434 SCIENCES AND SOCIAL .VETS. [Part IV. 



Simultaneously "vvitli the construction of works for the 

 advancement of agricultm'e, the patriarchal village system, 

 copied from that which existed from the earhest ages 

 in India ^, was estabhshed in the newly settled districts;" 

 and each hamlet, with its governing " headman " its 

 artisans, its barber, its astrologer and washerman, was 

 taught to conduct its own affairs by its village council ; 

 to repair its tanks and watercourses, and to collect two 

 harvests in each year by the combined labom- of the 

 whole village community. 



Between the agricultural system of the mountainous 

 districts and that of the lowlands, there was at all times 

 the same difference which still distinguishes the tank 

 cultivation of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny from the 

 hanging rice lands of the Kandyan hills. In the latter, 

 reservoks are comparatively rare, as the natives rely 

 on the certainty of the rains, which seldom fail at their 

 due season in those lofty regions. Streams are conducted 

 by means of channels ingeniously carried round the 

 spurs of the hiUs and along the face of acclivities, so 

 as to fertilise the fields below, which in the technical 

 phrase of the Kandyans are " assoedamised " for the 

 purpose ; that is, formed into terraces, each protected 

 by a shallow ledge over which the superfluous water 

 trickles, from the highest level into that immediately 

 below it; thus descending tln^ough all in succession till 

 it escapes in the depths of the valley. 



For tlie tillage of the lands with which the temples 

 were so largely endowed in all quarters of the island, 

 the sacred communities had assigned to them certain 

 villages, a portion of whose labour was the property 

 of the wihara^ : slaves were also appropriated to them, 

 and an instance is mentioned in the fifth century^, of 

 the inhabitants of a low-caste village having been be- 

 stowed on a monastery by the king Aggrabodhi, " in order 



^ llahmvaiiso, ch. x. p. 67. I ^ Ilock inscriptions at Mihintala 



'^ Ibid, ch. xxxvii. p. 247. | and at Dambool. 



