hope that my critics will deal leniently with the errors which must be inseparable from such a publication.
In transliterations I have followed Dr. E. Muller in indicating by & the vowel which appears as e in publications of the Ceylon Government. The form accepted by me, when pronounced as a diphthong as in the Oxford Dictionary, both gives the sound of the letter and is historically accurate, the letter having been in most cases derived from an ancient a.
The consonant which is often expressed by v has been represented by either v or w, so as to be in general agreement with its local sound. In Ceylon it is a w, and any one who pronounced it otherwise in nearly all words would make himself ridiculous. In the case of Pali words, especially the names of places and books, I have used only the letter v, in order to avoid confusion through being in disagreement with other works. I adhere in general to the Pali forms of names.
1 have to express my obligations to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for his readily granted authorisation to reproduce some of Mr. Smither's drawings of the dagabas ; and to my friends Mr. H. T. S. Ward, the recent Director of Irrigation, and Mr. H. C. P. Bell, the Archaeological Commissioner, the former for permission to copy and utilise the drawings of irrigation works in his office, and the latter for allowing me to include in this worfc a description of some early coins in the possession of the Ceylon Government, without which the account of the first local coinage would have been incomplete.
In the various chapters in which it has been utilised I
have acknowledged the information furnished by several
kind friends in Ceylon, and by Mr. C. H. Read of the British
and Dr. C. G. Seligmann, to all of whom it is a
return to my grateful thanks.
Mtssr*. H. B. Andris and Co. of Kandy were so good as to bring about the publication of a Sinhalese work on the KG-PREFACE vil
hoxnba Yaka in order that it might be available for me, and to the kindness of Mr. H. W. Codrington, of the Civil Service, I am indebted for native accounts of this deity compiled in various provinces. To my friend the late Dr. Paul Gold-schmidt I owe my interest in the early inscriptions.
With regard to the scales of the drawings, which are usually expressed in fractions, the denominator divided by twelve gives the number of feet equal to one inch.
Through an inadvertence the word Vyddha appears in some places as Vy&da.CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE .......... v
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ....... xi
PART I. THE ABORIGINES ........ i
PART II. STRUCTURAL WORKS ...... 207
PART III. ARTS, IMPLEMENTS AND GAMES .... 413.
THE ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICATION OF THE CROSS %
AND SWASTIKA ...... 643.
ADDENDA ......... 667
APPENDIX. TABLE OF MEASURED BRICKS .... f36g
INDEX ........... 675
JxLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLATES
PAGE
The Swastika of Ceylon . Cover
2. The God of the Rock .... 'Frontispiece'
3. Map of Ceylon ..... Facing i
4. Rakshasa as Guardian .... ,, 5.
5. Vibhisana, his wife, and Lakshmana . ,, 7
6. A Modern Rakshasa ...... 7
7. Ritigala ........ 8
8. Nagas as Guardians .... Facing 15,
9. A Yaksha . . . . . . .17
10-19. Weapons and Utensils of Vaeddas . , . . 55,
20-34. Stone Implements . . . . 65
35. Skanda and Valliyamma . . . Facing 115
36. Mohim ....... ,, 136
37. Ayiyanar as Guardian . . . . ,, 148
38. Ganesa, Vibhisana, and Pattini . . ,, 148
39. Ayiyanar on his Elephant . . ,, 148
40. Kokka-gala . . . . . . . .178
41. Vaedda Temple of the Gale-Yaka . . . . 182.
42. Rock Temple of the Gale-Deviya . . . .183
43. The Nirammulla Dewalaya . . . . .185,
44-50. Dancing Rocks of the Gale-Deviya . . 193
51-53. Ancient Utensils of the Gale-Deviya . . .199
54-56. Small Cup-holes ....... 223,
57-62. Large Cup-holes . . . . . . .227
63. The Giant's Tank ....... 248
64. The Thupararna Dagaba.....263
65-69. The Thuparama Dagaba. Elevation and Details . 267
70. Map of Anuradhapura and its Tanks . . .27!
71. The Maha Sagya, Mihintale . . 276-xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLATES
FIG. PAGE
72. King Duttha-Gamini .... Facing 279
73. Tlie Ruwanwaeli Dagaba . . . . .281 74-79. The Ruwanwaeli Dagaba. Plan and Details . . 287 80-83. The Ruwanwaeli Dagaba. Restored Elevation . 292
84. Southern Wahalkada, Miriswaeti Dagaba Facing 295
85. The Abhaya-giri Dagaba. Elevation . . . 306
86. The Jetavana Dagaba ...... 308
87. Pillars at Wahalkada, Jetavana Dagaba Facing 310
88. The Mahiyangana Dagaba . . . . .316
89. The Kaelaniya Dagaba . . . . . 317
90. The Idikatu Dagaba . . . . . . 319
91. The Ambatthala Dagaba . . . . -321
92. The Mahanaga Dagaba ...... 325
93-110. Articles deposited in Dagabas .... 329
in. Statue of Prince Sali .... Facing 333
112. Miniature Stone Dagaba . . . ,,341
113. The Ottappuwa Dagaba . . . . .344
114-115. Panda-waewa ....... 354
116. Basawak-kulam ....... 360
117. Pool in Tissa-waewa ...... 363
118-119. Vavunik-kulam ....... 368
120-125. Pavat-kulam .... . . .372
126. Pavat-kulam. Northern Bis5kotuwa . . . 375
127-129. Sangili-kanadara Tank . . . . . .384
130. Map of Tissa and its Tanks . . . . -387
131. Tissa-waewa ........ 388
132. Destruction of a Dam ...... 391
w
133. Direct and Oblique Dams ..... 391
134. Batalagoda Tank. Plan ..... 398
135. Batalagoda Tank . . . . . . . 399
136. Nuwara-waewa. Plan and Section of L. L. Sluice 402
137. Nuwara-waewa. Plan and Section of H. L. Sluice 402
138. Basawak-kulam. Section of Bank .... 402
139. Tissa-waewa. Section of Bank .... 402
140. Nuwara-waewa. Remains of Dam.... 406
141. Nuwara-waewa. Bridge over Channel ,. . . 406LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLATES riii
FIG. 142-146,
147-
148. 149. 150,
151-
152.
*53. 154. 155. 156-
157-158.
159.
160.
161-169.
170-171.
172-178.
179. 180. 181. 182.
183.
184.
185-200.
201-216.
217,
218,
219.
220-239.
240-241.
242-243,
244.
245.
246.
247,
Naccaduwa Tank ......
The Allekattu Dam
Tevandan Puliyan-kulam Hill
Tevandan Puliyan-kulam. Inscribed Boulders.
PAGE 406
4II
417 417
The Earliest Inscription (No. 2) . . Facing 418 Facsimiles of Inscriptions . . . . .421
Cave Temple, Kaccatkodi . . . . * 435
Facsimiles of Inscriptions . . . « . 447
Mulleittlvu and Tissa Coins . . . Facing 469
Anuradhapura Coins .... ? 482
Seal from Yatthala Dagaba ... ? 495
Guard-Stone, Anuradhapura ... ? 499
Durga, as Kali, destroying the Asuras . ? 501
Relief of Building. Anuradhapura. . . . 508
Bhairava as Guardian . Facing 515
Swords and Clubs. . . . * . . 527
Soldiers in Panels, Ridi Wihara . . . . 529
Kandian Knives ....... 533
.Dagger. ... ... . . . . 533
Shield engraved on Rock ..... 533
Dagger engraved on Rock ..... 533
Knife engraved on Rock . .... 533
Waved Spear Head . . . . . 533
Sinhalese Marteau . . . , '533
Sinhalese Weapons ,,,... 535
Sinhalese Weapons .... , ? 537
Side of Duttha-Gamini's Crown . . . . 538
Pillar at the Giant's Tank . * . . . 539
Rock Carving at Isurumuniya . . . . 545
Sinhalese Tools ..... . . 553
The Pump Drill....... 550
The Spinning-Wheel «'. . . . . . 563
The Cotton Gin . , , ? . ... 564
Nerenchi Diagram . . .. . . 577
Indian Diviyan-keliya Diagram . . . . . 581
Diagram for H£w£kam Diviyan-keliya ? - 582XIV
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLATES
FIG.
248-255.
256.
257-259.
260.
261-262.
263.
264-269.
270.
271.
272.
273.
274,
275.
Olinda (Mancala) Boards . .. Mancaia Holes at Third Pyramid, Gizeh Saturankarn Diagram .... Siga Diagram .... . Pancha-keliya Diagram .... Asi-keliya Diagram . . . . Pachis Diagram . . . . . Arasadi Diagram . . . . . Tattu-keliya Diagram . . .
Pattini and her Husband . . .
. . 588
Facing 590
.. 605
. . 607
. . 609 . -615.
. . 619
. 625
. . 627
Facing 631
Masons' Diagrams on Roof of Kurna Temple . . 644 Flower Altar near Vammiyadi . . . .658 Yantra-gala, Anuradhapura ..... 658CEYLON
\Tofette p. i.
Part I THE ABORIGINES
PAGE
I. THE FIRST INHABITANTS . .... 3 II. THE ANCIENT VAEDDAS...... 23
III, THE MODERN VAEDDAS . . . . . - , 35
THE MODERN VAEDDAS. SOCIAL DIVISIONS AND ? CUSTOMS,.......:;; .. -'J$3.-.
IV. THE RELIGION OF THE VAEDDAS . ? - * ^
V. THE PRIMITIVE DEITY OF CEYLON . / ,;. -'/:"-'vijrtr'"
[To /« ;« £./f^C^/lA/plA^l
^Q^JjrO^^ XW x$
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I &?JLJ^. X1?,^/.?
THE FIRST INHABITANTS
T Tf 7"HEN the first Aryan invaders entered India they VV brought with them an exaggerated belief in the existence of various classes of evil beings, among whom those termed Rakshasas occupied the most prominent place. These demons were thought to be especially active and powerful during the darkness of the night, when, though invisible in their true shapes, they acted in many objectionable ways in opposition to the new settlers ; and most of the ills which beset the Aryans were attributed to their malevolence. Every mysterious sound heard during the night, and especially the weird calls of the forest owls, showed them to be then in the immediate neighbourhood of the villages or encampments, but with the first gleams of sunrise they vanished ; the spear-like rays of the mighty Sun-god had annihilated them, or at the least had driven them away into the obscurity of the trackless forests. Being thus powerful during the nocturnal hours, it was naturally believed to be they who inspired the night attacks of the aboriginal tribes, the constant enemies of the Aryan settlers ; and many and fervent were the prayers addressed to Agni, the Fire-god, and Incfra, the God of the Firmament, the Lord of the Thunder ^nd the Controller of the Heavenly Fires, to arise and disperse and overwhelm them* In the fourth hymn of Book iv of the Rig-Veda (Griffiths' translation) the prayer runs :?
Rise, Agni, drive off those who fight against us: make manifest thine
own celestial vigour.
Slacken the strong bows of the demon-driven. . . . Destroy the cursing R&kshasas.
As the Aryans advanced further into the country their belief in the existence of these demons of the night remained4 ANCIENT CEYLON
firmly impressed on their minds. They afflicted both man and beast, and were devourers of raw flesh. Sometimes they appeared bodily?not in their true forms, but in the shape of dogs, owls, and other birds?and obstructed the sacrifices of the Aryans in various ways, and especially by the pollution of their presence. In the hymn 104 of Book vii, the Maruts? the Gods of the Storm-winds?and Indra are appealed to :?
She, too, who wanders like an owl at night-time, hiding her body in
her guilt and malice, May she fall downward into endless caverns. May press-stones with
loud ring destroy the demons. Spread out, ye Maruts, search among the people: seize ye and grind
the Rakshasas to pieces, Who fly abroad, transformed to birds at night-time, or sully ancl
pollute our holy worship. Indra hath ever been the fiends' destroyer who spoil oblations of the
Gods* invokers: Yea, Sakra, like an axe that splits the timber, attacks and smashes
them like earthen vessels. Destroy the fiend shaped like an owl or owlet, destroy him in the form
of dog or cuckoo. Destroy him shaped as eagle or as vulture: as with a stone, O Indra,,
crush the demon.
They were considered to be especially-malignant sorcerers.
The same hymn continues : * Slay the male demon, Indra f Slay the female, joying and triumphing in arts and magic/ It concludes with the prayer, f Indra and Soma, watch ye
well Cast forth your weapon at the fiends : against the sorcerers hurl your bolt/
The hymn 87 of Book x is entirely devoted to denunciations of these demons, and appeals to Agni to destroy them :?
Where now thoii seest, Agni Jatavedas, one of these demons standing
still or roaming. Or flying on those paths in air's mid-region, sharpen the shaft and as
an archer pierce Mm. The fiend who smears himsell with flesh of cattle, with flesh of horses
and of human bodies, Who steak the milch-cow's milk away, O Agni?tear off the heads
of with fiery fury.
Agni, from days of old then slayest demons: never shall Rakshasas
in fight o'ercome thea Bum up the foolish ones, the flesh devourers ; let none of them escape
thine heavenly arrow.
