G07 



CHAP. III. 



CEYLON AS liNOWN TO THE CHINESE. 



Although the intimate knowledge of Ceylon acquired 

 by the Chinese at an early period, is distinctly ascrib- 

 able to the sympathy and intercourse promoted by com- 

 munity of religion, there is traditional, if not historical 

 evidence that its origin, in a remote age, may be traced 

 to the love of gain and their eagerness for the extension 

 of commerce. The Singhalese ambassadors who arrived 

 at Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, stated 

 that their ancestors had reached China by traversing 

 India and the Himalayan mountains long before ships 

 had attempted the voyage by sea ^ , and as late as the 

 fifth century of the Christian era, the King of Ceylon ^, 

 in an address delivered by his envoy to the Emperor of 

 China, shows that both routes were then in use.^ 



It is not, however, till after the third century of the 

 Christian era that we find authentic records of such 

 journeys in the hterature of China. The Buddhist 

 pilgrims, who at that time resorted to India, pubhshed 

 on their retm^n itineraries and descri])tions of the distant 

 countries they had visited, and officers, both mihtary 

 and civil, brought back memoirs and statistical state- 

 ments for the information of the government and the 

 guidance of commerce.^ 



^ Pliny, h. vi. cla. xxiv. 



'^ Maha Naama, a.d. 428 ; Sunfj- 

 shoo, a " History of the Northern 

 Simo- DjTiasty," b. xcvii. p. 5. 



2 It was probably the knowled;^e 

 of the overland route that led the 

 Chinese to establish their military 

 colonies in Kashgar, Yarkhaud and 



the coimtries lying between their own 

 frontier and the north-east boundaiy 

 of India. — Journ. Asiat. 1. vi. p. 343. 

 An embassy from China to Ceylon, 

 A.D. G07, was entrusted to Chang- 

 Tsnen, " Director of the _ Military 

 Lands." — Suy-shoo, b. Ixxxi. p. 3. 

 ^ Reinaud, 3Ic moire sur VInde, 



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