76 



Foreign Notices : — Asia. 



The two persons who are in attendance upon Rajah Pakse are two men 

 of the militia of the Cinnamon department, called Lascoreens. Each native 

 chief has a right, according to his rank, to be attended by a certain number 

 of these men, who carry in their hands, to shelter the chief from the sun, 

 a leaf of the Talipot, or Cory ph a umbraculifera ; the great use made of 

 which palm in Ceylon may be known from the following account given of 

 them in a description which has been lately published of that tree : — 



The Talipot is the Corypha umbraculifera. (Jig. 19.) All the books of 

 importance in Pali and Cingalese, 

 relative to the religion of Budd- 

 hoo in Ceylon, are written on 

 lamina of these leaves. The Pali 

 and Cingalese character is en- 

 graved upon them with either a 

 brass or an iron style. There 

 are some of these books in Sir 

 Alexander Johnston's collections, 

 which are supposed to be between 

 500 and 600 years old, and which 

 are still very perfect. , 



Sir A. Johnston gave the 

 Royal Asiatic Society, some time 

 ago, a complete copy of the Pali 

 book called the Pansyapa7ias 

 Jatalcay, written on 1 1 7'2 laminae 

 of the finest description of this 

 sort of palm leaf. This book 

 contains the whole moral and 

 religious code of the Buddhist, 

 and is so scarce, that it was for 

 some time believed that there 

 was no complete copy extant. 

 Sir Alexander Johnston, when 

 president of His Majesty's coun- 

 cil in Ceylon, being, from the various benefits he had conferred on the 

 priests of Buddhoo and their followers, much in their confidence, was al- 

 lowed by them to have this complete copy taken of all the different parts 

 of it, which were dispersed amongst the most celebrated temples in Ceylon. 

 Sir Alexander also gave the Asiatic Society a very fine specimen of a Bur- 

 mese book on the Buddhoo religion, written upon laminae of this leaf, which 

 are beautifully lacquered and gilt over, which was sent to him by the King 

 of Ava, along with some other books, as the finest specimens he could give 

 him of the manner in which the books were written and bound in his library 

 at Ava. 



This leaf is used in the maritime provinces of Ceylon as a mark of dis- 

 tinction, each person being allowed to have a certain number of these leaves, 

 folded up as fans, carried with him by his servants {Jig. 18.); and also, in 

 the Kandian country, in the shape of a round, flat umbrella, on a long 

 stick, as is represented in a fine drawing, in the possession of Sir Alexander 

 Johnston, of the late Adigar or Prime Minister of the King of Kandy, who 

 was the cause of the massacre of the English at Kandy in the year 1805. 

 It is, moreover, used in making tents. Sir Alexander Johnston gave a very 

 fine specimen of a tent made of these leaves, large enough to hold a party 

 of ten persons at table, to the late Sir Joseph Banks, in 1818. 



These leaves are also used by the common people to shelter themselves 

 from the rain, one leaf affording sufficient shelter for seven or eight persons. 

 In the botanical garden which His Majesty's Ministers established in 

 Ceylon, on Sir Alexander Johnston's suggestion, in 1811, it was intended 