I;IG. 4. Rakshasa as Guardian, Tanjore Temple.,
To /i'ti' p. 5-..THE RAKSHASAS 5
In the Sanaa-Veda (Stevenson's translation) the Rakshasas are said to be indomitable (Adhyaya xii, 2), and to be all around (Prapathaka vi, 6).
In the hymns of the Atharva-Veda (Bloomfield) we learn that the Rakshasas robbed people of their senses (vi, 3), and * possessed ' them (ii, 9), and that errors made in the prescribed ritual of the sacrifice were also sometimes due to their malicious interference (vii, 70). They were unable to face Indra ; * Indra forced the demons into the nethermost darkness ' (ix, 2).
Such were some of the earliest ideas of the Aryans concerning the Rakshasas, in the second or third millenium before Christ. In the first half of the pre-Christian millenium, the Ordinances of Manu confirm the statement that the Rakshasas were flesh-eating demons, and that night was the special time of demons' activity; they also place them in a position of high respectability after the Gods and Manes, along with other classes of supernatural beings. In the Sutta-Nipata (Fausboll's translation, S.B.E., p. 51) we find the Rakshasas uniting with the Gods in reprobating the slaughter of cows.
When the Indian epic poem, the Ramayana, was composed, the Rakshasas had developed into beings who constantly made their appearance before men, in their own or other forms which they took at will They were first described as wandering malignant demons of the great Vindhya forest, which extended far to the south in India; and afterwards, in the later portions of that work, they were represented as occupying all Ceylon, then (and still) denominated Lanka, under the rule of their own king, Ravana. The Maha-Bharata has the same tradition.
The latest account of them in these works is as follows l: When Brahma created the Waters he formed Rakshasas to guard them.2 Visvakarman, the general architect and builder of the Gods, erected a city termed Lankapura for them in Ceylon, on the top of the mountain Trikuta, * Three Peaks/ on the shore of the southern ocean. Three of their princes
1 Main Original Sanskrit Textst Vol. iv, pp. 414 ff.
2 Two Rakshasas are carved in relief as guards In Fig, 159. I know of no other representation of them In the Sinhalese carvings.6 ANCIENT CEYLON
performed intense austerities for which they were rewarded by the grant of long life and a certain amount of invincibility. They made use of these gifts to oppress the Gods and sages, and at last prepared to attack heaven itself. The Sama-Veda mentions another Rakshasa called Kravi, who had previously got heaven and earth into his power and desolated them (Adhyaya xiii, 8). They were defeated by Vishnu, and driven back to Ceylon, and afterwards to the underworld, Patala, as stated also in the Atharva-Veda, where the deed is attributed to Indra (see above).
Kuvera, the God of Wealth, with his attendants the Yak-shas, who were demons of another type, in some respects not much better than the Rakshasas, but of a higher rank, then took up his residence in Ceylon, at Lankapura. Eventually, his half-brother Ravana, the Rakshasa king, by means of thousands of years of austerity obtained from Brahma the boon of indestructibility by all beings of a higher class than man. This enabled him to re-occupy Ceylon, which once more became the headquarters of the Rakshasas. He also conquered Kuvera, whose magic car he took, Yama, the God of Death, and Indra, and generally made the lives of the Gods extremely unpleasant. ' The Gods then addressed a word to Brahma, the Creator of the world: " A Rakshasa named Ravana having obtained a boon from thee, 0 Brahma, in his pride harasses us all. Obedient to thy words, we endure everything at his hands. . . . We are therefore in great fear of this Rakshasa of horrible aspect" * (Muir, O.S.T. iv, p. 140).
The Ramayana recounts at great length how these truculent demons interfered with or polluted the sacrifices of the anchorites in the Vindhya forest, and even devoured those holy men. The situation was evidently insupportable. In the meantime, the Gods had a' rod in pickle for the demons. Vishnu, the younger brother of Indra,- had acceded to the unanimous request of the- deities, .and'become., .incarnate as Rama, the son of Dasaratha, the king of Ayodhya or Oudh. Rama, who was suitably provided with .magic weapons, first destroyed the Rakshasas in India,on.account of their crimesTHE RAKSHASAS
there; and then, assisted by an immense army of monkeys and bears, proceeded to attack and kill Ravana in Ceylon, after the demon king had carried off his wife Sita to Lanka-pura. He then returned to Oudh with Sita. According to the Rajavaliya, one of the Sinhalese historical works, the date of this event was 1844 years before Gotama Buddha entered on his mission, that is, about 2370 B.C.
Although he had promised to do it, Rama did not exterminate the Rakshasas. Vibhisana, the younger brother of Ravana, a good and devout worshipper of Vishnu, who had joined Rama's forces in the war against the Rakshasas, was appointed the sovereign of the survivors in Ceylon, in the place of Ravana ; and there the story ends so far as it concerns Ceylon. The Rakshasas also vanish from history, with the exception of an occasional appearance of a fever- or ophthalmia-causing demon who is termed a Rakshasa in the Sinhalese chronicles. They are found, however, in early times and down to the present day in the folk-stories of the villagers, both in India and Ceylon. In Ceylon they have degenerated into mere man-eating ogres of the European Jack - and - the - Beanstalk type/ who are much more powerful than the Yakshas?according to one story four Yakshas took to
FIG. 6. A Modern Rakshasa. (After a Native Fainting.)
1 The reader may remember the striking description of one in the Third Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman :?-' A huge creature in the likeness of a man, black of colour, tall and big of bulk, as he were a great date-tree, with eyes like coals of fire and eye-teeth like boar's tusks and a vast big gape like the month of a well. Moreover, he had long loose lips like camels", hanging down upon his breast, and ears like two Janus [a kind of barge] falling over his shoulder-blades and the nails of his hands were like the claws of a lion/1?-4ralzaw Xights, Lady Burton's Ed , Ml, p. 485.
8
ANCIENT CEYLON
flight when opposed by one Rakshasa?but are outwitted by clever girls and men. The Rig-Veda had already termed them foolish.
Although there is nothing in this legend of the Ramayana to indicate that the composer of even the last section possessed more than the slightest knowledge of Ceylon, most of the geographical outlines referring to the island are accurately pour-trayed. He knew that Ceylon was an island near the southern coast of India, and tied to it, as it were, by a chain of islands or sandbanks. He was aware that the country was
FIG. 7. Ritigala, from the South.
about 100 leagues in length?the actual distance is about 266 miles 1?and that there are mountains in the -southern part of it. He had also learnt that on the side of the ancient highway leading from the end of Mannar to the southern districts, the traveller passed a Mil termed Arishtha, the Arittha of the Pali histories of Ceylon, now called Ritigala, near the foot of which the high road certainly ran in historic times. The name Suvela, which is also mentioned as that of a hill, cannot be identified as such, but may be a reference to the land round the town called Uruvela, In the northern
, l The earliest Sinhalese history, the Dipavansa, p. 196, says that it is 32 yojanas ; at 8J- miles per ydjana this is 272 miles.THE RAKSHASAS 9
part of the Kandian hill-country there are also three very conspicuous peaks on one of the higher mountains, when viewed from the northern low country, from which the idea of the mountain Trikiita may have been derived.
It is evident that before this knowledge of the interior of Ceylon could be available in India, the island must have been thoroughly explored by intelligent travellers. This could only be done in a settled and peaceable country such as we find under the Sinhalese kings, and there is no probability that it was ever feasible at an earlier period. As European scholars now agree, the whole account of the invasion of Ceylon by Rama must therefore have been invented during historic times, and it thus becomes simply and -purely a poetic fiction, an improvement of the original story without any basis whatever in fact. Even such a slight foundation for it as the spread of the Hindu religion, or Aryan civilisation, among the tribes of the south must be swept away so far as Ceylon is concerned, since the descendants of the original inhabitants of the island, the Vaeddas of the interior, have never adopted the worship of the Hindu gods, nor, until historic times, the civilisation of the Aryans.
We now come to the Sinhalese annals, and here we.soon begin to feel our feet on firmer ground.1 Of these histories, the two most important ones are written in the Pali language ?the Dipavansa and the Mahavansa. The former, which ends with the death of King Maha-Sena (277-304 A.D.), and appears to have been completed not later than the beginning of the fifth century A.D., and possibly nearly a century earlier, is believed by its translator, Dr. H. Oldenberg, to consist chiefly of extracts from histories or chronicles of much earlier date.
The Mahavansa was written at various times, and has been continued to the end of the eighteenth century. My references will be to the English translation made for the Ceylon ?Government by the late Mr. L. C. Wijesinhe. There is no doubt that the author of the first part of it was a Buddhist
1 The Rt. Rev. Dr. Caldwell termed the writers * on the whole, the most truthful and accurate of oriental annalists.* (Dravzdtan ?mar, Introduction, p. 121.)A
10 ANCIENT CEYLON
monk who bore the title Mahanama, and was the uncle of King Dhatu-Sena (463-479 A.D.) ; and that most probably soon after the death of that king he completed the book up to his own day. It is recorded in the Tika, or ' Commentary' on the Mahavansa, a work of somewhat later date, that he derived his materials from Chronicles written long before in Sinhalese, one of which owed its authorship to the monks of the Uttara Piriwena (the Northern Monastic residence) at the Maha Wihara, the great Buddhist temple founded at Anuradha-pura in the middle of the third century B.C.
It is expressly mentioned that several histories were extant in his time, and were consulted by him. , Some of them were also termed Mahavansas. In the Commentary it is stated.: ' Thus the title "Mahavansa" is adopted in imitation of the history composed by the fraternity of the Maha Wihara. . . . In case it should be asked in this particular place, " Why, while there are Mahavansas composed by ancient authors in the Sinhalese language, this author has written/" etc.1 Mahanama himself insists on the accuracy with which he adheres to the accounts of the early chroniclers. At the beginning, he states : ' Having bowed down to the supreme Buddha, immaculate in purity, illustrious in descent; without suppression or exaggeration I celebrate the Mahavansa.5 It can hardly be doubted, from the amount and accuracy of the details which Mahanama gives in his work, that at least one of these prior Chronicles was begun in the third century B.C., and certainly not later than the second century B.C.
It is important to understand clearly that as regards the pre-Christian and early post-Christian details which are found in the Mahavansa we have got, not the opinions or fancies of a monk who lived 500 years after Christ, but a work carefully compiled from annals that were committed to writing in the second or third century before Christ, and continued without a break up to the time of the reverend author. With respect to the information to be collected from the work regarding the earliest rulers, we have at least the opinions of
1 Turnout. The-Makawan$Q Introduction, pp, xxxi, xxxILTHE YAKKHAS n
annalists, or traditions recorded by them, dating from a time that was perhaps only a century and a half later than the earliest local events of which they preserved the story. Some of these early chroniclers may have seen, or have known persons who had seen, the great king Pandukabhaya, the record of whose reign is of the utmost value for the light it throws on the position occupied by the aborigines in the third and fourth centuries before Christ.
There are other historical works of subsequent date, nearly all written in the Sinhalese language. Occasionally they contain supplementary details of the early period which are not found in these two first books, thus showing that their composers had also access to some manuscripts that are now lost. Among such works may be noted the RajavaJiya, the Rajaratnakara, the PujavaJiya, the Thupavansa, and the Dhatuvansaya.
It has been already mentioned that the later parts of the Ramayana and the Maha-Bharata contain the statement that Ceylon was once occupied by a class of beings termed Yakshas, under their sovereign Kirvera or Vaisravana, the God of Wealth, the Wessawana of the Sinhalese. The Ramayana also incidentally adds that some Yakshas dwelt on the Arishtha Mil at the period of the mythical invasion by Rama, and on the mountain Mahendra?at the southern end of the Vindhya chain, the Western Ghats?on the opposite coast of India, It is possible that the person who composed that part of the epic had heard of the stories related by Indian traders regarding the first settlement of the Sinhalese in Ceylon.
Apparently, at the time when the first Magadhese traders 1 came to Ceylon from the lower part of the Ganges valley, they described the inhabitants whom they found occupying the central and southern forests as beings who were scarcely
1 The way of the tradesman [is the occupation] * of M&gadhas. Ordinances of Manu, Translation by Bumell and Hopkins, xf 47. The translators state that the Commentator Medh£tithi specifies * the way * as referring to both land and water.
* Throughout work, the words In square brackets are Inserted by me.12 ANCIENT CEYLON
*
human, a custom of many later travellers when delineating aborigines. They may have exaggerated and embellished their accounts of them with a view to deterring others from venturing into Ceylon, so as to enable them to retain a lucrative trade in their own hands. However this may be, the chronicles of their descendants, the Sinhalese, applied the Pali term Yakkha, ' demon/ to the beings whom they found in the island, but described them as devoid of most of the supernatural attributes of the Yakshas of the early Indian works. They were no longer beings of a semi-divine nature, but were looked down upon as approaching much more nearly to the class of evil demons, just as the references to the aboriginal Dasyu of Vedic times are often couched in terms "that might equally describe the characteristics of demons. They no longer possessed the power of aerial flight and of passing through the water.
The historical works of Ceylon contain a mythical story of three visits that were supposed to have been paid to the island by the last Buddha, Gdtama, as well as by the three previous Bttddhas. It is not found in the canonical works, and is therefore not accepted by the more intelligent Buddhists in the island, whether monks or laymen; but it is credited as an article of faith by the less-instructed classes, and it has had the effect of greatly enhancing the prestige of the Buddhist remains at Anuradhapura and Kaelaniya, the sites of two of the supposed visits.
