332 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[Part III. 



n.c. 

 643. 



Island of Serpeiits, to the portion of the country which 

 tliey held, in the same manner that Ehodes and Cyprus 

 severally acquired the ancient designation of Ophiusa, 

 from the fact of their being the residence of the Ophites, 

 who introduced serpent-Avorship into Greece.^ 



But whatever were the pecuharities of religion which 

 distinguished the aborigines from their conquerors, the 

 attention of Wijayo was not diverted from his projects 

 of colonisation by any anxiety to make converts to his 

 own relio'ious belief The earhest cares of himself and 

 his followers were directed to implant civilisation, and 

 two centuries were permitted to elapse before the first 

 effort was made to supersede the popular worship by the 

 incidcation of a more intellectual faith. 



NOTE. 



DESCKIPTION IN THE MAHAWANSO OF THE LANDING OF WIJAYO. 



The landing of Wijayo in Ceylon is related in the 7th 

 chapter of the Mahawanso, and Mr. Turnour has noticed the 

 strong similarity between this story and Homer's account of the 

 landing of Ulysses in the island of Circe. The resemblance is 

 so striking that it is difficult to conceive that the Singhalese 

 historian of the 5th century was entirely ignorant of the works 

 of the Father of Poetry. Wijayo and his followers, having 



present Ivalany, on the river of that 

 name near Colombo (vol. ii. p. 22). 

 Tlie 3I(thawanso in many passages 

 alludes to the existence of Naga 

 kingdoms on the continent of India, 

 showing that at that time serpent- 

 Vi^orship had not been entirely ex- 

 tinguished by Brahmanism in the 

 Dekkan, and affording an additional 

 gi'ound for conjecture that the first 

 inhabitants of Ceylon were a colony 

 from the opposite coast of Calinga. 



^ Bryant's Analysis of 3Iytholopy, 

 chapter on Ophiolatria, vol. i. p. 480, 

 " Eubcea means Oub-aia, and signi- 

 fies the serpent island." {lb.) 



But Steabo affords us a still more 



striking illusti-ation of the Maha- 

 loanso, in calling the sequent wor- 

 shippers of Ceylon " Serpents," since 

 he states that in Phrygia and on the 

 Hellespont the people who were styled 

 o'-/(07fj'MC;OrtheSei'pentraces,actually 

 retained a physical affinity with the 

 snakes with whom they were popu- 

 larly identified/^* i/r«i}yo /it uOfyowairore 

 'O^ioyf j'fTt" m'yyfi'viiav rivn (^fii' TfpoQ 

 TovQ o'i:tic-^^ — Stkabo, lib. xiii. c. 588. 

 Pliny alludes to the same fable 

 (lib. vii.). And Ovid, from the in- 

 cident of Cadmus' having sow^l the 

 dragon's teeth (that is, implanted 

 Ophiolatria in Greece), calls the 

 Athenians Serpentiyence. 



