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It was long affirmed by Europeans that the Singhalese annals, like those of the Hindus, were devoid of interest or value as historical material; that, as religious disquisitions, they were the ravings of fanaticism, and that myths and romances had been reduced to the semblance of national chronicles. Such was the opinion of the Portuguese writers DE BARROS and DE COUTO; and VALENTYN, who, about the year 1725, published his great work on the Dutch possessions in India, states his conviction that no reliance can be placed on such of the Singhalese books as profess to record the ancient condition of the country. These he held to be even of less authority than the traditions of the same events which had descended from father to son. On the information of learned Singhalese, drawn apparently from the Rajavali, he inserted an account of the native sovereigns, from the earliest times to the arrival of the Portuguese; but, wearied by the monotonous inanity of the story, he omitted every reign between the fifth and fifteenth centuries of the Christian era. 1
A writer, who, under the signature of PHILALETHES, published, in 1816, A History of Ceylon from the earliest period, adopted the dictum of Valentyn, and contented himself with still further condensing the "account," which the latter had given "of the ancient Emperors and Kings" of the island. Dr. DAVY compiled that portion of his excellent narrative which has reference to the early history of Kandy, chiefly from the recitals of the most intelligent natives, borrowed, as in the case of the informants of Valentyn, from the perusal of the popular legends; and he and every other author unacquainted with the native language, who wrote on Ceylon previous to 1833, assumed without inquiry the nonexistence of historic data. 2
It was not till about the year 1826 that the discovery was made and communicated to Europe, that whilst the history of India was only to be conjectured from myths and elaborated from the dates on copper grants, or fading inscriptions on rocks and columns 3 , Ceylon was in possession of continuous written chronicles, rich in authentic facts, and not only presenting a connected history of the island itself, but also yielding valuable materials for elucidating that of India. At the moment when Prinsep was deciphering the mysterious Buddhist inscriptions, which are scattered over Hindustan and Western India, and when Csoma de Körös was unrolling the Buddhist records of Thibet, and Hodgson those of Nepaul, a fellow labourer of kindred genius was successfully exploring the Pali manuscripts of Ceylon, and developing results not less remarkable nor less conducive to the illustration of the early history of Southern Asia. Mr. Turnour, a civil officer of the Ceylon service 4 , was then administering " /> the government of the district of Saffragam, and being resident at Ratnapoora near the foot of Adam's Peak, he was enabled to pursue his studies under the guidance of Gallé, a learned priest, through whose instrumentality he obtained from the Wihara, at Mulgiri-galla, near Tangalle (a temple founded about 130 years before the Christian era), some rare and important manuscripts, the perusal of which gave an impulse and direction to the investigations which occupied the rest of his life.
It is necessary to premise, that the most renowned of the Singhalese books is the Mahawanso, a metrical chronicle, containing a dynastic history of the island for twenty-three centuries from B.C. 543 to A.D. 1758. But being written in Pali verse its existence in modern times was only known to the priests, and owing to the obscurity of its diction it had ceased to be studied by even the learned amongst them.
To relieve the obscurity of their writings, and supply the omissions, occasioned by the fetters of rhythm and the necessity of permutations and elisions, required to accommodate their phraseology to the obligations of verse; the Pali authors of antiquity were accustomed to accompany their metrical compositions with a tika or running commentary, which contained a literal version of the mystical text, and supplied illustrations of its more abstruse passages. Such a tika on the Mahawanso was generally known to have been written; but so utter was the neglect into which both it and the original text had been permitted to fall, that Turnour till 1826 had never met with an individual who had critically read the one, or more than casually heard of the existence of the other. 5 At length, amongst the books which, were procured for him by the high, priest of Saffragam, was one which proved to be this neglected commentary on the mystic and otherwise unintelligible Mahawanso; and by the assistance of this precious document he undertook, with confidence, a translation into English of the long lost chronicle, and thus vindicated the claim of Ceylon to the possession of an authentic and unrivalled record of its national history.