In them an account is related of the miraculous expulsion of the Yakkhas from the island at the last Buddha's first visit, in the ninth month after he attained Buddhahood, in order to render it habitable by the Gangetic settlers who were about to occupy it after his death. The Dipavansa gives the story as follows (i, pp. 46 ff., Oldenberg's translation) : * At that time the ground of Lanka was covered with great forests, and full of horrors: frightful, cruel, blood-thirsty Yakkhas of various kinds, and savage, furious, and pernicious Pisachas [a lower form of demon] of various shapes and full of various (wicked) thoughts, had all assembled together. [The Teacher thought] " I shall go there, in their midst; I shall dispel theTHE YAKKHAS 13
Rakkhasas and put away the Pisachas ; men shall be masters (of the island)."
He came through the air from the Andtatta Lake in the Himalayas, and alighted at Mahiyangana, on the eastern side of the Central mountains. There he first sent down ' rain, cold winds, and darkness/ and afterwards intense heat, to escape from which the unfortunate Yakkhas could merely stand on the shore.
In the end he permitted the Yakkhas and Rakshasas (who are suddenly introduced into the story) to escape to an island called Giridipa, ' the Island of Hills/ a name which may possibly indicate Malayalam, ' the Mountain Region/ The Raja-valiya terms the place Yak-giri-duwa, * the Island of Demon Hills/ This place is described as ' beautifully adorned by rivers, mountains, and lakes . . . full of excellent food and rich grain, with a well-tempered climate, a green, grassy land . . . adorned by gardens and forests; there were trees full of blossoms and fruits/ It was situated * in the great sea, in the midst of the ocean and the deep waters, where the waves incessantly break; around it there was a chain of mountains, towering, difficult to pass/
The second visit of the Buddha is stated to have been paid in the fifth year of his mission. In this case he visited the Nagas, a class of beings entirely different from the Yakkhas, who were engaged in a civil war in Northern Ceylon.1 He first cowed them in the manner which had proved so effective with the Yakkhas, by means of a * deep terrifying darkness/ and then reconciled them and converted great numbers to Buddhism. On this occasion he was accompanied by Indra as his attendant, who brought with him a large KiripaJu tree (Buchanania angustifolia) in which he commonly resided, and held it as a sunshade over his illustrious1 master, finally planting it in northern Ceylon as an object for the Nagas to worship. The third visit was made in his eighth year. On the full-rnoon day of Wesak (April-May), accompanied by 500
1 The Raj avaliya fixes the incident at Kaelaniya, and states that lie then remained three days in Ceylon. It omits his visit to that place on the occasion of his third journey.14 ANCIENT CEYLON
monks, he is represented as going to Kaelaniya, on the western side of Ceylon, near Colombo, at the invitation of Mani-Akkhika the Naga king of Kaelaniya, who had undertaken a journey to India in order to invite him to come. Mani-Akkhika, who is stated in the Dhatuvansa to have been the maternal uncle or father-in-law of Mahodara, one of the kings who was at war on his former visit, is described as a devout Buddhist, having been converted at the Buddha's first visit to the Yak-khas. The Naga king erected a highly-decorated pavilion .for the reception of the distinguished visitors, and distributed a great donation to the monks. After this, the Buddha is believed to have first left the impression of his foot on the Sumana Kuta mountain (Adam's Peak), and to have afterwards proceeded to the site of the future Dighavapi, on the eastern side of Ceylon, and finally to Anuradhapura, where he visited the sites subsequently occupied by the celebrated Bo-tree and three dagabas.
According to these accounts, the Nagas were apparently considered to be a comparatively civilised race. The incident of the planting of the Rajayatana (Kiripalum Sinhalese) tree of Indra in their country Nagadipa,' the Island of the Nagas/ plainly shows that they belonged to the older faith of India, and were worshippers of Indra, and not of Siva. They were ruled by their own kings, and had a settled and regular form of government. They seem to have been confined to the western and especially the northern part of Ceylon, this latter tract being invariably referred to in the histories for many centuries as Nagadlpa. In these works the expression * island ' is often applied to a tract of land only partly surrounded or bordered by water. Similarly, in the Sinhalese histories India is always known as Jambudwlpa or Dambadiva, * the Island of Jambu (trees)/
Nagas are generally understood to be a form of nondescript beings with the bodies of serpents attached to the upper parts of human beings; but they are never represented in this manner in Sinhalese carvings, nor at Bharhut and Amaravati in India, In the Bharhut carvings they resemble human beings in all respects, and can be recognised as Nagas onlyTHE NAGAS 15
by the addition of this descriptive title to their names. In the reliefs at Anuradhapura and Amaravati, Naga princes and princesses are only distinguishable from human beings by means of the cobras' heads with outspread hoods which appear behind or at the side of their heads. The Pujavaliya mentions dancers among North Indian Nagas, and refers to the arms of the Naga raja, Aravala. The old notion regarding them appears to have been that they had two forms which they could assume at will?either a human shape or that of a cobra.
Just as the Rakshasas disappear from history after the events described in the Ramayana, so the Nagas of Ceylon are never mentioned again as inhabiting the island after their supposed partial conversion by the last Buddha. Yet the fact that the only name for the northern portion of Ceylon was ' the Island of Nagas/ must be held to prove that some beings designated Nagas once inhabited it.
The word Naga may be applied either to human beings-there are still people of this name In north-eastern India?or cobras, or elephants, or to the class of supernatural beings referred to above, whose home was in the water, or below Mount Meru, the centre of the universe. The latter were especially beings of the water, as the Yakshas were beings of the land. We may venture in these days to leave such creatures out of consideration, and to assume that the early occupiers of Northern Ceylon were human beings, as the account of them in the histories indicates.
The original home of such a race must evidently be looked for in the most southern part of India. In such a case, I think we must naturally turn first to the people of an identical name in Southern India, the Nayars, who still occupy practically the extreme south-west part of the country. Their situation itself renders it In every way likely that Northern and Western Ceylon might be colonised by a branch of this race. There is no direct proof of the occurrence of such an Immigration, but some evidence of It may be found in the fact that it would provide an explanation of the existence among the Kandian Sinhalese, who are a more or less mixed race, of some social features resembling those of the Indian Nayars. Among thesej6 ANCIENT CEYLON
may be especially noted (i) the practice of polyandry ; (2) the elasticity, or rather the slenderness, of the marriage tie, which permits the discarding, without any disgrace being attached to it, of undesirable husbands or wives ; (3) the re-marriage of such wives, and of widows, with others, as a universal national custom; and (4) the absence of * Sati/ or widow immolation. These are all customs that with perhaps the exception of the last, apparently cannot have been brought to Ceylon by the settlers who came from the valley of the Ganges ; but they are still maintained by the Nayars and the Kandian Sinhalese, Neither Sati nor the first three practices are found among the Vaeddas, the wild inhabitants of the inland forest tracts, and the three social customs must therefore have been introduced by others. It would be difficult to account for their presence in Ceylon by any other probable hypothesis than a Nayar connexion of early date, since in historical times there has been no special intercourse between the island and Malayalam, beyond the enlistment of a few mercenary soldiers who were natives of the latter country. I suggest, therefore, that the Nagas who occupied Northern Ceylon long before the arrival of the Gangetic settlers were actual Indian immigrants, and were an offshoot of the Nayars of Southern India.
During the reign of the first king of Ceylon we find a town to the north of Anuradhapura, on the Kadamba river, which may have been then, as it is now, the boundary of the Dra-vidian territory, that is, of Nagadipa, specially referred to by the annalists as the seat of * the Brahmanical Upatissa/ Thus it may possibly have been a town or settlement of early Dravidian colonists.
Returning to the Yakshas, the Yakkhas of the Pali works, who evidently occupied the portion of Ceylon which was not included in Nagadipa, we find that in addition to Mahiyangana, which is stated to have been the scene of one of their battles (Mah. i» p. 4), they are more than once mentioned as being present in north-central Ceylon, They are expressly said to have been numerous * in the south/ where the Indian prince Wijaya, the future ruler of the island, and Ms party from theTHE YAKKHAS 17
Ganges valley are reported to have landed; one of their
capitals, Sirivattha, or the headquarters of one of their chiefs, was near this landing-place.
FIG. 9. A Yaksna (WiMra Painting). '
Notwithstanding their supposed previous removal from the island about forty-five years before his-arrival (according to the statement that he came in the year of Buddha's death) we are told that Wijaya found the country still occupied by the Yakkhas. This is explained by the Rajavaliya, which states that some Yakkhas had concealed themselves in the midst of the forest, and thus escaped banishment. According to the Mahavansa, Wijaya married a Yakkha princess, called Kuweni, and with her advice and assistance succeeded in overcoming her countrymen and making himself master of at any rate a considerable part of Ceylon. A great part of the story of Wijaya's exile from his father's realm, and his journey to the island appears to be fictitious; but the whole account is valuable as indicating the early beliefs current in pre-Christian times regarding the aborigines.
In the Jataka tales, or instructive incidents in the former
ci8 ANCIENT CEYLON
lives of the last Buddha, Gotama?the most recent stories of which are at any rate of earlier date than the period of the compilation of the Dipavansa, while others date from the fourth or fifth century B.C.?some interesting evidence is forthcoming regarding the tract inhabited by the Yakkhas.
After the usual introductory remarks, the Valahassa Jataka (No. 196) begins as follows: ' Once upon a time, there was in the island of Ceylon a goblin town called Sinsavatthu, peopled by she-goblins. When a ship is wrecked these adorn and deck themselves, and taking rice and gruel, with trains of slaves, and their children on their hip, they come up to the merchants/ The story relates how they entice the traders to accompany them to the goblin city; ' then, if they have any others already caught, they bind these [other men] with magic chains, and cast them into the house of torment. And if they find no shipwrecked men in the place where they dwell, they scour the coast as far as the river Kalyani [Kaelaniya, which enters the sea at Colombo] on the one side and the island ?of Nagadlpa on the other. This is their way/ l Then follows an account of the ensnaring of five hundred shipwrecked merchants in this manner, and the escape of two hundred and fifty of them by the aid of the Bodhisattva [Gotama Buddha, in this former life], who assumed the shape of a wonderful flying horse which carried them back to India. When some new men were entrapped the Yakkhas are described as killing and eating the two hundred and fifty who were left behind.
This anecdote implies that the Yakkhas occupied all the coast districts outside the limits of Nagadlpa and Kaelaniya.
1 The ' goblins' were Yakkhas. It is to be regretted that the translators of these stories, as well as other translators, decided to transform the appellations of the various inferior supernatural beings who are mentioned in them, into words that are assumed to be their English equivalents, but in reality belong, in some cases, to beings of different characteristics. The word 'goblin,* for instance, would never mean to the ordinary reader both a being, Yafcsha, who was sometimes ranked in India close to the Gods?in the Atharva-Veda Yakshas precede the Rishis and the Fathers?and also a ghiJ, VMala, an eater of dead bodies. * Demon * and ' fiend * are used to designate stich different beings as DSaavas, Daityas, R&kshasas, Yatudhanas Pisachas,THE VAEDDAS 19
Taken with the information gleaned from the histories, this Jataka story renders it clear that the old authors believed them to have held the southern two-thirds of the island, including one-third of the western coast. The fact that the Nagas are described as being in possession of two-thirds of the western coast districts tells very strongly in favour of their coming from some part of the Malayalam tracts.
There is good reason to suppose that the accounts which the early writers have given respecting the Yakkhas have some foundation in fact. If so, they must necessarily refer, not to any supernatural beings who had made Ceylon their home, but to the aborigines, who In any case must have been driven out of the northern districts of the island by the intrusion of the Nagas. It is the general consensus of opinion that they are now represented by the Vaeddas, the hunting and fishing tribe who at one time occupied all the central forests as well as the southern coasts.
The late Mr. H. Nevill, of the Ceylon Civil Service, and others, have traced the identification of the Vaeddas with the Yakkhas, by the old authors, to a similarity of the names of the two classes of beings. According to this view, the Pali expression Yakkha was wrongly applied to the aborigines because of its resemblance to a title which is supposed to have been given to them as descriptive of their calling as hunters. It is believed by these writers that they were known as * Arrow-persons *; this would be expressed by the word iya, * arrow/ plus the personal suffix ka forming the word Iyaka which in sound is sufficiently close to Yakkha for such a confusion to arise. Although the arrow is certainly given a very prominent place in the ceremonies and worship of the Vaeddas, there appears to be no other evidence in favour of this derivation of the name applied to them by the ancient authors*
On the other hand, we have unmistakable evidence that they were known In pre-Christian times by the name which they still bear. The statement of the Mahavansa that in the fourth century B.C. King Pan£uk5bhaya provided a site at Anuradhapura for the Vyada-Deva, * the Vaedda deity/ and erected special dwellings for the Vyadas there, appears
20 ANCIENT CEYLON
to prove conclusively that at that early date the aborigines were known as Vyadas or ' hunters;' that is, Vaeddas, and not lyakas. In the Mahavansa they are also once termed Pulin-das, that is, savages or barbarians, a name applied by Indian writers to the Bblls ; and in place-names they are Sabaras, a word with the same meaning. It was probably due to exaggerated tales about these hunters, which the primitive Indian traders told their credulous countrymen on their return from their long and arduous expeditions to Ceylon, that the aborigines came to be denominated Yakkhas, that is, demons or goblins.
