Indian Antiquary Vol 08

SR No.: 032500
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 404
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(NOVEMBER, 1879.
ling--the offspring of an illicit intercourse His mother, who was a poor low caste person, had no house to live in, and was delivered of him under a Kakú dha (Pentaptera Arjuna Rox.) tree : where she left him. A Brahman who pioked him up from thence, adopted him as his son; and named him Katya yana, with the prefix Kakudha," because he was found under a tree of that name. Upon the death, however, of his adopted father, Katya- yana found himself in difficult circumstances,
and resorted to various means and ways of procuring a livelihood-all of which failing, he became an ascetic, and established himself on a large mound of earth, where he preached his austerities as a teacher of high sanctity. Like Nigantha Nathaputta, Kâtyâyana also declared that cold water was imbued with a soul. His heresy, according to the Chinese legends," consisted in asserting that some of the laws were appreciable by the senses (or understanding) and some not."
THE WEDDAS.
BY BERTRAM F. HARTSHORNE.
The Weddas, or, as they are more commonly but inaccurately called, the Veddas of Ceylon, occupy a portion of the island lying to the east of the hills of the Uva and Medamah anuwara districts, about ninety miles in length and forty in breadth. They have been described by Sir Emerson Tennent in his work on Ceylon, and by Mr. Bailey in a paper printed in the Journal of the Ethnological Societyo ; but, interesting as their accounts are, the latter has suffered griev- ously from misprints, and the value of the former is impaired by the circumstance that its materials were not the fruit of original research. The excellent works of Dr. Davy, Percival, Cordiner, and others, do not give any full information regard ing the Weddas: and the references to them in Knox's history of his captivity, and in the remarkable account of the travels of Ibn Batuta, the Moor, in the early part of the fourteenth century, are curious rather than precise.
The only real division of the Weddas places them in two classes--the Kelê Weddo, or Jungle Wed das; and the Gan Weddo, or semi-civilised Village Weddas; and the attention of the ethnologist should be almost exclusively directed to the former. It may be added that the terms Rock Weddas, Tree Weddas, and Coast Weddas, are unscientific and meaningless, and merely involve a cross division.
The relative numbers of the two classes must be merely a matter of guesswork, for their nomadio
11 Kia-lo-kiero-tho, the title of this heretic, signifies chest of the op.' Kia-chin-yan, shaven hair,' was his family name. Ho stands fifth in Remusat's account, ut sup.
Sykes, ut sup. * This account of The Six Tirtaka is taken from a scarce pamphlet-Buddhism : its Origin; History: and Doctrines : its Scriptures; and their Language the Pali. By James Alwis, Esg. (63 pp. Colombo, 1862). To his text notes and additions have been made principally from a long note by M. Remusat in the Foe-Koue-Ki (Laidlay's translation pp. 143-145). See also paper by Dr. Stevenson, Jour. B. B. R. 48. 8. yol. V. pp. 101-107; and conf. 8.
habits have rendered any enumeration of them impossible. Sir Emerson Tennent states that their entire number was estimated at eight thousand, but that was a mere conjecture, and probably an exaggerated one. Mr. Bailey, on the other hand, reckoned the total number of Jungle Weddas, in 1858, at three hundred and eighty only, and it is probably less than that at the present time.
He discriminates those which are found in the district of Nilgala from those belonging to a tract of country called Bintenna, but the difference is clearly only geographical, the customs, physical appearance and dialect of the two tribes being precisely identical. Tacit agreement and immemorial use have led them to confine themselves exclusively to particular tracts of the vast extent of forest which they regard as their prescriptive and inalienable property, and a member of one division of the tribe very rarely comes in contact with another. A gentleman who once witnessed a meeting between some of the members of the two different clans, observed that they were mutually embarrassed at the unexpected sight of each other. They peered inquisitively with an expression of mingled suspicion and astonishment, and manifested every disinclination to associato together. A somewhat similar effect was produced when a Junglo Wedda was shown a looking-glass. He appeared at first to be terrified and annoyed, but afterwards looked behind it and round about in a puzzled Hardy's Manual of Budhism, pp. 291, 380.-ED.
1 The term signifies "an archer," or "one who shoote," cf. the Sidatsangarawa and the Namavali, wherein the etymology of tho word is fully explained. The correspond. ing Sanskrit term is Vyddha, which Wilson explains to mean "a hunter, or one who lives by killing deer," &c. [The name Bhill applied to the tribes who inhabit the Vindhya Hills, &c. in Central India, has an exactly similar meaning - ED. I. A.] ..
Ceylon, vol. II. p. 437, et seq. Transactions, New Series, vol. II.