438 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[Part IV. 



obligations undertaken by the priestliood is directed to 

 its preservation even in the instances of insects and 

 animalculo3, casuistry succeeded so far as to fix the crime 

 on the slayer, and to exonerate the individual who 

 merely partook of the flesh. ^ Even the inmates of the 

 wiharas and monasteries discovered devices for the saving 

 of conscience, and curried rice was not rejected in con- 

 sequence of the animal ingredients incorporated with 

 it. The mass of the population were nevertheless vege- 

 tarians, and so httle value did they place on animal food, 

 that according to the accounts furnished to Edrisi by 

 the Arabian seamen returning fi'om Ceylon, " a sheep 

 suflicient to regale an assembly was to be bought there 

 for half a drachm." ^ 



Betel. — In connection with a diet so largely composed 

 of vegetable food, arose the custom, which to the present 

 day is universal in Ceylon, — of chewing the leaves 

 of the betel vine, accompanied with hme and the sliced 

 nut of the areca palm.^ The betel (piper betel), which 

 is now universally cultivated for this purpose, is pre- 

 sumed to have been introduced from some tropical 

 island, as it has nowhere been found indigenous in con- 

 tinental India.'^ In Ceylon, its use is mentioned as early 

 as the fifth century before Christ, when " betel leaves " 

 formed the present sent by a princess to her lover.^ In 

 a conflict of Dutugaimunu with the Malabars, B.C. 161, 

 the enemy seeing on his fips the red stain of the betel, 



* ILvedy's Eastern BIonacMsm, 

 cli. iv. p. 24 ; cli. ix. p. 92 ; ch. xvi. 

 p. 158. IIaiidy's Buddhism, oli. vii. 

 p. 327. 



^ Edrisi, Geographic, Sec, toni. i. 

 p. 7.3. 



^ For an account of the medicinal 

 influence of betel-cliewiug, see Part i. 

 c. iii. § ii. p. 112. 



* IiOYLe's Essay on the Antiquity 

 of Hindoo Medicine, p. 85. 



^ B. c. 504. Mahawunso, cli. ix. 

 p. 57. Dutugaimunu, when building 

 the Euanwelle dagoba, provided for 



the labourers amongst other articles 

 '■'■ the live condiments used in masti- 

 cation." This probabljr refers to the 

 chewing of betel and its accompani- 

 ments (Mahawonso, ch. xxx. p. 175). 

 A story is told of the wife of a Sin- 

 ghalese minister, about A. D. 50, who 

 to warn him of a conspiracy, sent 

 him his '' betel, kc, for mastication, 

 omitting the chunaiii," hoping that 

 coming in search of it, he might 

 escape his ''impending fiite." 3Ia~ 

 haioanso, ch. xxxv. p. 219. 



