CiiAr. III.] CONQUEST OF CEYLON BY WIJAYO. 337 



accelerate colonisation and to extend the knowledge of n.c. 

 agriculture, led in after years to dissensions, civil war, ^^"^■ 

 and disaster. It was at tliis period that Ceylon was 

 resolved into the three geographical divisions, winch, 

 down to a very late period, are habituaUy referred to 

 by the native historians. All to the north of the 

 Mahawelli-ganga was comprised in the denomination 

 Pihiti, or the Eaja-ratta, from its containing the an- 

 cient capital and the residence of royalty ; south of 

 this was Rohano or Eokuna, bounded on the east and 

 south by the sea, and by the Mahawelh-ganga and 

 Kalu-ganga, on the north and west ; a portion of this 

 di\ision near Tangalle still retains the name of Eoona.^ 

 The third was the Maya-ratta, which lay between the 

 mountains, the two great rivers and tlie sea, having the 

 Dedera-oya to the north, and the Kalu-ganga as its 

 southern hmit. 



The patriarchal village system, which from time 

 immemorial has been one of the characteristics of the 

 Dekkan, and which still prevails throughout Ceylon in 

 a modified form, was one of the first institutions 

 organised by the successors of Wijayo. "They fixed 

 the boundaries of every village throughout Lanka ; " ^ 

 they "caused the whole island to be divided into fields 

 and gardens ; " ^ and so uniformly were the rites of 

 these rural municipahties respected in after times, that 

 one of the Singhalese monarchs, on learning that merit 

 attached to alms given from the fruit of the donor's own 

 exertions, undertook to sow a field of rice, and "from the 



^ The district of Roliuna included 

 the mountain zone of Ceylon, and 

 hence probably its name, rohioio 

 meaning the " act or instrimient of 

 ascending;, as steps or a ladder." 

 Adam's Peak was in the Maya di- 

 \'ision ; but Edrisi, who wrote in the 

 twelfth century, says, that it was then 

 called ' ' El Rahoun. ' ' — Geof/raphic, Sfc. 

 viii. Jaubeiix's Transl. vol. ii. p. 71. 



VOL. I. Z 



Utihu is an ordinary name for it 

 amongst Mahometan wi-iters, and in 

 the liq/a Taranf/ini, it is called " llo- 

 hanam," b. iii. 56, 72. 



^ It was established by Pauduka- 

 bhaya, A.D. 437. — 3Iahaioanso, ch. x. 

 p, 07, Rajaratnacari, ch. i. 



^ iRajaratnacari, ch. ii., Rajavali, 

 b. i. p. 185. 



