122 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



THE GALLE TRILINGUAL STONE. 



By Edward W. Perera, 



Barrister -at-law. Middle Temple ; Advocate, Ceylon. 

 (With two Plates.) 



A CARVED stone, inscribed in Chinese, Persian, and Tamil, 

 was discovered by Mr. H. F. Tomalin, Provincial Engineer, 

 Southern Province, early in 1911, near the turn of Cripps road, 

 within the Town of Galle.* The tablet was used as a cover stone of 

 a culvert with the inscribed face downwards. The history of the 

 " find " is given in a note by Mr. G. A. Joseph, Honorary Secretary, 

 Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, in the Journal of the 

 Society for 1911. With commendable care, Mr. TomaHn had the 

 tablet safely removed. It has proved to be a unique historical find, 

 with an interest more than purely local. Dr. H. A. Giles, Professor 

 of Chinese at Cambridge, thus speaks of it : — 



" The day of doubt in regard to the general accuracy of Chinese 

 annals has gone by ; were it otherwise, a recent (1911) discovery in 

 Ceylon would tend to dispel suspicion on one point. A tablet has 

 just been unearthed at Galle, bearing an inscription in Arabic (?), 

 Chinese, and Tamil. The Arabic (?) is beyond decipherment, but 

 enough is left of the Chinese to show that the tablet was erected in 

 1409 to commemorate a visit by the Chinese eunuch Cheng-Ho, 

 who passed several times backwards and forwards over that route. 

 In 1411 the same eunuch was sent as envoy to Japan and narrowly 

 escaped with his life."t 



Several experts were consulted in regard to the decipherment of 

 the trilingual inscription, which was greatly defaced. The Tamil 

 and Persian portions were found to be quite indistinct, but a complete 

 translation of the Chinese inscription, which baffled more than one 

 scholar, was ultimately secured through the courtesy of Mr. Jordan, 

 the British Ambassador at Pekin. Mr. Backhouse of Pekin furnished 

 a translation of the Chinese, which is given in Appendix I. 



Mr. Backhouse's note contains a few errors, due to his insufficient 

 acquaintance with Ceylon history. | Kandy was not founded in 



* It is significant that, according to the Chinese authorities quoted by 

 Tennent (ed. 4, Vol. I., p. 614), Galle (Lo-le) was the port at which Chinese 

 vessels anchored. 



t H. A. Giles, " The Civilization of China." Home University Library of 

 Modern Knowledge, p. 200. 



% See, however, Appendix VIII., which came to hand after this Paper was 

 written. 



