Part 100 (1/2)
[Footnote 1: There is an obscure sentence in PLINY which would seem to imply that the Arabs had settled in Ceylon before the first century of our Christian era:--”Regi cultum Liberi patris, _coeteris Arab.u.m_.”--Lib. vi. c. 22.]
[Footnote 2: GILDEMEISTER; _Scriptores Arabi de Rebus Indicis_, p. 40.]
[Footnote 3: EDRISI, tom. i p. 72.]
It is a curious circ.u.mstance, related by BELADORY, who lived at the court of the Khalif of Bagdad in the ninth century, that an outrage committed by Indian pirates upon some Mahometan ladies, the daughters of traders who had died in Ceylon, and whose families the King Daloopiatissa II., A.D. 700, was sending to their homes in the valley of the Tigris, served as the plea under which Hadjadj, the fanatical governor of Irak, directed the first Mahometan expedition for subjugating the valley of the Indus.[1]
[Footnote 1: The chief of the Indus was the Buddhist Prince Daher, whose capital was at Daybal, near the modern Karachee. The story, as it appears in the MS. of Beladory in the library of Leyden, has been extracted by REINAUD in his _Fragmens Arabes et Persans relatifs a l'Inde_, No. v. p. 161, with the following translation:--
”Sous le gouvernement de Mohammed, le roi de l'ile du Rubis (Djezyret-Alyacout) offrit a Hadjadj des femmes musulmanes qui avaient recu le jour dans ses etats, et dont les peres, livres a la profession du commerce, etaient morts. Le prince esperuit par la gagner l'amitie de Hadjadj; mais le navire ou l'on avait embarque ces femmes fut attaque par une peuplade de race Meyd, des environs de Daybal, qui etait montoe sur des burques. Les Meyds enleverent le navire avec ce qu'il renfermait. Dans cette extremite, une de ces femmes de la tribu de Yarboua, s'ecria: 'Que n'es-tu la, oh Hadjadj!' Cette nouvelle etant parvenue a Hadjadj, il repondit: 'Me voila.' Aussitot il envoya un depute a Daher pour l'inviter a faire mettre ces femmes en liberte. Mais Daher repondit: 'Ce sont des pirates qui ont enleve ces femmes, et je n'ai aucune autorite sur les ravisseurs.' Alors Hadjadj engagea Obeyd Allah, fils de Nabhan, a faire une expedition contre Daybal.”--P. 190.
The ”Island of Rubies” was the Persian name for Ceylon, and in this particular instance FERISHTA confirms the identical application of these two names, vol. ii. p. 402. See _Journal Asiat_. vol. xlvi. p. 131, 163; REINAUD, _Mem. sur l'Inde_, p. 180; _Relation des Voyages_, Disc. p. xli ABOULFEDA, _Introd_. vol. i. p. ccclx.x.xv.; ELPHINSTONE'S _India_, b. v.
ch. i, p. 260.]
From the eighth till the eleventh century the Persians and Arabs continued to exercise the same influence over the opulent commerce of Ceylon which was afterwards enjoyed by the Portuguese and Dutch in succession between A.D. 1505, and the expulsion of the latter by the British in A.D. 1796. During this early period, therefore, we must look for the continuation of accounts regarding Ceylon to the literature of the Arabs and the Persians, and more especially to the former, by whom geography was first cultivated as a science in the eighth and ninth centuries under the auspices of the Khalifs Almansour and Almamoun. On turning to the Arabian treatises on geography, it will be found that the Mahometan writers on these subjects were for the most part grave and earnest men who, though liable equally with the imaginative Greeks to be imposed on by their informants, exercised somewhat more caution, and were more disposed to confine their writings to statements of facts derived from safe authorities, or to matters which they had themselves seen.
In their hands scientific geography combined theoretic precision, which had been introduced by their predecessors, with the extended observation incident to the victories and enlarged dominion of the Khalifs. Accurate knowledge was essential for the civil government of their conquests[1]; and the pilgrimage to Mekka, indispensable once at least in the life of every Mahometan[2], rendered the followers of the new faith acquainted with many countries in addition to their own.[3]
[Footnote 1: ”La science geographique, comme les autres sciences en general, notammement l'astronomie, commenca a se former chez les Arabes, dans la derniere moitie du viii^{e} siecle, et se fixa dans la premiere moitie du ix^{e}. On fit usage des itineraires traces par les chefs des armees conquerantes et des tableaux dresses par les gouveneurs de provinces; en meme temps on mit a la contribution les methodes propagees par les Indians, les Persans, et surtout les Grees; qui avaient apporte le plus de precision dans leurs operations.”--REINAUD, _Introd.
Aboulfeda, &c.,_ p. xl.]
[Footnote 2: REINAUD, _Introd. Aboulfeda,_ p. cxxii.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. xl.]
Hence the records of their voyages, though presenting numerous exaggerations and a.s.sertions altogether incredible, exhibit a superiority over the productions of the Greeks and Romans. To avoid the fault of dulness, both the latter were accustomed to enliven their topographical itineraries, not so much by ”moving accidents,” and ”hair-breadth 'scapes,” as by mingling fanciful descriptions of monsters and natural phenomena, with romantic accounts of the gems and splendours of the East. Hence from CTESIAS to Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE, every early traveller in India had his ”hint to speak,” and each strove to embellish his story by incorporating with the facts he had witnessed, improbable reports collected from the representations of others. Such were their excesses in this direction, that the Greeks formed a cla.s.s of ”paradoxical” literature, by collecting into separate volumes the marvels and wonders gravely related by their voyagers and historians.[1]
[Footnote 1: Such are the _Mirabiles Auscultationes_ of ARISTOTLE, the _Incredibilia_ of PALEPHATES, the _Historiarum Mirabilium Collectio_ of ANTIGONUS CARYSTIUS, the _Historiae Mirabiles_ of APOLLONIUS THE MEAGRE, and the Collections of PHILEGON of Tralles, MICHAEL BELLUS, and many other Greeks of the Lower Empire. For a succinct account of these compilers, see WESTERMAN'S _Hapre [Greek: doxographoi], Scriptores Rerum Mirabilium Graeci_ Brunswick, 1830.]