For the original home of these first comers we must search in the nearest aboriginal tracts of the adjoining continent, the hills of Southern India, or ttieir neighbourhood. It has been already noted that the Ramayana mentions the existence of Yakshas on them. Professor R. Virchow has shown that the character of the skulls of the present Vaeddas indicates a race with an affinity to some of the South Indian hill tribes. In several respects their customs incline to those of other South Indian hill-men, and their supreme deity is the Hill-God, whose cult prevails throughout the Western arid Southern Ghats. Perhaps the strongest evidence of the country of their origin is their own tradition that this deity came to Ceylon from Malawara-desa, * the Country of the Hill-region/ that is the Malayalam hills. It remains to be seen whether any affinities can be recognised between their dialect?which is practically a compound of modern Sinhalese, old Sinhalese, and a few Tamil words?and those of the South-Indian hill tribes.
There is nothing to indicate that the Vaeddas were ever the cannibals that the Jataka story represents them to be; the tale of their eating shipwrecked persons is an embellishment regarding the truth of which the later legends of the supposed habits of the true Yakshas would leave no doubt in an Indian mind. It may be taken to have no better basis than the fact that like many other aboriginal tribes they may have robbed and perhaps killed some of the traders wrecked on their shores, and seized the cargoes of their ships. On the other hand, the statement that the Pulayars of Travancore THE VAEDDAS 21
who are believed to be the aborigines of the plains in Southwest India, habitually file their teeth x must be admitted to afford some evidence that cannibalism was formerly a practice of that race, the habit of sharpening the teeth being almost always associated with anthropophagy. Had man-eating been also a custom of the aborigines of Ceylon, however, some distinct reference to it, |n addition to the very doubtful story of the habits of the Sirisavatthu residents, would almost certainly be found in the Sinhalese historical works, and the teeth of the Vaeddas would probably be filed to the present day, like those of the Pulayars.
On the whole, it may be concluded that the advance of the Dravidians to the south of India, which may have occurred before the entry of the Aryans into the north-western regions, may have eventually led to an exodus of an aboriginal and probably pre-Dravidian hunting and fishing tribe across the shallow strait that separates Ceylon from India.2
That this tribe in early times obtained food by fishing as well as hunting, may be gathered from the facts (i) that some Vaeddas live entirely by fishing at the present day; (2) that they are stated in the Valahassa Jataka to have wandered along the -shores round the southern and eastern part of the island; and (3) especially that in the eastern part of Ceylon, where the people who retain the name of Vaeddas are still found, the shark is a forbidden food to the Kapuwas (or demon-priests) of the jungles of the interior who conduct the worship in honour of their supreme deity. This prohibition must have arisen from an acquaintance with the man-eating proclivities of the shark, regarding which the natives of the interior could have no direct knowledge. Such a prohibition would never be thought of by any but residents on the sea coast who were accustomed to catch and eat the shark, and it would be quite useless among others who lived far from the sea. The shark is not a forbidden food to the Kapuwas in other parts of the
1 Rev. S, Mateer, Native Life in Travancore, p. 41.
% Dr. R. Virchow has already stated that *vre cannot avoid the conviction that they stand in a close affinity to the Aborigines of India.* (The Veddas of Ceylon, Translation, p. 131.)22 ANCIENT CEYLON
island. The custom is an evident survival from a time when a considerable part of the race gained a living by sea-fishing, and were aware of its necessity in order to preserve from defilement the officiators at the services in honour of their deity. I may add that it appears to completely negative the Indian story of the cannibalism of the aborigines. If they were eaters of human flesh they could have no reason for declaring the shark an impure fish because it ate the same food as themselves.
Many centuries must have elapsed before these wanderers could penetrate and spread through all the dense forests of the interior, and in considerable numbers occupy all the southern coast districts, as they are represented to have done by the fifth century B.C. It may thus be accepted as certain that their advent dated, at the latest, from the second millennium before Christ, if the primitive state of the wilder members among their descendants, and the advanced state of the more civilised portion of the race in early historical times, do not indicate an even more distant arrival in the island.II
THE ANCIENT VAEDDAS
Sinhalese histories contain several references to JL the aborigines of Ceylon, whom they usually denominate, in the Pali language, Yakkhas. The narrative of the Buddha's supposed visit to them has been given already. They are next mentioned in the tale of the arrival of Wijaya, the first Sinhalese king ; and the story, even if partly or chiefly fictitious, is valuable as an illustration of some of the notions which the invaders or new settlers held regarding them. On this occasion only two Yakkhinis (female Yakkhas) showed themselves and endeavoured to entrap the travellers, who were only saved because Vishnu had taken the precaution to tie charmed threads on their arms.
One of the Yakkhinis proved to be a princess named Kuweni, whom Wijaya married. She provided the adventurers with a good meal of rice and other articles taken from ships that had been wrecked on the coast of Ceylon. She is then represented as proceeding to recommend Wijaya to attack the Yakkhas of the neighbouring town, in the following terms (Mah. i, p. 33) :?" In the city Sirivattha [the Sirisavatthu of the Jataka story], in this island, there is a Yakkha sovereign Kalasena, and in the Yakkha city Lankapura there is another sovereign. Having conducted his daughter Pusamitta thither, her mother KondanamikS. is now bestowing that daughter at a marriage festival on the sovereign there at Sirivattha. From that circumstance there is a grand festival in an assembly of Yakkhas. That great assemblage will keep up that' revel without intermission for seven days/' The prince acted as advised by her, and * having put Kalasena, the chief of the Yakkhas, to death, assumed his court dress. The rest of his retinue dressed themselves in the vestments [or oma-
23
24 ANCIENT CEYLON
ments] of the other Yakkhas. After the lapse of some days, departing from the capital of the Yakkhas, and founding the city called Tambapanni Wijaya settled there.'
According to the narrative, Wijaya subsequently married a daughter of the Pandiyan king of Madura, and discarded the Yakkha princess, who went to Lankapura, where she left her two children outside the town(Mah.i, p. 35). 'The Yakkhas on seeing her enter the city, quickly surrounded her, crying out "It is for the purpose of spying on us that she has come back/' When the Yakkhas were thus excited one of them whose anger was greatly kindled put an end to the life of the Yakkhini by a blow of his hand. Her uncle, a Yakkha named Kumara, happening to proceed out of the Yakkha city, seeing these children outside the town, " Whose children are ye/' said he. Being informed " Kuwenfs/' he said,f Your mother is murdered; if. ye should be seen here they would murder you also; fly quickly/' Instantly departing thence, they repaired to the neighbourhood of Sumanakuta (Adam's Peak). The elder having grown up married his sister and settled there. Becoming numerous by their sons and daughters, under the protection of the king they resided in that Malaya [mountain] district. This is the origin of the Pulindas/ Thus it is plain that at the early date when the first annals consulted by the compiler of the Mahavansa were written it was known that the so-called Yakkhas were in reality the aborigines, the Pulindas.
In the time of the fourth king of Ceylon, Tissa, the chronicler returns to the old idea of the Yakkhas as a form of demon, and narrates (Mah. i, p. 41) that * A certain Yakkhini named Cetiya l {the widow of Jutindhara, a Yakkha who was killed in a battle at Sirivatthapura 2) who dwelt at the Dhurnarakkha mountain [which the context shows was close to the Kasa ford on the Mahawaeli-ganga, near Polannaruwa], was wont to walk about the marsh of Tumbariyangana in the shape of a mare/ which was of a white colour, with red legs. Prince
1 In this and all other transliterations the letter c represents the
sound ch, as in church. *'*?, : rf' .", ? ,
2 The words in brackets are only given, in Tumour's Mahawanso.THE ANCIENT VAEDDAS 25
Pandukabhaya, the nephew of the king, who had taken the field In an attempt to seize the throne, and now held all the eastern and southern districts, to the south of the river Maha-waeli-ganga, succeeded in catching this mare, and by her supernatural advice and help, that is, with the assistance of the Yakkhas or Vaeddas, defeated and killed the king his uncle, and the latter's brothers, with the exception of two, and thus secured the sovereignty.
He reigned at Anuradhapura, which he enlarged and rearranged, so that during his reign it became an important city. The chronicler relates that ' He established the Yakkha Kala-vela in the eastern quarter of the city; and the chief of the Yakkhas, Citta, he established on the lower side of the Abhaya tank [that is, on the south-western side of the town]. He who knew how to accord his protection with discrimination established the slave [Kumbokata], born of the Yakkha tribe, who had previously rendered him great service,1 at the southern gate of the city/ Thus he arranged that his Vaedda allies should be established on three sides of the city, doubtless as its ^defenders.
The cemetery was fixed on the western side of the town; and to the northward of it, and apparently near the main road which led to Mahatittha, the port from which travellers sailed for Southern India, * a range of buildings * was also constructed for the s Vyadas/ the Vaedda populace in general.
The Mahavansa also informs us that * he established within the garden of the royal palace the mare-faced Yakkhini.' It will be noted that this Vaedda chieftainess is no longer called a mare, but only mare-faced, just as nicknames such as * moonfaced/ ' crooked-nosed/ * large-toothed/ etc., were applied to the Sinhalese kings.
Thus it is clear that a large proportion of the population of Anuradhapura or its outskirts at that time consisted of the
1 She had saved his life when an infant. According to the history,
the so-called Yakkhas protected him from the time when he was born,
' his uncles having endeavoured to kill him on account of a prediction
that he would destroy them. If there is any truth in this, his father's
mother may have "teen a native princess.26 ANCIENT CEYLON
Vaedda supporters of the king. It has been already mentioned that he provided a site for the Vyada Deva, ' the Vaedda God/ also. The chronicler proceeds to indicate in unmistakable language the commanding position of the Vaedda rulers of this period : * In the days of public festivity, this monarch, seated on a throne of equal eminence with the Yakkha chief, Citta, caused joyous spectacles, representing the actions of devas [gods] as well as mortals, to be exhibited/
This important sentence proves that the supreme Vaedda chief of that day occupied a position little, if at all, inferior to that of the Sinhalese king.
The chronicler continues, ' This monarch befriending the interests of the Yakkhas, with the co-operation of Kalavela and Citta, who had the power of rendering themselves visible,1 conjointly with them enjoyed his prosperity/
It is easy to see that it was by means of a close alliance with the Vaeddas that this astute king, the greatest organiser the country has ever had?who is recorded to have made the first land settlement by defining the boundaries of the villages throughout the country?succeeded in deposing his uncle and gaining the throne. The natives were evidently far too numerous and powerful and well-organised to be put aside afterwards like the unfortunate Kuweni; and the politic king found it advisable to recognise the authority and influence of their leaders as nearly equal to his own. His political sagacity in this respect doubtless saved the country from many years of bloodshed and insecurity, and converted the Vaeddas into peaceable inhabitants devoted to his interests. In religious matters he was equally liberal and impartial; he made special provision for all religious bodies at Ms capital. It was he, also, who gave the first stimulus to reservoir construction in the northern districts, and probably also irrigation. The historian rightly referred to him as??' this wise ruler/ and stated that at his death the country was * in a state of perfect peace * (Hah. i, p. 44), This great monarch was born in about 345
1 We may recognise the hand of the reverend historian of the fifth
century in this little parenthesis.THE ANCIENT VAEDDAS 27
B.C., and reigned from 308 to about 275 B.C., or possibly a little later.
In the middle of the third century B.C. the account of the arrival of Mahinda, the son of the Indian emperor Asoka, on a mission to convert the Sinhalese and their king Devanam-piya Tissa to Buddhism, possibly indicates a certain retention of power by the Vaeddas, and the brusque manner in which they ventured to address the king. When Mahinda first met.the king in the jungle, * the thera [superior monk] said to him, " Come hither, Tissa." From his calling him simply " Tissa " the monarch thought he must be a Yakkha' (Mah. i, p. 50). Whether the story is true or false, it proves that the writer believed that the Yakkhas, who must have been either supernatural beings or the Vaeddas of that time, did not exhibit much deference towards the Sinhalese sovereign.
In the time of Duttha-Gamini (161-137 B-C0 there is a reference to a temple of a deity termed * Pura-Deva/ which is stated to have been on the northern side of the cemetery, where we have seen that the Vaeddas were settled. This god seems to be the Vyada Deva of the time of Pandukabhaya, the word apparently meaning * the Ancient God * of the country.
When the great Ruwanwaeli dagaba1 was constructed by this king at Anuradhapura, among the paintings depicted on the wall of the relic-room inside it the list runs : ' The four great kings of the Catumaharajika heavens stood there with drawn swords; and thirty-three supernaturally-gifted devas [inferior gods] bearing baskets of flowers and making offerings of paricchatta flowers [Erythrina indica, now used only for demon-offerings]. There stood thirty-two princesses bearing lighted torches, and twenty-eight Yakkha chiefs ranged themselves as a guard of protection [for the relics in the chamber], driving away the fierce Yakkhas' (Mah. i, p. 121).
