CuAP. I.] A^X'IENT MAP OF CEYLOX. 319 



originals. In the comprehensive plan which Burnouf had drawn 

 up for an exposition of the history of the island, in elucidation 

 of the progress of Buddhism in India, he intended to include a 

 chart to exhibit its archaeological divisions and localities ; and in 

 the only portion of the work which he lived to complete, and 

 which was published, after his decease, by M. Jules Mohl, under 

 the title of Rechevches sur la Geographie ancienne de Ceylon, 

 in the Journal Asiatique for January, 1857, he has enlarged 

 upon the necessity of such a chart, and the difficulties likely to 

 attend its construction. He had discovered that many names of 

 historic interest had utterly disappeared from the modern map, 

 or become so changed as to be scarcely recognisable, and that 

 Sanskrit words especially had been so superseded by Singhalese 

 as to be no longer susceptible of identification ; so that, in order 

 to trace the events of which Ceylon was the theatre, between 

 the fourth and the seventh centuries, he found himself obliged 

 to construct a map in which it was his design to restore the 

 ancient nomenclature, and correct the corrupted orthography 

 where it had not been altogether obliterated. 



This task Burnouf appears to have commenced, but death 

 interrupted its progress ; and he left behind only some manu- 

 script materials, consisting of lists of the names of those towns 

 and villages, the great majority of which he had found it impos- 

 sible to identify. These papers have been confided to me by his 

 literary executor, M. Jules Mohl, and by their help and the aid 

 of similar collections made by Turnour and others, I have ven- 

 tured to produce the map which accompanies this chapter, and 

 which, notwithstanding the omission of a great number of names 

 that it is no longer possible to place, fixes, with at least compa- 

 rative accuracy, the principal localities, mountains, rivers, and 

 cities mentioned in the Mahaivanso, the Rajavali, and JRaja- 

 ratnacari. The names wanting are chiefly those of villages, 

 tanks, and wiharas, which, although occurring frequently in the 

 ecclesiastical portion of these chronicles, are of little political or 

 historic importance. 