The Arabs, on the contrary, with sounder discretion, generally kept their ”travellers' histories” distinct from their sober narratives, and whilst the marvellous incidents related by adventurous seamen were received as materials for the story-tellers and romancers, the staple of their geographical works consisted of truthful descriptions of the countries visited, their forms of government, their inst.i.tutions, their productions, and their trade.
In ill.u.s.tration of this matter-of-fact character of the Arab topographers, the most familiar example is that known by the popular t.i.tle of the _Voyages of the_ _two Mahometans[1]_, who travelled in India and China in the beginning of the ninth century. The book professes to give an account of the countries lying between Ba.s.sora and Canton; and in its unpretending style, and useful notices of commerce in those seas, it resembles the record, which the merchant ARRIAN has left us in the _Periplus_, of the same trade as it existed seven centuries previously, in the hands of the Greeks. The early portion of the book, which was written A.D. 851, was taken down, from the recital of Soleyman, a merchant who had frequently made the voyages he describes, at the epoch when the commerce of Bagdad, under the Khalifs, was at the height of its prosperity. The second part was added sixty years later, by Abou-zeyd Ha.s.san, an amateur geographer, of Ba.s.sora (contemporary with Ma.s.soudi), from the reports of mariners returning from China, and is, to a great extent, an amplification of the notices supplied by Soleyman.
[Footnote 1: It was first published by RENAUDOT in 1718, and from the unique MS., now in the Bibliotheque imperiale of Paris, and again by REINAUD in 1845, with a valuable discourse prefixed on the nature and extent of the Indian trade prior to the tenth century.--_Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l'Inde et Chine dans le IX'e Siecle, &c._ 2 vols. 18mo. Paris, 1845.]
SOLEYMAN describes the sea of Herkend, as it lay between the Laccadives and Maldives[1], on the west, and swept round eastward by Cape Comorin and Adam's Bridge to Ceylon, thus enclosing the precious fishery for pearls. In Serendib, his earliest attention was devoutly directed to the sacred footstep on Adam's Peak; in his name for which, ”_Al-rohoun,”_ we trace the Buddhist name for the district, Rohuna, so often occurring in the _Mahawanso_.[2] This is the earliest notice of the Mussulman tradition, which a.s.sociates the story of Adam with Ceylon, though it was current amongst the Copts in the fourth and fifth centuries.[3] On all sides of the mountain, he adds, are the mines of rubies, hyacinths, and other gems; the interior produces aloes; and the sea the highly valued chank sh.e.l.ls, which served the Indians for trumpets.[4] The island was subject to two kings; and on the death of the chief one his body was placed on a low carriage, with the head declining till the hair swept the ground, and, as it was drawn slowly along, a female, with a bunch of leaves, swept dust upon the features, crying: ”Men, behold your king, whose will, but yesterday, was law! To-day, he bids farewell to the world, and the Angel of Death has seized his spirit. Cease, any longer, to be deluded by the shadowy pleasures of life.” At the conclusion of this ceremony, which lasted for three days, the corpse was consumed on a pyre of sandal, camphor, and aromatic woods, and the ashes scattered to the winds.[5] The widow of the king was sometimes burnt along with his remains, but compliance with the custom was not held to be compulsory.
[Footnote 1: The _”Divi”_ of Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, who along with the Singhalese ”_Selendivi_” sent amba.s.sadors to the Emperor Julian, l xxii.
c. 7.]
[Footnote 2: A portion of the district near Tangalle is known to the present day as ”Rouna.”--_Mahawanso_, ch. ix. p. 57; ch. xxii. p. 130, &c.]
[Footnote 3: See the account of Adam's Peak, Vol. II. Pt. VII. ch. ii.]
[Footnote 4: ABOU-ZEYD, _Relation, &c._, vol. i. p. 5.]
[Footnote 5: _lb_., p. 50. The practice of burning the remains of the kings and of persons of exalted rank, continued as long as the native dynasty held the throne of Kandy.--See KNOX's _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, A.D. 1681, Part iii. c. ii.]
Such is the account of SOLEYMAN, but, in the second part of the ma.n.u.script, ABOU-ZEYD, on the authority of another informant, IBN WAHAB, who had sailed to the same countries, speaks of the pearls of Ceylon, and adds, regarding its precious stones, that they were obtained in part from the soil, but chiefly from those points of the beach at which the rivers flowed into the sea and to which the gems are carried down by the torrents from the hills.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., vol. i. p. 127.]
ABOU-ZEYD describes the frequent conventions of the heads of the national religion, and the attendance of scribes to write down from their dictation the doctrines of Buddhism, the legends of its prophets, and the precepts of its law. This statement has an obvious reference to the important events recorded in the _Mahawanso_[1] of the reduction of the tenets, orally delivered by Buddha, to their written form, as they appear in the _Pittakatayan_; to the translation of the _Atthakatha_, from Singhalese into Pali, in the reign of Mahanamo, A.D. 410-432; and to the singular care displayed, at all times, by the kings and the priesthood, to preserve authentic records of every event connected with the national religion and its history.