In the Hatthi-pala Jataka (No. 509} a tree-deity is repre-
1 A dagaba is a solid mound built to contain relics of Buddha, or important personages, especially monks, or sometimes only to commemorate an event which occurred at the site. It is usually a semi-globe or a bell in shape, with a terminal spire ; but there are other forms, of which an account is given in a subsequent chapter. Dagaba =db§tii-garbha, * relic-chamber,128 ANCIENT CEYLON
sented as applying to the f eight and twenty war-lords of the goblins' to grant a son to a king. The beings mentioned in the Mahavansa are thus probably the same Yakkhas of the Indian authors.. At the dagaba at Bharhut, in India, these beings were carved in relief at the gateways of the ' Buddhist railing' in the third century B.C., as guards, together with Naga chiefs.
On the other hand, in Southern India it is the Rakshasas who always act as guards at the Hindu temples, in accordance with the derivation of the word from the root rdksh, to guard. When deities are represented on the gopuras or ornamental gateways at the entrances of the great temples, figures of the Rakshasas are invariably present as their guards, and the Yakshas are never found in such positions of trust.
In the later wall-paintings of the Buddhist wiharasin Ceylon, the Yakshas always form the army of Mara, the god of Death, which attacked the Buddha ; but this has been shown to be a conception of later date than the canonical works, and it may not have found acceptance in the country in the time of Duttha-Gamini It is, however, somewhat strange to find Mahanama inserting the description of these figures in such a position in the dagaba without some explanatory remark. He may have understood them to be representations of aboriginal chiefs.
I belfeve the Vaeddas only make their appearance twice more in the early Sinhalese histories. The" Rajavaliya relates that King Maha-Sena (277-304 A.D.) employed Yakkhas as well as [Sinhalese] men in the construction of a large number of reservoirs that were formed in order to store water for the Irrigation of rice fields. Some confirmation of this story may be seen in his deification at some subsequent period, with the title of Sat-Rajjuruwo, that is, * King of (all) living creatures/ ?both the men and the supposed demons whom he forced to work for him. Worship is still paid extensively to him in this capacity in the northern Kandian districts.
The Vaeddas still formed a great part of the population in the twelfth century. The Mahavansa (ii, p. 151) recounts how King Parakrama-Bahu I (1164-1197 A.D.), while his cousinTHE ANCIENT VAEDDAS 29
Gaja-Bahu ruled at Polannaruwa, made preparations for a campaign for the conquest of the latter's dominions, and enlisted for it large numbers of his subjects. Among these we are told that ' He trained many thousands ' of Vyadas, that is, Vaeddas, * and made them skilled in the use of their weapons, and gave them suitable swords, black clothes, and the like things/ Thus in the twelfth century we see the Vaeddas in a state of comparative civilisation, taking their place in the army with the other levies.
It is extremely probable that contingents of Vaeddas formed part of the Sinhalese army not only then but in every war. We find them still serving with the other troops under Raja Sinha in the early part of the seventeenth century. Captain Robert Knox, in his Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, p. 62, states of those living near Hurulla, in the North-central Province, * The King once having occasion of an hasty Expedition against the Dutch, the Governour summoned them all in to go with him, which they did. And with their Bows and Arrows did as good service as any of the rest; but afterwards when they returned home again, they removed farther in the Woods, and would be seen no more, for fear of being afterwards prest again to serve the King/
As the immigration, such as it was, from the Ganges Valley appears to have practically ceased from the time of Panduka-bhayajs birth, his policy of admitting the natives to an equality with the Indian settlers must have caused a rapid fusion of the two races. This was the birth of the Sinhalese nation.1 We must believe that such a broad-minded ruler would not
1 The tradition of the origin of the name is given as. follows in the
Mahavansa i, pp. 33, 34. ' By reason of the King Sihabahu [the father of Wijaya] having slain the lion (Sl"ha), his sons and descendants
are called " Sihala " (the lion-slayers). This Lanka [Ceylon] having been conquered by a Sihala, from the circumstance of its having been colonized by a Sihala, it obtained the name of Sihala.* At a much later date it became the fashion to adopt Sanskrit forms of words in writing, and instead of the Pali word Siha the Sanskrit expression Sinha was used. The word meaning the country and people thus became * Sinhala* (pronounced with a nasal n, but no g sound). The Vaeddas have retained the old name of the country.;,;u; ri - ~~*w-*^*CT«'^^^^«*^
30 ANCIENT CEYLON
refuse equal rights to the northern Dravidians of Nagadipa, and thus the whole population must have gradually coalesced, with a great preponderance of the Vaedda blood. In the same manner as in England in Norman times or after the Roman domination, the natives in the lapse of years totally absorbed the newcomers, and a later very slight admixture of Tamil blood at last produced the race which we now find in the Kandian provinces. It differs from that of the western and southern coast tracts in all respects but colour, religion, and language.
In a note on the subject of Polyandry, the late Mr. E. Goone-tilleke, the learned Sinhalese editor of the Orientalist, said in Vol. iv, p. 93 of that publication, regarding the two races of Sinhalese, ' They are as distinct from each other in their dress, habits, manners, and customs, and in their very ideas and manner of thinking, as if they formed two different races, rather than two sections of one nation/ The Kandian villagers certainly look upon the people of the western coast tracts as a separate race, and do not term them Sinhalese, but always speak of them as Pata rate minissu, 'Men of the Low-country/
The difference is not altogether due to a preponderance of Vaedda blood in the interior. The dwellers near the western coast have always been exposed to foreign influences. The various races who have either settled among them in considerable numbers or held the western coasts as conquerors include Dravidian and Arab traders and settlers; and as conquerors, Malays, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, and lastly English. It would be strange if the resultant people did not vary greatly from those of the interior.
\ That the Kandian Sinhalese are thus the modern repre-,
; sentatives of the great bulk of the ancient Vaeddas is, I venture
. to think, beyond doubt. The people who were so numerous
throughout the country in the twelfth century, that in half
the island ' many thousands * could be enlisted as soldiers,
have certainly not been exterminated. They, like the Vaeddas
of preceding centuries, have simply settled down as Kandian
* villagers. An insignificant number still retain their ancientTHE ANCIENT VAEDDAS 31
designation, but even these, with the exception of a few families, have become ordinary villagers, and in outward appearance are indistinguishable from many other Kandians.
This abandonment of the wild forest life of their ancestors apparently began at a very early date. After the time of Pandukabhaya the next proof of the fact is found immediately after the introduction of Buddhism into the country. The evidence derivable from the caves or rock-shelters, thousands in number, under the sides of the boulders lying on the slopes of all the hills of the Low-country, whether in the eastern and southern part of the Northern Province, or the North-western, the North-central, the Eastern, or the Southern Provinces, all points to the settling down of the Vaedda populace in early times as peaceable villagers.
The researches of the Drs. Sarasin and Dr. C. G. Seligmann have shown that the first inhabitants of the caves were aborigines who made use of stone implements. Then, at a later date, which we know from the dedicatory inscriptions to be in nearly all cases pre-Christian, the caves throughout the whole of the above-mentioned Provinces (I have no knowledge of those of other districts) were turned into shelters for ascetic Buddhist monks. There is hardly a hill possessing such cave shelters, some of which, at least, were not so converted. Even where no inscription records the fact, the cutting of the katdr® or drip-ledge to prevent rain-water from trickling down the face of the rock into the cave is indubitable proof that this was the case.
Had the aborigines been forcibly ousted from these caves in order to permit the monks to occupy them, we cannot suppose that they would not have felt resentment, which would have led to reprisals of a violent character. It is clear that in many instances little establishments of only two or three monks must have occupied the caves on some of the most secluded of these hills, buried in the depths of the dense forests of the wildest parts of the island. In such sites the aborigines could have regained possession of their caves with ease and impunity, and with practically no fear of punishment by the Sinhalese authorities. In the histories, also, there is
32 ANCIENT CEYLON
no hint of any quarrels with the natives after the time when
Pandukabhaya became king.
If the monks who occupied the caves had been in danger of attacks by the aborigines, it is extremely improbable that they would have utilised the caves on practically all the hills during the short period between the middle of the third century and the early part of the first century B.C., as the form of the letters of the inscriptions cut on so many of them? ' hundreds and hundreds/ according to Dr. E. Muller?proves was the case. A few caves, but only an insignificant number, have inscriptions cut in letters of a later date than this. Thus there seems good reason to believe that when the monks came to occupy the caves their original residents had already voluntarily abandoned them, and, like the Vaeddas of Anuradhapura, had established themselves in villages.
Even the people who still call themselves Vaeddas are to some extent of mixed blood. This applies almost equally to the wildest members of the race, and is proved conclusively by the wide variation in the colour of the skin, and in the amount of hair on the face, even if the general outline of the features does not indicate it.
It was probably due to the union of the races on nearly equal terms that the Vaeddas accepted the language of the Gangetic settlers in preference to their own, which they have totally lost. Had they kept more aloof from the newcomers, they might have maintained their own tongue nearly intact down to the present time. The new language spread through Nagadlpa also; there is not a single very early Dravidian inscription in the whole of Northern Ceylon. The adoption of the Buddhist religion throughout the entire country? induding Nagadipa, as the numerous remains of ancient wiharas prove?must have accelerated this change of language ; at every monastery the monks would teach the dialect of Pali which had become the Sinhalese speech, in the same manner as at present.
Notwithstanding the alteration of language and ideas and the spread of the new religion, the population of whole districts must have remained more or less pure Vaeddas for manyTHE ANCIENT VAEDDAS 33
centuries, with some gradual slight intermixture of foreign blood as the intercourse with Nagadipa and Southern India led to an intermittent influx of Dravidians, culminating in occasional invasions of the island by South Indian armies. In some cases, in what are now thought to be pure Sinhalese districts, many of the people were still distinguished from the other inhabitants by the name of Vaeddas down to the seventeenth century, after which they appear to have abandoned this title to the wilder residents of the eastern districts.
Although declaring themselves Buddhists and attending the services at the temples, many of these Sinhalese-Vaeddas still adhered to the worship of the ancient Hill-God of their ancestors, the Vyada Deva of the old annalists. The philosophical reasoning of the new faith might appeal to their minds, but it did not afford the practical protection which they received from their old religion. They still felt the need of the kindly supreme deity to whom they could appeal in time of trouble, for which the new faith provided no remedy, but only taught resignation to the inevitable. The ancient god could still, it was thought, assist them out of their physical difficulties, without interfering with their general belief in the truth of the Buddhist doctrines. In some parts of the Kandian districts the two religions have therefore settled down side by side to the present day.
Dr. R. Virchow, as the result of an examination of a series of Vaedda and Sinhalese skulls, expressed the following opinion regarding the affinity of the Vaeddas and Sinhalese: * The Vaeddas would appear rather as representatives of the aboriginal race; the Sinhalese, on the other hand, as hybrids produced by a union of immigrant Indians with Vaeddas, and therefore varying according to the measure of their participation of either of these elements. This indeed strikes me as being the solution of the anthropological problem before us, so far, at least, as the material at present reaches. The linguistic difficulty, that also the unmixed * natives adopted the Aryan language of the conqueror, without, so far as we can
1 It is extremely doubtful if there are any groups of Vaeddas of unmixed blood in these days.
D
34 ANCIENT CEYLON
mdee having been forced to do so, appears to me no longer Lurmountable, since from personal experience I have established the fact that in the Baltic provinces of Russia one part of the Finnish population after the other, through impercepti-ble but steady progress, has become letticized to such an extent that the Courland language has wholly, the Livoruan almost wholly, disappeared, and only the Esthonian still offers any
nal conclusions on the subject are : ' (i) That manifold resemblances exist between the Vaeddas and the Sinhalese and that the origin of the Sinhalese race from a mixture of Vaeddas and immigrants from India possesses great probability, as well upon historical as also upon anthropological grounds. .
' (2) That the Vaeddas as well as the Sinhalese in the main features are distinguished from the Ceylon Tamils, and equally from those of Tanjore (Sola). ?
? (3) That, on the other hand, among the remnants of the old Dravidian or perhaps pre-Dravidian tribes of Hindustan we find even to-day evidence of analogies with- the Vaeddas ' (p. 136).
i Monograph on the Vaeddas, published in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Science of Berlin, in i88z, and translated for the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society m 1888, p. no.Ill
THE MODERN VAEDDAS AND
WANNIYAS
following account of these races depends on original JL observations of them made by myself during official visits to their districts, largely supplemented by quotations from articles on the Vaeddas by the late Mr. Hugh Nevill of the Ceylon Civil Service, which he published in 1886, in his magazine. The Taprobanian.1 I have endeavoured to credit him with all information taken from his papers. He had the advantage of being stationed in the Eastern Province for a considerable time, first as Assistant Government Agent of the Trincomalee district, and afterwards as District Judge of Batticaloa ; and being an indefatigable student and an accurate observer, and well acquainted with the native languages, he was able, owing to his official position, to collect a large amount of valuable information regarding the Vaeddas, as well as other subjects, which would not be readily available to others. It is greatly to be regretted that the part of it relating to the ceremonies used in their demon worship was never made public by him. I have also quoted some remarks on the Vaeddas by Professor R. Virchow, together with the sizes of their skulls as noted in the valuable monograph on them already referred to. Throughout this account of them I have instituted comparisons between them and the present Kandian Sinhalese. I am well aware of the defective nature of this account ; but as it contains some information which is not elsewhere available, I have thought it advisable to publish it.