The title "Mahawanso," which means literally the "Genealogy of the Great," properly belongs only to the first section of the work, extending from B.C. 543 to A.D. 301, 6 and containing the history of the early kings, from Wijayo to Maha Sen, with whom the Singhalese consider the "Great Dynasty" to end. The author of this portion was Mahanamo, uncle of the king Dhatu Sena, in whose reign it was compiled, between the years A.D. 459 and 477, from annals in the vernacular language then existing at Anarajapoora. 7
The sovereigns who succeeded Maha Sen are distinguished as the "Sulu-wanse," the "lower race," and the story of their line occupies the continuation of this extraordinary chronicle, the second portion of which was written by order of the illustrious king Prakrama Bahu, about the year A.D. 1266, and the narrative was carried on, under subsequent sovereigns, down to the year A.D. 1758, the latest chapters having been compiled by command of the King of Kandy, Kirti-Sri, partly from Singhalese works brought back to the island from Siam (whither they had been carried at former periods by priests dispatched upon missions), and partly from native histories, which had escaped the general destruction of such records in the reign of Raja Singha I., an apostate from Buddhism, who, about the year A.D. 1590, during the period when the Portuguese were in occupation of the low country, exterminated the priests of Buddha, and transferred the care of the shrine on Adam's Peak to Hindu Fakirs.
But the Mahawanso, although the most authentic, and probably the most ancient, is by no means the only existing Singhalese chronicle. Between the 14th and 18th centuries several historians recorded passing events; and as these corroborate and supplement the narrative of the greater work, they present an uninterrupted Historical Record of the highest authenticity, comprising the events of nearly twenty-four centuries. 8
From the data furnished by these, and from corroborative sources, 9 Turnour, in addition to many elaborate contributions drawn from the recesses of Pali learning in elucidation of the chronology of India, was enabled to prepare an Epitome of the History of Ceylon, in which he has exhibited the succession and genealogy of one hundred and sixty-five kings, who filled the throne during 2341 years, extending from the invasion of the island from Bengal, by Wijayo, in the year B.C. 543 to its conquest by the British in 1798. In this work, after infinite labour, he has succeeded in condensing the events of each reign, commemorating the founders of the chief cities, and noting the erection of the great temples and Buddhist monuments, and the construction of some of those gigantic reservoirs and works for irrigation, which, though in ruins, arrest the traveller in astonishment at their stupendous dimensions. He thus effectually demonstrated the misconceptions of those who previously believed the literature of Ceylon to be destitute of historic materials. 10
Besides evidence of a less definite character, there is one remarkable coincidence which affords grounds for confidence in the faithfulness of the purely historic portion of the Singhalese chronicles; due allowance being made for that exaggeration of style which is apparently inseparable from oriental recital. The circumstance alluded to is the mention in the Mahawanso of the Chandragupta 11 , so often alluded to by the Sanskrit writers, who, as Sir William Jones was the first to discover, is identical with Sandracottus or Sandracoptus, the King of the Prasii, to whose court, on the banks of the Ganges, Megasthenes was accredited as an ambassador from Seleucus Nicator, about 323 years before Christ. Along with a multitude of facts relating to Ceylon, the Mahawanso contains a chronologically connected history of Buddhism in India from B.C. 590 to B.C. 307, a period signalized in classical story by the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great, and by the Embassy of Megasthenes to Palibothra,—events which in their results form the great link connecting the histories of the West and East, but which have been omitted or perverted in the scanty and perplexed annals of the Hindus, because they tended to the exaltation of Buddhism, a religion loathed by the Brahmans.
The Prasii, or people of Megadha, occupy a prominent place in the history of Ceylon, inasmuch as Gotama Buddha, the great founder of the faith of its people, was a prince of that country, and Mahindo, who finally established the Buddhist religion amongst them, was the great-grandson of Chandagutto, a prince whose name thus recorded in the Mahawanso 12 (notwithstanding a chronological discrepancy of about sixty years), may with little difficulty be identified with the "Chandragupta" of the Hindu Purána, and the "Sandracottus" of Megasthenes.
