556 



MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 



[Part V. 



works of Eratosthenes and Artemidorus ^ the geo- 

 graphers, as to its position, its dimensions, its cities, 

 its natural productions, and as to the ignorance of navi- 

 gation exhibited by its inhabitants. All this, he says, 

 was recorded by former writers, but it had fallen to 

 his lot to collect information from natives of Ceylon 

 who had visited Eome during his own time under sin- 

 gular circumstances. A ship had been despatched to 

 the coast of Arabia to collect the Eed Sea revenues, but 

 having been caught by the monsoon it was carried to 

 Hippuros, the modern Kudra-mali, in the north-west 

 of Ceylon, near the pearl banks of Manaar. Here the 

 officer in command was courteously received by the 

 Idng, who, struck with admiration of the Eomans and 

 eager to form an alhance with them, despatched an 

 embassy to Italy, consisting of a Eaja and suite of three 



persons 



. 2 



panion were exposed in a boat, whicli, 

 after a voyage of four moiitlis, was 

 wafted to oue of the Fortunate Is- 

 lands^ in the Southern Sea, where 

 he resided seven years, whence having 

 been expelled, he niade his way to 

 Palibothra, on the Ganges, and thence 

 returned to Greece. In the pre- 

 tended account of this island given 

 by Jambulus I cannot discover a sin- 

 gle attribute sufficient to identify it 

 with Ceylon. On the contrary, the 

 traits which he narrates of the coim- 

 try and its inhabitants, when they 

 are not manifest inventions, are ob- 

 viously borrowed fi'oni the descrip- 

 tions of the continent of India, given 

 by Ctesias and Megasthenes. 

 Pkinsep, in his learned analysis of 

 the Sanchi Inscription, shows that 

 what Jambtjltts says of the alphabet 

 of his island agTees minutely with the 

 character and symbols on the an- 

 cient Buddhist lats of Central India. 

 Joiirn. Asiat. Soc. Hen., vol. vi. p. 

 476. WiLFOED, in his Ussai/ on the 

 Sac7-ed Isles of the West, Asiat. Hes. 

 X. 150, enumerates the statements of 

 Jambtjlus which might possibly apply 

 to Smiiatra, but certainly not to 

 Ceylon, an opinion in which he had 



been anticipated by Ramtjsio, 'vol. i. 

 p. 176. Lassex, in his Indische Al- 

 terthumskunde, vol. iii. p. 270, assigns 

 his reasons for believing that Bali, to 

 the east of Java, must be the island 

 in which Jambultjs laid the scene of 

 his adventures. Diodoeus Sictjlus, 

 lib. ii. ch. Iv., &c. Aii attempt has 

 also been made to establish an iden- 

 tity between Ceylon and the island 

 of Panchcea,which Diodorus describes 

 in the Indian Sea, between Arabia 

 and Gedrosia (lib. v. 41, &c.) ; but 

 the efforts of an otherwise ingenious 

 writer have been unsuccessfiil. See 

 Geover's Voice from Stonehenge, P. 

 i. p. 95. 



* Pliny, lib. xxii. ch. liii. iv. ch. 

 xxiv. vii. ch. ii. 



^ " Legatos quatuor misit principe 

 eorum Rachia." — Pliny, lib. vi.c. 24. 

 This passage is generally xmderstood 

 to indicate four ambassadors, of 

 whom the principal was one named 

 Hachias. Casie Chitty, in a learned 

 paper on the early History of Jaffna, 

 oilers another conjecture that *'Ea- 

 chia " may mean Arachia, a Singha- 

 lese designation of rank which exists 

 to the present day; and in support 

 of his hypothesis he instances the co- 



