564 



MEDIEVAL HISTORY. 



[Part V. 



too wild and uncultivated to attract these restless 

 plunderers, and too rugged and inaccessible to be over- 

 run by them, was divided into a number of petty prin- 

 cipahties, whose kings did homage to the paramount 

 sovereign north of the Mahawelli-ganga. Buddhism 

 was the national rehgion, but toleration was shown to 

 all others, — to the worship of the Brahmans as well 

 as to the barbarous superstition of the aboriginal tribes. 

 At the same time, the productive wealth of the island 

 had been developed to an extraordinary extent by the 

 care of successive kings, and by innumerable works for 

 irrigation and agriculture provided by their pohcy. 

 Anarajapoora, the capital, had expanded into extra- 

 ordinary dimensions, it was adorned with buildings 

 and monuments, surpassing in magnitude those of any 

 city in India, and had already attracted pilgrims and 

 travellers from China and the uttermost countries of 

 the East. 



With the increasing commercial intercourse between 

 the West and the East, Ceylon, from its central position, 

 half way between Ai^abia and China, had dming the 

 same period risen into signal importance as a great 

 emporium for foreign trade. The transfer of the seat of 

 empire from Eome to Constantinople served to revive the 

 over-land traffic with India ; and the Persians for the 

 first time ^ vied with the Arabs and the merchants of 

 Egypt, and sought to divert the Oriental trade from the 

 Eed Sea and Alexandria to the Euphrates and the 

 Tigris. 



Already, between the first and fifth centuries, the 

 course of that trade had undergone a considerable 

 change. In its infancy, and so long as the navigation 

 was confined to coasting adventures, the fleets of the 

 Ptolemies sailed no fiuther than to the ports of Arabia 

 Fehx ^, where they were met by Arabian vessels return- 



1 Gibbon, cli. xl. ; Robebtson's 

 India, b. i. 

 ^ Aden was a Roman emporium, 



'Pdj/irtVffoj' tfiTTopiov 'ASui'rjv, 

 STOllGIUS, p. 28. 



-PniLO- 