1 1 am indebted to the courtesy of Ms brother, Mr. Ralph Nevill, for permission to utilise them.
3336 ANCIENT CEYLON
The Vaeddas of the present day, or those known as such, are found only in the eastern half of the island. They are usually divided into three classes, which I shall distinguish as follows :?
(1) The wild Forest Vaeddas, few in number, who live entirely by hunting, and dwell in the depths of the forests near the eastern base of the Kandian mountains. At Nilgala, where I expected to find them well known, I was surprised to learn that they are rarely seen; all of whom I could hear in that neighbourhood consisted of one small party who sometimes visited or resided on a hill about five miles away in the forest. There are more of them on the western side of the valley of the Madura-oya.
(2) The Village Vaeddas of the eastern interior and the south-eastern coast districts, who in many cases, but probably not in all, have some intermixture, recent or ancient, of Sinhalese blood, though practically forming the same race as the Forest Vaeddas. There are two villages of these Vaeddas in the North-central Province, near Hurulla tank, and several others on the eastern side of the lower part of the Mahawaeli-ganga, but the great majority live in the Eastern Province.
(3) The Tamil-speaking Vaeddas, who live in scattered villages on or near the central coast tract, from the north of Trincomalee to about ten miles north of Batticaloa. These have intermarried with the Tamil residents of that part of the country, and have adopted their language, and some of their customs, while still retaining some of their own.
Distributed among some eighteen small hamlets along the northern border of the North-central Province, which is the boundary between the Tamil districts of the north, the ancient Nagadipa, and the Kandian Sinhalese, there is also a race of hunters, probably less than 500 in number, who, like the others, are termed by the Tamils Ve Jan (in English pronunciation Verdan), plural Vedar. They themselves repudiate this appellation, except in. its ordinary meaning of e hunter/ and they deny that they are in any way connected with the Vaeddas, of whom they speak in very contemptuous terms. Their own name for themselves is Warujiya, ' person of the Wanni/THE MODERN VAEDDAS
37
as the forest and jungle of northern Ceylon to the south of Elephant Pass is called. They all speak Sinhalese, with the exception of the inhabitants of one or two hamlets lying to the west, but all the men also know a certain amount of Tamil. As their habits when engaged in hunting do not differ from those of the Vaeddas, it will be useful to include them in dealing with the latter, especially as some consider them to be true Vaeddas, with whom, in fact, it is not unlikely that they are connected, although they have lost all tradition of it, and neither know the Vaedi1 dialect nor, so far as I am aware, worship quite the same deities.
Like the Vaeddas, they all claim to be of good caste (in their case the Goyiwansa, or cultivating caste), although, like them also, many have names such as elsewhere now belong only to persons of the low castes like the Tom-tom beaters ; among these may be mentioned Kanda, Velan, Kata, Kona, etc. Others have what are considered to be good caste names. , On examining the inscriptions and histories, however, we leam that two thousand years ago, or more, the short names that are now confined to the lower castes were borne by the chiefs, and even by the members of the royal family. In Ceylon, in early times there seem to have been no names that were specially distinctive of the high and low castes ; where a distinction was made it was provided by the addition of a separate ending, of which instances occur in the names found both in the cave inscriptions and the histories, such as the
1 Vaedi Is the adjectival form. In Sinhalese, the masculine noun. is Vaedda, plural Vaeddo, and the feminine noun is Vaeddl. I believe these nouns are only employed by Sinhalese. I have not heard the Vaeddas term themselves otherwise than as * Vaddl men' (Vaedi minissu). In their own dialect this would be Vaedi minu, but a Vaedda has been represented as calling one of his race Wanniknde mina9 and the word Mai occurs for Vaeddas in the invocations collected by Dr. Seligmann. The Tamil-speaking Vaeddas call them* selves VSdan. Reasons have been given for doubting if the word Vaedda could be derived from the Pali word Vyadha. In any case, that VyMha, however,, signified Vaedda is, I think, clear from the use of this term in the Mah&vansa to describe the * many thousands J enlisted by Parakrama B3.hu I. In a footnote at the end of the chapter on the Primitive Deity of Ceylon I have given an intermediate form found in one old work.38 ANCIENT CEYLON
terminations Gutta (Gupta), Sena, Deva, Mitta (Mitra), and Naga. As regards their characteristic names, therefore, the Wanniyas and also the Vaeddas have simply retained the custom of pre-Christian times.
At the Census of 1901 the total number of all classes of Vaeddas, including, I presume, the Wanniyas, was found to be 3,971. The numbers obtained at the two preceding decennial. enumerations were so defective that no conclusions can be based upon them regarding the increase or decrease of the race.
Little is known of the Vaeddas of the first of the three classes, who are almost inaccessible in their wild forests.1 Formerly they were accustomed to lead a more or less wandering life, which in the case of each little family party was confined to a definite tract of forest, sleeping in caves at the foot of the hills, or under trees. They still make use of the caves, but their village neighbours informed me a few years ago that all now build huts in the forests and inhabit them at times when they are distant from their cave shelters. Those whom I have seen were indistinguishable from the Village Vaeddas ; they appeared to be healthy and well nourished. According to Mr. Nevill, they change their quarters from time to time when the game and "Iguanas' (large terrestrial lizards) of their neighbourhood are killed or driven away. So far as my own limited observation extends, I quite agree with Mr. Nevill that the Forest Vaeddas and the wilder Village Vaeddas are the same people. It is a mistake to suppose that aU Village Vaeddas are of more mixed descent than the Forest Vaeddas ; many are simply Forest Vaeddas who have settled down, in recent times in more or less permanent hamlets.2
Clothing.?They are a wild-looking race, wearing a minimum of clothing, which consists, in the case of the men, of a small rag or strip of calico suspended in front from a bark string tied round the waist, and when hunting a larger strip of discoloured
1 Dr. C. G, Seligmaim, accompanied by Mrs. Seligmann, has succeeded in finding some families of these Forest Vaeddas, and Is about
to publish an exhaustive account of them and their customs and beliefs.
s See the footnote at the end of this chapter.THE MODERN VAEDDAS
39
cloth which is passed round the abdomen in three or four folds, forming a narrow flat band about four inches wide. It is recorded that in. the early part of last century some Vaeddas wore a short skirt made of the liber or fibrous inner bark of the Riti tree (Antiaris innoxia), like the material of the bark bags which they still prepare for household purposes. It may be considered certain that where these trees were found this must have formed the general costume of the wilder individuals at a time when cotton cloth was unobtainable; and I was told that a very few of the poorer people still employ it for the same purpose.
Some have also been reported to wear green leafy twigs suspended from a bark string tied round the waist; but this may have been merely a hunting device to avoid notice of their cloth by wild animals. I have seen the Wanniyas using this primitive costume on such occasions, but only as a temporary expedient. Mr. Nevill mentioned that he was informed that in ancient times leaves were so worn as clothing in districts where there were no Riti trees. Only the poorest among them wore this dress, and that not from choice but necessity. He considered that there is no reason, to suppose that they ever went about in a state of nudity, I never heard that any of them have worn skins.1 The account of the natives at the time of Wljaya's arrival would lead one to suppose that some at least wore clothing which the newcomers did not consider primitive.
When in the forests, the Village Vaeddas of the interior, as well as the Wanniyas, dress in the same manner as the ordinary Forest Vaeddas, and roll up their cloth and fasten it round the abdomen like them. The females of both classes have similar clothing, a short skirt of cotton fastened round the waist and reaching to the knees or below them. When visiting other villages the men wear a similar cloth from the waist to the knees or below them.
1 Ribeyro, whose work was written in 1685, stated that those -who lived In the forests north-of Trixicoxnalee (? Wanniyas) wore the sMns of animals, but lie does not say that he ever saw them,. ICnox would not be likely to omit mentioning the custom, if it had be?n practised in his time.40 ANCIENT CEYLON
The Tamil-speaking or Coast Vaeddas dress like Tamil villagers, with a cloth reaching from the waist nearly to the ankles; the women wear a long calico robe which is passed round the body under the arm-pits and hangs straight down nearly to the feet. It is the ordinary costume of the village Tamil women of northern Ceylon, and is singularly ungraceful.
General Description.?I may premise that as regards Anthropology, so far as it relates to the scientific description of the human body, I possess neither qualifications nor knowledge, and I have therefore collected no information beyond that of a casual observer who is well acquainted with the other races of Ceylon.
The skin of the first two classes of Vaeddas is commonly of a dull dirty-looking dark reddish-brown colour, which may be termed a dark walnut hue. There is nearly always a distinct reddish tint in it. The difference between it and the colour of some low-caste Kandian Sinhalese is so slight that I am unable to define it; I should say that it consists chiefly in the duller appearance of the Vaedda skin. Many of the Coast Vaeddas and a few of the Village Vaeddas and Forest Vaeddas are much darker than this, and of a brownish-black colour, this shade evidently indicating a mixture with Dravidian blood.
Mr. NeviH considered that the Vaeddas belong to a light brown race, and the Sinhalese to a light yellow race, and he even thought that both the Sinhalese and Vaeddas * are of one original colour, yellow, with an olive tint.1 This does not account for the reddish hue of the Vaeddas, which can almost always be seen in a full light, and sometimes very conspicuously. It has reddish-brown or reddish-purple shadows. It is often present in the skins of Kandian Sinhalese, some few of whom are even of a clear dull copper-red colour. This tinge is never seen in the skins of Tamils, and is hardly observable among Telugus, at any rate those of low castes ; but I have noticed it very plainly in several Kanarese from Maisur, some of whom are of a clear copper-red colour. The pale brownish-yellow tint of Sinhalese is only found in the members of families of what is now thought to be the purest descent, such as those of many of the leading chiefs ; it is the colourTHE MODERN VAEDDAS 41
of those who most closely represent the original settlers from the valley of the Ganges, and is far from being the average colour of the race who comprise the Kandian or Low-country Sinhalese of the present day, which is much nearer a dark walnut tint. In the ordinary Kandian villager all shades are found from clear copper-red through varieties of reddish-browns to the deepest blacklead black, but the tints at the extremes of the scale are uncommon.
The height of the Village Vaeddas is less than that of the ordinary northern Kandian villagers, and in the case of the men averages probably five feet, or an inch more, the Sinhalese being two inches or three inches taller. Recorded measurements of Forest Vaeddas show that they, or many of them, are much shorter than this, and vary between four and five feet, but always above the lower figure.
Although their figure is always very slight, with narrow hips and weak-looking calves and thighs, the Vaeddas are active and lithe in the forests, and can thread their way for many hours among the trees and jungle without apparent fatigue. When alone one morning in thick forest remote from any villages, I met a party of Vaeddas who were in search of honey. In reply to my inquiry regarding their hamlet, they informed me that it was 'quite near * a tank (reservoir) which was four miles away, but I afterwards learnt that the place was several miles beyond it. They had made the journey that morning, and probably would return also, through'a forest full of undergrowth.
Nearly three hours later, as I was returning along the path after visiting the reservoir, I sat down at the side of a tiny streamlet of clear water, fresh from a neighbouring spring, in order to get a drink, and enjoy a quiet pipe under the cool shade of the tall forest trees,, when suddenly one of the party, an intelligent young fellow with a pleasant countenance, stepped out of the thick bushes and joined me. He had left the others some distance away, and had come on for a drink. I gave him the contents of my tobacco pouch, and found him quite communicative and acquainted with Sinhalese, which he spoke intelligently, although he addressed me as Umba,*;} f^r*
42 ANCIENT CEYLON
you, an expression which is usually applied only to inferiors. He stated that they only knew and visited the people of one small settlement several miles away. No others lived within some hours' journey from their huts. He laughed at the fears which some Tamils had expressed to me regarding the demons who were supposed to infest that part of the forest, though he admitted that it was full of them. These people were apparently true Vaeddas, but not now the Forest Vaeddas, who are, I believe, unacquainted; or only slightly acquainted, with ordinary Sinhalese. In physical appearance and colour they resembled Kandian Sinhalese of some low castes. Their ancestors were Forest Vaeddas in the first half of last century. Vaeddas have not the slightest negroid appearance. Their jaws are not prognathous, the facial angle is good, like that of the Kandian Sinhalese, and according to my observation their noses are usually straight and rather well-formed, though somewhat wide at the nostrils. They have not very large orifices. Mr. Nevill said that they are ' squat, with no bridge to them * ;.?': evidently they are of two types. Mr. F, Lewis, of the Forest Department, has informed me that the Village Vaeddas whom he has seen had commonly straight noses and somewhat thick lips. In the case of those whom I have observed the lips were perhaps thinner than those of the Sinhalese. The cheek bones are always somewhat prominent, but this may be partly due to the absence of superfluous flesh on the face. The eyes are rather deep set, but otherwise resemble those of Kandians. Some faces are practically hairless below the eyes, and there is rarely more than a very sparing growth of hair on the face, a very thin short moustache and a little short hair on the chin being all that is usually present. In this respect, also, they resemble many Kandian Sinhalese, but not Low-country Sinhalese, who are a distinctly hairy race, and often have thick beards, hairy chests, and a central line of hair down to the navel, which is said to be thought a mark of beauty. This is quite uncommon among Kandian Sinhalese, and apparently totally absent among the Vaeddas. A few Vaeddas have more beard than others, but it is always thin ; such a feature may indicate some mixture in theirTHE MODERN VAEDDAS 43
blood; I have seen it with a very dark skin. The forehead is narrow and not high ; it does not recede much from the line of the face.