This is one out of the many coincidences which demonstrate the authenticity of the ancient annals of Ceylon; and from sources so venerable, and materials so abundant, I propose to select a few of the leading events, sufficient to illustrate the origin, and explain the influence of institutions and customs which exist at the present day in Ceylon, and which, from time immemorial, have characterised the inhabitants of the island.
So far as I am aware, no map has ever been produced, exhibiting the comparative geography of Ceylon, and placing its modern names in juxtaposition with their Sanskrit and Pali.
LANGKÂ OR TÂMBRAPARNI.
(CEYLON)
according to
The Sanscrit Pali & Singhalese Authorities.
NB The modern Names are given in Italics.
By
Sir J. Emerson Tennet
N.B. The names of subordinate or cotemporary Princes are printed in Italics.
NOTE.—The Singhalese vowels a, e, i, o, u are to be pronounced as in French or Italian.
1: VALENTYN, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, &c., Landbeschryving van t' Eyland Ceylon, ch iv. p. 60.
2: DAVY's Ceylon, ch. x. p. 293. See also PERCIVAL'S Ceylon, p. 4.
3: REINAUD, Mémoire sur l' Inde, p. 3.
4: GEORGE TURNOUR was the eldest son of the Hon. George Turnour, son of the first Earl of Winterton; his mother being Emilie, niece to the Cardinal Due de Beausset. He was born in Ceylon in 1799 and having been educated in England under the guardianship of the Right Hon. Sir Thomas Maitland, then governor of the island, he entered the Civil Service in 1818, in which he rose to the highest rank. He was distinguished equally by his abilities and his modest display of them. Interpreting in its largest sense the duty enjoined on him, as a public officer, of acquiring a knowledge of the native languages, he extended his studies, from the vernacular and written Singhalese to Pali, the great root and original of both, known only to the Buddhist priesthood, and imperfectly and even rarely amongst them. No dictionaries then existed to assist in defining the meaning of Pali terms which no teacher could be found capable of rendering into English, so that Mr. Turnour was entirely dependent on his knowledge of Singhalese as a medium for translating them. To an ordinary mind such obstructions would have proved insurmountable, aggravated as they were by discouragements arising from the assumed barrenness of the field, and the absence of all sympathy with his pursuits, on the part of those around him, who reserved their applause and encouragement till success had rendered him indifferent to either. To this apathy of the government officers, Major Forbes, who was then the resident at Matelle, formed an honourable exception; and his narrative of Eleven Years in Ceylon shows with what ardour and success he shared the tastes and cultivated the studies to which he had been directed by the genius and example of Turnour. So zealous and unobtrusive were the pursuits of the latter, that even his immediate connexions and relatives were unaware of the value and extent of his acquirements till apprised of their importance and profundity by the acclamation with which his discoveries and translations from the Pali were received by the savans of Europe. Major Forbes, in a private letter, which I have been permitted to see, speaking of the difficulty of doing justice to the literary character of Turnour, and the ability, energy, and perseverance which he exhibited in his historical investigations, says, "his Epitome of the History of Ceylon was from the first correct; I saw it seven years before it was published, and it scarcely required an alteration afterwards." Whilst engaged in his translation of the Mahawanso, TURNOUR, amongst other able papers on Buddist History and Indian Chronology in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, v. 521, vi. 299, 790, 1049, contributed a series of essays on the Pali-Buddhistical Annals, which were published in 1836, 1837, 1838.—Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vi. 501, 714, vii. 686, 789, 919. At various times he published in the same journal an account of the Tooth Relic of Ceylon, Ib. vi. 856, and notes on the inscriptions on the columns of Delhi, Allahabad, and Betiah, &c. &c.; and frequent notices of Ceylon coins and inscriptions. He had likewise planned another undertaking of signal importance, the translation into English of a Pali version of the Buddhist scriptures, an ancient copy of which he had discovered, unencumbered by the ignorant commentaries of later writers, and the fables with which they have defaced the plain and simple doctrines of the early faith. He announced his intention in the Introduction to the Mahawanso to expedite the publication, as "the least tardy means of effecting a comparison of the Pali with the Sanskrit version" (p. cx.). His correspondence with Prinsep, which I have been permitted by his family to inspect, abounds with the evidence of inchoate inquiries in which their congenial spirits had a common interest, but which were abruptly ended by the premature decease of both. Turnour, with shattered health, returned to Europe in 1842, and died at Naples on the 10th of April in the following year, The first volume of his translation of the Mahawanso, which contains thirty-eight chapters out of the hundred which form the original work, was published at Colombo in 1837; and apprehensive that scepticism might assail the authenticity of a discovery so important, he accompanied his English version with a reprint of the original Pali in Roman characters with diacritical points.
