Chap. TIL] CEYLOX AS KNOWx^ TO THE CHINESE. 



621 



But altliough all these embassies are recorded in the 

 Chinese chronicles as so many instances of acknow- 

 ledged subjection, there is every reason to beheve that 

 the magniloquent terms in which they are described 

 are by no means to be taken in a hteral sense, and that 

 the offerings enumerated were merely in recognition of 

 the privilege of commercial intercourse subsisting be- 

 tween the two nations : but as the Chinese literati affect 

 a lofty contempt for commerce, all allusion to trade is 

 omitted ; and beyond an incidental remark in some works 

 of secondary importance, the literature of China observes 

 a dignified silence on the subject. 



Only one embassy is mentioned in the seventh cen- 

 tury, when Dalu-piatissa despatched " a memorial and 

 offerings of native productions ; " ^ but there were four 

 in the century follo^ving ^, after wliich there occm^s an 

 interval of above five hundred years, diu-ing which the 

 Chinese writers are singularly silent regarding Ceylon ; 

 but the Singhalese historians incidentally mention that 

 swords and musical instruments were then imported from 

 China, for the use of the native forces, and that Cliinese 

 soldiers took service in the army of Prakrama III. 

 A.D. 1266.3 



In tlie thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the only 

 records of intercourse relate to the occasional despatch of 

 pubhc officers by the emperor of China to collect gems 



A.D. 523^ and anotlier in tlie reigii of 

 Kirti Sena, a.d. 527. _ The Tslh-fio 

 yiien-kioei mentions a similar mission 

 in A.D. 531, b. dcccclxviii. p. 20. 



^ A.D. 670. Tsih-foo yiien-kwei, 

 b. dcccclxx. p. 16. It was in the 

 early part of this centmy, dming- a 

 period of intestine commotion, when 

 the native princes were overawed by 

 the Malabars, that HioKvn-TIisanff 

 met on the coast of India fugitives 

 from Ceylon, from whom he derived 

 his information as to the internal 

 condition of the island, a.d. 029 — 

 633. See Transl. by Stanislas Ju- 



LIEN, '' La Vie dc Hiouen-Thsang,^^ 

 Paris, 1853, pp. 192—198. 



2 A.D. 711, A.D. 740, A.D. 750, 

 and A.D. 762. Tsih-foo i/ucn-kwei, 

 b. dcccclxxi. p. 17. On the second 

 occasion (a.d. 740) the king, who 

 despatched the embassy, is described 

 as sending as his envoy a " Brahman 

 priest, the anointed graduate of the 

 threefold repository, bearing as offer- 

 ings head-ornaments of gold, precious 

 neck-pendants, a copy of the great 

 Prajna Sutra, and forty webs of lino 

 cotton cloth." 



^ See the Kmvia-salcara, written 

 about A.D. 1410. 