Dr. Virchow gave the following proportions of their skulls, together with those of Sinhalese x and Tamils :?
Number of Capacity in Height Breadth
Skulls Cubic Centimetres Length Length
Vaeddas . . . 20 1261 74-9 71'6
Sinhalese . . .10 1438-8 75-4 72*4 *
Tamils . . .4 1247 77-5 75-3 * In sixteen skulls this was 72*2.
He remarked that the average index of the ratio between the length and breadth proves that the skull is * decidedly dolichocephalous/ only four out of the twenty being mesocephal-ous, with an index of seventy-five, while the index of seven was under seventy. He also stated that c no elaborate proof is needed that neither Sinhalese nor Vaeddas, at least in the form of their skulls, present the slightest indication of any relationship to the Mongols. Such a remarkably dolichocephalous tribe has never yet been found among the Mongols/ I may add that neither do they resemble the Australians in any respect, to judge by the illustrations of them in the elaborate works of Dr. Howitt and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. On this subject Dr. Virchow said : * One glance at the skull, and still more at the skeleton, of the Australian convinces us that here a great and unmistakable contrast exists/ 2 Some have endeavoured to connect the Vaeddas with the Andamanese. This is at once disposed of by Dr. Virchow, who remarked : * The Andamanese, as well as the Negritos generally, are in reality brachycephalic, and this one circumstance distinguishes them definitely from all the Ceylon races. If we add to this that their hair grows in spiral coils, and is to be classed with the woolly hair of the genuine negro, then every possibility disappears of a union with the Vaeddas unless we assume that climatic influences have specially affected the hair/ 2
The hair of the Vaeddas is black with a slight brownish
1 It is uncertain how many of these were the skulls of Kaudians. 8 Op. a!, p. .131,44 ANCIENT CEYLON '
tinge, and, if attended to, is not more frizzly than that of ordinary Kandian Sinhalese. It is never cut, and is tied in a knot at the back of the head (as stated by Knox, p. 62), exactly like that of all Sinhalese. Photographs of some Village Vaeddas who have been brought to Kandy and elsewhere to be exhibited represent men with wild unkempt frizzly locks ; but I have never seen anything of the kind in their own districts, and it is probable that the heads of those who have been so pourtrayed have been ' made up ' specially, in order to increase their wild appearance?as, in fact, I was informed by their Sinhalese neighbours has been done on similar occasions. The wildest Vaeddas whom I ever met, in the middle of dense forest, had their hair tied up in a knot at the back of their heads in the usual way of the villagers; these were the true Forest Vaeddas who could speak only the Vaedi dialect. It may occasionally be a practice of the Vaeddas when hunting, as it is of other hunters in Ceylon, to wander in the forest with unfastened hair ; but from my own experience of them, and from that of Sinhalese who live in their district and are well acquainted with them, I am able to state that it is not otherwise done habitually by any but an extremely limited number. In answer to special inquiries, I was informed that some few individuals do neglect to attend to their hair, and allow it to stand out in this wild-looking manner. Instead of their hair being naturally frizzly, I have never seen a Vaedda with hair more wavy than that of the Low-country Sinhalese of the western coast districts. I may repeat that so far as superficial appearances go, there is nothing in the figure (except the smaller height), the features, or the ordinary coiffure, and very little in the average colour of the skin, to distinguish the Vaedda from many low-caste Kandians found in the northern and north-western Sinhalese districts.
There is only one race in Ceylon with curly hair ; they are the Kinnaras or Karmantayo, the mat-weavers, the lowest caste in the island. In the case of some of the men the whole hair of the crown consists of a mass of very short thick curls, while the lips of those I have seen were invariably rather thick, although the jaws were not prognathous. Their faces resembleTHE MODERN VAEDDAS 45
in other respects those of Kandians, and are not of the Mongolian type. The hair of the women is tied up in a knot like that of the ordinary Sinhalese. The men never allow their hair to hang down beyond the "upper part of the neck, even in the case of those whose locks are not so curly as others ; it is always cut off when it reaches this length. The colour of these people is the same dark brown as that of the average Kandian villager; I have seen none who were much darker than this.
Their mode of life does not indicate any connexion with the Vaeddas, none of them being either hunters or fishers ; all gain their living by weaving mats in frames, and by cultivating millet and rice. They have village tanks and rice fields, and keep cattle; their villages and houses are clean and neat, being exactly like those of the Kandian Sinhalese. They have no tradition regarding ttheir origin, and no dialect of their own, knowing not one word except Sinhalese ; and nearly all their folk-stories are the same as those of the Kandians. Those which vary from the latter are chiefly Buddhistic, the race being all Buddhists, though not permitted by the Kandians to enter the wiharas, or the houses of other villagers. Their rank is so low that, as some of them admitted to me, they address even the Rodiyas, whom many wrongly believe to be the lowest race in the island, as Hamaduruwo, * my Lord/ and do not pass them on a path without first asking permission to do so. I was informed that the Rodiyas at once interfere if any of the men attempt to allow their hair to grow beyond the tipper part of the neck, and order them to cut it shorter.
I believe that they are now found only in the district immediately to the north and north-west of Kandy and near Kuru-naegala ; but a Sinhalese folk'tale places some on the western coast. This may indicate that we have in them the remnant of another tribe who came from the Malayalam 'country. It is interesting to note that, like the Vaeddas, they have completely abandoned their original language.
On the other hand, there is another race, of which only a few villages exist in the North-western and perhaps in the North-central Provinces, called ' Waga * or * Waga men / who46 ANCIENT CEYLON
are traditionally supposed to be the descendants of some of the Tamil captives brought from Southern India by Gaja-Bahu I, in the second century A.D. These people, though nearly as much isolated among the Sinhalese as the Vaeddas, hut not so much as the Kinnaras, still retain and speak their original Tamil tongue, in addition to Sinhalese. They closely resemble Sinhalese of some low castes, and are rather darker in colour than the average Sinhalese villagers. Why some races should have abandoned their mother tongue and others have retained it is a fact for which I am unable to offer any satisfactory explanation.
The Waga people, although they are supposed to have been originally only charcoal burners, are now cultivators exactly like their neighbours. They term themselves of good caste, and the men have the usual names which denote that position, such as Maenikrala, Kapurala, etc.; but the women have names that belong to persons of low caste, such as Bokkl, Bandi, Bad!, Kombi, Gaembl, Tikiri, LattL One might expect the name of the race to mean Vanga, that is, Bengal, but that the people both speak Tamil and claim to be Tamils.
The figure of most of the Tamil-speaking Vaeddas naturally approximates to. that of the Tamils with whom they are intermarried?so much so that there is little in it to distinguish them, and especially the women, from many village Tamils of a rather low caste. In the greater width of the hips and the amount of posterior tissue, the difference between the females and the Village Vaedda women is marked. Their colour is also commonly darker than that of the Vaeddas of the interior, and is sometimes black, with brownish shadows.1 The character of the features of the men approaches that of the Village
1 The only races I have seen with jet-black skins, which always have distinctly blue or purple shadows, are many of the Tamils of Southern India (not Ceylon), and all the Wolofs of the Senegal and Gambia coast districts, who have no resemblance to the true negroes, Some of the Andarnanese are also described as having skins of this black-lead colour. The same peculiar colour is to be seen in some few northern Kandians, but such cases are quite exceptional,, and are doubtless due to a strain of Dravidian blood. It does not occur among the Vaeddas.THE MODERN VAEDDAS 47
Vaeddas; there are the same scanty hair or absence of hair on the upper lip and chin, and the somewhat prominent cheek bones, and, according to my observation, straight noses. The hair is always tied in a knot at the back of the head.
The description of the Village Vaeddas is generally applicable to the Wanniyas, who, however, are perhaps an inch or two taller, on an average, and I think have slightly less prominent cheek bones. Their eyebrows are low and fairly straight, their eyes deep set, their noses generally straight, and their lips not thicker than those of the average Kandian villager. There may also be a slight difference in the shade of the skin, which is perhaps not quite of the same dull dirty tint as that of the Vaeddas ; but otherwise, like theirs, is nearly always a dark brown with a reddish tinge, though darker shades are also seen. There are variations in the colour, some having distinctly reddish skins, and others skins of a deep walnut hue. The hair is nearly straight, and excepting sometimes when they are hunting is always tied in a knot at the back of the head. The face is commonly nearly hairless below the eyes. The women differ in appearance from Tamils ; they have oval faces, pleasant comely features, and not ungraceful figures. Among all Vaeddas and Wanniyas the superciliary ridge is rather prominent; it is never absent in Kandian Sinhalese, but is often unnoticeable in Tamils and the so-called ' Moormen.*
Ornaments.?The Tamil-speaking male Vaeddas and those of the south-eastern coast tract, who are brought into communication with the Tamils, or Sinhalese who have adopted some of the habits of Tamils, carry a ring or stud in the lobe of each ear after marriage, and some of the former also wear silver bangles. The Vaeddas of the interior and the Wanniyas of ten'have silver rings in their ears, and I have observed the Forest Vaeddas with similar ornaments, which some of the most northern Kandian villagers, as well as the Rocjiyas, also commonly wear, but not other Sinhalese men, nor the Kinnaras.
Mr. Nevill remarked that the females put on necklaces of coloured glass beads when they can get them, and shell, ivory, glass, or brass bangles. The Village Vaedda women are said
48 -: ANCIENT CEYLON
by him to have worn in former times a considerable amount of costly jewellery made of gold and gems, in the form of necklaces and bangles, but not anklets or nose ornaments (which Sinhalese also never wear) ; there cannot be much of this left among them now. They also had ear-jewels, set like those of the Kandian Sinhalese, in a large hole which is bored through the lobe of the ear and expanded to receive them, to a diameter of about three-quarters of an inch; some of them were made of ivory, horn, or bone, and were carved and etched. Brass ones are now worn. Sinhalese women have a cylindrical tube of silver, closed at the outer end and having a projecting rim at it; in this end are inserted pieces of red glass or garnets, round a central stone or boss.
Mr. Nevill also observed that when properly dressed in their villages both men and women adorn their hair with bright or fragrant flowers and leaves, and occasionally add garlands of flowers for their necks, red and orange being their favourite colours. I have noticed that Kandian girls do the same. He added that the Vaeddas also crush fragrant leaves and rub them on their hair, neck, arms, and breast. He learnt that the marrow of the Sambar deer (Rusa aristotelis] is applied about once a week to the hair, if procurable ; or the fat of the Talagoya or Monitor Lizard (Varanus dracaena), commonly called in Ceylon the ' Iguana/ is used for this purpose. He was of opinion that the number of split bones left by prehistoric people may be due to a similar custom.1
Dwellings.?Mr. Nevill states regarding the Forest Vaeddas : ' If possible, a cave is chosen for the home, and improved by a slight roof in front, if too exposed, and around this the food-winner ranges* during the rainy season, when the Sambar deer frequent the neighbourhood of the hills. ' A good cave becomes an hereditary possession. . . . Where an overhanging rock can be found, it is of course sufficient. Otherwise any rock is chosen, and some sticks being laid sloping from in front of it, it is roughly thatched with twigs, rushes, and large pieces of bark. A few elk [Sambar] hides, if ^ot bought up
1 The Taprobanian, Vol. i, p. 189.THE MODERN VAEDDAS
49'
i
m
by pedlars, will form a screen at one end. If it is only to exclude dew, a very few branches or bits of bark suffice.1
' In the dry hot months when brooks and ponds dry up,, the game collects in the low forests around the half-dried riverbeds. He then takes wife and children, aged parents, or crippled relatives, and settles them in a hut close to where water can be got. From this he makes his hunting forays,, and returns to it with his game.
' Besides his high-ground [cave] residence, and his low-ground residence, if a tract of forest burst suddenly into flower that attracts vast swarms of bees, or into useful fruit, the family will make a little picnic party, and go there for a week or a month, if it be too far from the home for daily visits. He cannot, however, be called nomadic/ 2
The houses of the Forest Vaeddas are flimsy, easily erected,, low rectangular huts or shelters under shady trees, built of thin sticks, and usually in a reversed wide V shape, without walls, though some have them. They have a covering of grass on the roof, or in default of it the skins of Sambar deer, or broad pieces of bark. The temporary huts of the Village Vaeddas are quite similar ; and their more permanent houses are also rectangular,3 with a low roof raised on walls which are covered with broad strips of bark, or have the spaces between the sticks filled with leafy twigs. A few fill up the walls with mud. Nearer the eastern coast, where suitable trees for barking are scarce or absent, they have only grass roofs, and leafy twigs are almost always employed for closing the spaces in the walk. Mh Nevill remarked that there is little cpfference between the homes of the Village and Forest Vaeddas except that the former makes his house sufficiently substantial to keep out rain as well as dew; and that he leaves his family at it, and does not usually take them to his temporary hunting quarters. The Wanniyas erect similar huts roofed with grass ;
1 Dr. Seligmann is giving a full account of the cave dwellings of the Forest Vaeddas.
2 The Taprobmnian, Vol. i,,p. 180".
3 With the exception of a few Tamil villages in the northern Province there are no circular dwelling-houses in Ceylon.
Ei'.;P ~ZiEZ
50 ANCIENT CEYLON
nearly all those I have seen had only walls of sticks, filled up with leafy twigs, but a few possessed mud walls?or rather, mud was used in them instead of the twigs.
