________________
DECEMBER, 1884.]
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII, CHAP. 4.-Ceylon.
391
opposite portion of the world (Pliny, lib. VI, c. xxi). In the time of Alexander, when its situation was better understood, it was called Taprobanê. Me. gasthenes mentions it under this name, and remarks that it was divided into two) by a river, that its inhabitants were called Palaeogoni and that it produced more gold and pearls of large size than India. From our author we learn that the old name of the island was Simoundou, and that Taprobanê, ita next name, was obsolete in his time, being replaced by Salike. The author of the Periplds states, on the other hand, that Taprobanê was the old name of the island, and that in his time it was called Palai Simoundou. The section of his work however in which this statement occurs ( 61) is allowed to be hopelessly corrupt. According to Pliny, Palaesimundus was the name of the capital town, and also of the river on whose banks it stood. How long the island continued to be called Saliké does not appear, but it was subsequently known under such names as Serendivus, Sirlediba, Serendib, Zeilan, and Sailan, from which the transition is easy to the name which it now bears, Ceylon.
With regard to the origin or derivation of the majority of these names the most competent scholars have been divided in their opinions. Ac. cording to Lassen the term Palaiogonoi was selected by Megasthenes to designate the inhabitants of the island, as it conveyed the idea entertained of them by the Indians that they were Rakshasas, or giants, the sons of the progenitors of the world.' To this it may be objected that Megas. thenes did not intend by the term to describe the inhabitants, but merely to give the name by which they were known, which was different from that of the island. Schwanbeck again suggested that the term might be a transliteration of Påli-janas, a Sanskrit compound, which he took to mean
men of the sacred doctrine" (Ind. Ant., vol. VI, p. 129, n.) But, as Priaulx has pointed out (4 pollon. of Tyana, p. 110), this is an appellation which could scarcely have been given to others than learned votaries of Buddhism, and which could scarcely be applicable to people who were not even Buddhist till the reign of Asoka, who was subsequent to Chandragupta, at whose court Megasthenes acquired his knowledge of India. Besides, it has been pointed out by Goldstücker (l.c. n. 59) that Pali has not the meaning here attri. buted to it. He adds that the nearest approach he could find to Palaiogonoi is-para' on the other side of the river' and jands' a people': Pärajanâs, therefore, a people on the other side of the river.' Tennent, in conclusion, takes the word to be a Hellenized form of Pali-putra, the sons of the PAli,' the first Prasian colonists of the island. A
Satisfactory explanation of Pala i-Simoundou has not yet been hit on. That given by Lassen, Pali-Simanta, or Head of the Sacred Law, has been discredited. We come now to Taprobanê. This is generally regarded as a transliteration of Tâmraparni, the name which Vijaya, who, acoording to tradition, led the first Indian colony into Ceylon, gave to the place where he first landed, and which name was afterwards extended to the whole island. It is also the name of a river in Tinneveli, and it has, in consequence, been supposed that the colonista, already referred to, had been, for some time, settled on its banks before they removed to Ceylon. The word means
Copper-coloured leaf. Its PAli form is Tambapanni (see Ind. Ant., Vol. XIII, pp. 33f.) and is found, as has been before noticed, in the inscription of Asoka on the Girnår rock. Another name, applied to it by Brahmanical writers, is DwipaRåvana, i.e., 'the island of Råvana, whence perhaps Taprobanê.' Salik &, Serendivas, and other subsequent names, are all considered to be connected etymologically with Sinhala (collo. quially Sflam), the Pali form of Sthala, a derivative from sincha, a lion,' i.e. a hero'-the hero Vijaya. According to a different view these names are to be referred to the Javanese sela, a precious stone,' but this explanation is rejected by Yule (Marco Polo, vol. II, p. 296, n. 6). For Salike, Tennent suggests an Egyptian origin, Siela-keh, i.e., 'the land of Siela.'
Little more was known in the west respecting the island beyond what Megasthenôs had communicat. ed until the reign of the Emperor Claudius, when an embassy was sent to Rome by the Sinhalese monarch, who had received such astonishing accounts of the power and justice of the Roman people that he became desirous of entering into alliance with them. He had derived his knowledge of them from a castaway upon his island, the freed. man of a Roman called Annius Plocamus. The embassy consisted of 4 members, of whom the chief was called Rachia, an appellation from which we may infer that he held the rank of a Raj&. They gave an interesting, if not a very accurate, account of their country, which has been preserved by Pliny (Nat. Hist. lib. VI). Their friendly visit, operating conjointly with the discovery of the qnick passage to and from the East by means of the monsoon, gave a great impetus to commercial enterprise, and the rich marte, to which access had thas been opened, soon began to be frequented by the galleys of the West. Ptolemy, living in Alexan. dria, the great entrepôt in those days of the Eastern traffic, very probably acquired from traders arriv. ing from Ceylon, his knowledge concerning it, which is both wonderfully copious, and at the