He did not live to conclude the task he had so nobly begun; he died while engaged on the second volume of his translation, and only a few chapters, executed with his characteristic accuracy, remain in manuscript in the possession of his surviving relatives. It diminishes, though in a slight degree, our regret for the interruption of his literary labours to know that the section of the Mahawanso which he left unfinished is inferior both in authority and value to the earlier portion of the work, and that being composed at a period when literature was at its lowest ebb in Ceylon, it differs little if at all from other chronicles written during the decline of the native dynasty.
5: TURNOUR's Mahawanso, introduction, vol. i. p. ii.
6: Although the Mahawanso must be regarded as containing the earliest historical notices of Ceylon, the island, under its Sanskrit name of Lanka, occupies a prominent place in the mythical poems of the Hindus, and its conquest by Rama is the theme of the Ramayana, one of the oldest epics in existence. In the Raja-Tarangini also, an historical chronicle which may be regarded as the Mahawanso of Kashmir, very early accounts of Ceylon are contained, and the historian records that the King Megavahana, who, according to the chronology of Troyer, reigned A.D. 24, made an expedition to Ceylon for the purpose of extending Buddhism, and visited Adam's Peak, where he had an interview with the native sovereign.—Raja-Tarangini, Book iii. sl. 71-79. Ib. vol. ii. p. 364.
7: Mahawanso, ch. i. The Arabian travellers in Ceylon mention the official historiographers employed by order of the kings. See Vol. I Pt. III. ch. viii. p. 387, note.
8: In 1833 Upham published, under the title of The Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, translations of what professed to be authentic copies of the Mahawanso, the Rajaratnacari, and Rajavali; prepared for the use of Sir Alexander Johnston when Chief-Justice of the island. But Turnour, in the introduction to his masterly translation of the Mahawanso; has shown that Sir Alexander had been imposed upon, and that the alleged transcripts supplied to him are imperfect as regards the original text and unfaithful as translations. Of the Mahawanso in particular, Mr. Turnour says, in a private letter which I have seen, that the early part of Upham's volume "is not a translation but a compendium of several works, and the subsequent portions a mutilated abridgment." The Rajavali, which is the most valuable of these volumes, was translated for Sir Alexander Johnston by Mr. Dionysius Lambertus Pereira, who was then Interpreter-Moodliar to the Cutchery at Matura. These English versions, though discredited as independent authorities, are not without value in so far as they afford corroborative support to the genuine text of the Mahawanso, and on this account I have occasionally cited them.
9: Besides the Mahawanso, Rajaratnacari, and Rajavali, the other native chronicles relied on by Turnour in compiling his epitome were the Pujavali, composed in the thirteenth century, the Neekaasangraha, written A.D. 1347, and the Account of the Embassy to Siam in the reign of Raja Singha II., A.D. 1739-47, by WILBAAGEDERE MUDIANSE.
10: By the help of TURNOUR'S translation of the Mahawanso and the versions of the Rajaratnacari and Rajavali, published by Upham, two authors have since expanded the Epitome of the former into something like a connected narrative, and those who wish to pursue the investigation of the early story of the island, will find facilities in the History of Ceylon, published by KNIGHTON in 1845, and in the first volume of Ceylon and its Dependencies, by PRIDHAM, London, 1849. To facilitate reference I have appended a Chronological List of Singhalese Sovereigns, compiled from the historical epitome of Turnour. See Note B. at the end of this chapter.
11: The era and identity of Sandracottus and Chandragupta have been accurately traced in MAX MÜLLER'S History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 298, &c.
12: Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 21. See also WILSON'S Notes to the Vishnu Purána, p. 468.
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