CuAr. II.] 



IREIGATION. 



431 



The first tank in Ceylon was formed by tlie successor 

 of Wijayo, B.C. 504, and their subsequent extension 

 to an ahnost incredible number is ascribable to the 

 influence of the Buddhist rehgion, which, abhorring 



cupations of the hmnan race. The 

 Scriptures, in enumerating- the de- 

 scendants of Shem, state that " unto 

 Eber were bom two sons, and the 

 name of one was Peleg-, for in his days 

 the earth was divided." (Genesis, ch. 

 X. ver. 25.) In this passage, according 

 to Cyril C. Graham, the term Pele;/ 

 has a profouuder meaning, and the 

 sentence should have been transLated 

 — "for in Ins days the eaHh tvas cut 

 into canals." (Cainhridge Essays,\SoS.^ 

 But historical testimony exists 

 which removes all obscm-ity from the 

 inquiry as to who were the instruc- 

 tors of the Singhalese. The most 

 ancient books of the Hindus show 

 that the practice of canal- making was 

 vmderstood in India at as early a period 

 as in Egypt. Canals are mentioned in 

 the Raijumana, the story of which be- 

 longs to the dimmest antiquity ; and 

 when Baratha, the half-brother of 

 Kama, was about to search for him in 

 the Dekkan, his train is described as 

 including "laboui-ers, "with carts, 

 bridge-builders, cai-penters, and dig- 

 gers of canals." (Ramayana, Cart's 

 Trans., vol. iii. p. 228.) The Maha- 

 wanso, removes all doubt as to the 

 person by whom the Singhalese were 

 instructed in forming works for irriga- 

 tion, by naming the Brahman engineer 

 contemporary with the construction 

 of the earliest tanks in the fourth 

 century before the Christian era. 

 (3Iahawanso, ch. x.) Somewhat later, 

 B.C. 262, the inscription on tlie rock 

 at Mihintala ascribes to the Malabars 

 the system of managing the water for 

 the rice lands, and directs that " ac- 

 coi-ding to the supply of water in 

 the lake, the same shall be distri- 

 buted to the lands of the wihara 

 in the manner formerly reytdated hy 

 the Tamils." (Notes to Turkour's 

 Epitome, p. 90.) To be convinced of 

 the Tamil origin of the tank system 

 which subsists to the present day in 

 CeyloH; it is only necessary to see the 



tanks of the Southern Dekkan. The 

 innumerable excavated reservoirs or 

 colams of Ceylon wall be found to cor- 

 respond with the cidams of IMysore ; 

 and the vast erays formed by drawing 

 a bmid to intercept the water flowing 

 between two elevated ridges, exhibit 

 the model which has been followed at 

 Pathavie, Kandelai, Menery, and all 

 the huge constructions of Ceylon. 

 But whoever may have been the ori- 

 ginal instructors of the Singhalese in 

 the formation of tanks, there seems 

 every reason to believe that from their 

 own subsequent experience, and the 

 prodigious extent to which they oc- 

 cupied themselves in the formation of 

 works of this kind, they attained a 

 fiicility imsurpassed by the people of 

 any other country. It is a curious 

 circumstance in connection with this 

 inquiry, that in the eighth century 

 after Christ, the King of Kashmir 

 despatched messengers to Ceylon to 

 bring back workmen, whom he em- 

 ployed in constructing an artificial 

 lake. (Raja-Taranyini, Book iv. si. 

 •50-5.) If it were necessary to search 

 beyond India for the origin of culti- 

 vation in Ceylon, the Singhalese, in- 

 stead of borrowing a system from 

 Egypt, might more naturally have 

 imitated the ingenious devices of their 

 own co-religionists in China, where 

 the system of irrigation as pursued in 

 the militaiy colonies of that comitry 

 has been a theme of admiration in 

 every age of their history. (See Jour- 

 nal Asifdiqve, 1850, vol. Ivi. pp. .341, 

 .340.) And as these colonies were 

 planted not only in the centre of the 

 empire, but on its north-west extre- 

 mities towards Kaschgar and the 

 north-east of India, where the new 

 settlers occupied themselves in drain- 

 ing marshes and leading streams to 

 water their arable lands, the proba- 

 bilities are that their system may 

 have been kuowTi and copied by the 

 people of Hindustan. 



