Part 90 (1/2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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