Any bushes growing at the front of the huts are cleared away, so as to leave an open space under the trees, in which the occupants can sit, or lie, or cook, and peg out deer-skins for drying, or dry their surplus meat on a rectangular stick frame over a slow fire, this being a common custom of all hunters in Ceylon. They all abandon the site for very slight reasons, and establish themselves a mile or more away, often, in the case of those who cultivate millet, in order to be near the piece of ground which they are clearing for millet-growing, and at which, in any case, the men generally reside for some months in huts like those of the Forest Vaeddas, to protect the crop from Elephants, Deer, and Buffaloes.
Sometimes they form a new hamlet because they find themselves too near a road used by the public, or on account of an outbreak of sickness. In the latter instance it is thought that the old site was haunted by local devils who caused the disease. I have known the northern and north-western Kandian Sinhalese abandon villages for the two latter reasons, even when their huts had mud walls and raised earthen floors, which require much more labour to reconstruct.
Food.?The food of the Forest Vaeddas consists of fruits, roots of wild yams, and especially honey and the flesh of any animals they can kill, which are chiefly * Iguanas/ Pigs, and Deer. All the Village Vaeddas, and the Tamil-speaking Vaeddas (with the exception of a very few who are solely fishermen), and the Wanniyas eat the same food, and have in addition the small millet above-mentioned, called Kurahan by the Sinhalese, the Indian? Ragi (Eleusine coracana). This is grown in temporary clearings (termed hena in Sinhalese), made in the forest, all bushes and grass being cut and burnt off, but not the larger trees. After one crop, or sometimes two, have been taken off the ground, the clearing is abandoned, and allowed to be overgrown once more with jungle, and is not recultivated until from five to seven years have elapsed. In these clearings, which are exactly like those of the Sinhalese,THE MODERN VAEDDAS 51
are also grown a few red Chillies and Gourds, and sometimes a little Indian Corn, and a small Pulse called Mun (Phaseolus mungo). A very few Village Vaeddas and Wanniyas who live in suitable places for it grow and irrigate a little rice, which the Forest Vaeddas are now learning to cook and eat when they can procure it.
Mr. Nevill was informed that ' of all food the greatest delicacy is considered to be little bits of lean flesh, chopped up, and wrapped in fat of the Igilana, taken from the entrails apparently. This is broiled/ 1 The flesh of this lizard is white, and rather wanting in flavour, but not in any way unpalatable ; I have often eaten it when stationed in the jungle, and it is a favourite dish of the Kandian Sinhalese villagers.
Following the example of their Tamil neighbours, the Wanniyas and the Tamil-speaking Vaeddas do not eat Monkeys, which, however, form a regular item in the diet of all Vaeddas of the interior, and with the exception of the small brown Monkey (Thersites) are eaten by the majority of the northern Kandian villagers. The flesh is dark-coloured, and somewhat strongly flavoured; I have tried it more than once, feeling at the time that I was, as it were, the next-door neighbour of palaeolithic man, and practising something allied to cannibalism.
The Tamil-speaking Vaeddas informed me that they have no forbidden meats excepting the Monkey and some of the ' Vahanas * of their Hindu Gods, that is, the animals on which the Gods ride, such as the Peafowl and the Rat, the Vahanas of Skanda and Ganesa.
The Coast Vaeddas subsist on fish, in addition ; they alone catch them by netting or spearing them. Like the Sinhalese and Tamils of jungle villages, all are accustomed to capture fish in the dry seasons either by baling the water out of shallow pools, or by stupefying the fish by means of poisonous leaves or fruits thrown into the water. The crushed leaves of the Timbiri tree (Diospyros embryopteris), or the crushed fruit of the Kukuru-mahan bush (Randia dumetorum) t and also, accord-
1 The Tapfobanian, Vol. i, p. 191.52 ANCIENT CEYLON
ing to Mr. Nevill, the roots of a species of creeper called Kala-vael (Denis scandens) are especially used for this purpose.
Unlike the Low-country Sinhalese, they never fish with the hook, a peculiarity that they share with the Wanniyas and nearly all Kandian Sinhalese, who for some reason, unknown even to themselves, hold that it is quite improper to do so.1 Whether the Sinhalese name for fish-hook, bili-katuwa, the word Uli meaning also offerings made to devils, has had any influence, I cannot say; but the feeling may be connected with the fact that the north-western Kandians also think it a disgraceful act for a female, even though a child, to capture a fish in any way whatever. I have never been able to discover an explanation of this prohibition. Whatever the objection may be to the fish-hook, it is not applicable to the Tamils; I have seen Tamil women of jungle villages fishing with a line and hook, and proud to show the number of fish they had taken.
The millet is ground into flour on a flat stone, or in a quern by those who possess one, and is cooked by baking it inside a wood fire. The flour is first mixed with water on a deerskin or some broad leaves, into a stiff paste, which is made into a circular cake more than an inch thick and some nine inches in diameter. This is then covered on both sides with the large green leaves of the Halmilla tree (Berrya ammonilla). After the fire has burnt for some time, so as to contain a supply of redhot charcoal, it is raked away, and the cake is laid on the hot ashes, and covered up by more ashes and the burning charcoal, the heat of which in a few minutes is considered to have baked it sufficiently. The Wanniyas term this cake Alupota, * Ashes-slab' ; it is the Ginipuwa, or * Fire-cake/ of the Sinhalese hunters, who also make it. Mr. Nevill states that cakes are also made of the dried and ground-up seeds of the Tree-fern (Cycas circinalis) ; the ' cabbage/ or bud of unopened leaves at the crown of the wild Date (Phoenix zeytanica), is doubtless also eaten, as by Sinhalese villagers.
As in the case of all hunters, meat is cooked by broiling.
1 Plutarch mentions that the natives of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt did not eat fish that had been caught with a hook.THE MODERN VAEDDAS 53
The few who have rice boil it; being in the neighbourhood of Sinhalese or Tamil villages, where common pottery is obtainable, such persons are able to procure earthenware pots for the purpose. .
Including even the wildest Forest Vaeddas, all are accustomed to chew sliced Areka-nuts with Betel-vine leaves, when they can get them from other villagers. In default of them they (like the inhabitants of remote Kandian villages who are without them) use the leaves of aromatic herbs, especially a Basil, Tala (Anisochilus suffruticosus), and the bark of the Kaeppitiya (Croton lacciferum)?one of the bushes on which stick-lac is found?and other trees, among which Mr. Nevill includes the Demata (Gmelina asiatica) and Dawata (Carallia integerrima}, and the seeds of a Lac-bush (Gardenia carinata). He states that lime is sometimes burnt from shells of Cyclo-phorus involvulus, and taken with the barks as a luxury. Some Forest Vaeddas looked with suspicion on some cut tobacco which I offered them for chewing, and refused it, as they had not previously seen any like it; but they readily took the uncut leaf.
According to Mr. Nevill, ' they will drink the clear water in a natural [rock] cistern, but win not drink the clear water of pools in the bed of a river or in forest hollows. If water is wanted at a stream, they scoop a little hollow in the sand, where it looks clean and sharp, and wait until the water filters through into it. They particularly like water lightly tinged yellow with mud, called Borct-diya, and it is considered better flavoured and more wholesome than plain water. They will drink river water, unless it be clear and stagnant; and the clear water of streams, running, they also drink if there be no sand in their bed in which to* scoop a hollow. Stagnant clear water is considered very bad, in fact,, poisonous/ * Kandian villagers also prefer * bora-diya/ and the water of pools which are covered with a green vegetable growth. I have found this water always good and sweet.
Utensils*?At their dwellings the simple wants of these people are easily supplied. In some parts of the interior the 1 The Tapfobanian, Vol. i, p, 187.54 ANCIENT CEYLON
wilder Vaeddas have a few large hollow black shells of the hard fruit of a high tree which grows in the eastern forests, the name of which I omitted to note, slung by some bark strings for carrying. More commonly they use the shells of small Pumpkins, with a section cut off at the stem, similarly strung, and termed Panliya. These are about seven and a half inches in diameter, and are used for carrying water or honey (Fig. 18).
The only other household article that they really require is a bag, or perhaps two, made of the inner bark of a short slightly tapering length of the Riti tree, which is stripped off or drawn off in one piece, after being well beaten, and is sewn together at the larger end. This makes a strong and very durable bag, called a Riti-matta, which lasts for some years, and has almost the appearance of having been woven. One in my possession, blackened with age, is thirty inches long, ten and a half inches wide near the mouth when laid flat, and fourteen inches wide at the other end (Fig. 19). The bag is used for carrying or storing millet, or any other food. Some also make small baskets of the same inner bark. The Wanniyas and those who live near the sea have, like the Kandians, whole gourds (labba) for holding water, and also use common earthenware pots, obtained from Sinhalese potters, for cooking and for containing water. Mr. Nevill learnt that in ancient times the [Village] Vaeddas had household vessels made of copper and even gold, for holding water and for cooking, and he saw copper ones still in use. There is no probability that the wilder Vaeddas ever possessed such articles. Neither Vaeddas nor Wanniyas are acquainted with the art of making pottery, and certainly the former, and I believe also the latter, do not understand any form of mat or other weaving. Deer-skins supply the place of mats for sleeping on, or when preparing food.
The blades of axes and especially those of arrows answer all the purposes for which knives are usually thought to be indispensable. Those who cultivate millet or rice purchase for the purpose, by exchange of honey, meat, deer-skins, or horns, or beeswax made into thick circular cakes, the digging56 ANCIENT CEYLON
hoes termed by us ' Mamoty '?(more correctly, the Tamil word mm-vettei, earth-digging implement)?and by the Sinhalese Udaetta. For excavating purposes, such as taking up wild yams, or digging out of their burrows the Pangolin or Scaly Ant-eater (Manis pentadaotyla) and the ' Iguana, 'they, like the Kandian hunters, merely use a sharpened stick. All who make clearings for millet-growing buy the Bill-hooks (kaetta) which are used by their Sinhalese or Tamil neighbours.
Fke-maMng.?Fire, is commonly got by striking a spark with the aid of the axe, the word for it being gini-gahanawd,
* to strike fire/ A piece of flint and a little tinder are generally carried, or the latter is soon made from a bit of rag. But all Vaeddas and Wanniyas are also able and accustomed to obtain it by means of friction with two dry sticks. There are two ways of doing this. In one they use the twirling-stick, both races invariably turning it between the hands while the point rests in a hollow in a lower stick which is held on the ground by the feet. The expression used for this by the Vaeddas is gini-gdhen ginna gannawa, * to take fire from the fire-tree'; it is one of the very few alliterative sayings used by them or the Sinhalese, with the exception of simple duplicated words and the refrains of songs. The Vaeddas and Wanniyas use various woods for getting fire by this method, but Velan (Pterospermum suberifolium) is a general favourite.
The other method, which when practised with wood picked up in the forest is much more laborious, is by simply rubbing one stick across another ; the Wanniyas and Sinhalese express it by the verb mandinawd. Only extremely dry Velan wood is used for obtaining fire by this process, which, as the wood is probably even then not thoroughly dry, I was told sometimes occupies nearly two ' paeyas/ or forty minutes.1
This is the mode of fire-making employed by some tribes of Central Australia, but not other Australians, the edge of a
1 Dr. Schweinlurth, in. The Heart of Africa, 3rd Ed., Vol. i, p. 254, describes this method of obtaaniEg fire in the Higher Nile districts,
* the whole proceeding being a marvel which might well nigh eclipse the magic of my lucifer matches.' It is also practised in Senegal.
(CailMe, Travels through Central Africa, Vol. i, p. 123.)THE MODERN VAEDDAS 57
piece of wood used as a spear-thrower being rubbed ' backwards and forwards upon the shield ; in a short time the light wood is charred, then it glows, and with judicious blowing the glow is fanned into a flame/ *
This method of getting fire is found in Malayalam and Tra-vancore, the very district from which it is probable that the earliest 'settlers came to Ceylon. In Mr. Thurston's Ethnographic Notes of Southern India, pp. 468, 469, it is stated that fire is made by cross-friction by the Pulayans of Travancore and the Paniyans who live at the base of the Western Ghats of Malabar. He gives an illustration of two members of the latter race engaged on this work, which he describes as follows : * A portion of a bamboo stem, about one foot in length, in which two nodes are included, is split longitudinally into two equal parts. On one half a sharp edge is cut with a knife. In the other a longitudinal slit is made through about two-thirds of its length, which is stuffed with a piece of