CHAP. I.] ANCIENT MAP OF CEYLON. 319 



NOTE (A.) 



ANCIENT MAP OF CEYLON. 



So far as I am aware, no map has ever been produced, ex- 

 hibiting the comparative geography of Ceylon, and placing its 

 modern names in juxtaposition with their Sanskrit and Pali 

 originals. In the comprehensive plan which Burnouf had drawn 

 up for an exposition of the history of the island, in elucidation 

 of the progres8t>f Buddhism in India, he intended to include a 

 chart to exhibit its archaeological divisions and localities ; and in 

 the only portion of the work which he lived to complete, and 

 which was published, after his decease, by M. Jules Mohl, under 

 the title of Recherches sur la Geographic ancienne de Ceylan, 

 in the Journal Asiatique for January, 1857, he has enlarged 

 upon the necessity of such a chart, and the difficulties likely to 

 attend its construction. He had discovered that many names of 

 historic interest had utterly disappeared from the modern map, or 

 had become so changed as to be scarcely recognisable ; and that 

 Sanskrit words especially had been so superseded by Singhalese 

 as to be no longer susceptible of identification. In order there- 

 fore to trace the events of which Ceylon was the theatre, 

 between the fourth and the seventh centuries, he found himself 

 obliged to undertake the construction of a map in which it was 

 his design to restore the ancient nomenclature, and correct the 

 corrupted orthography where it had not been altogether ob- 

 literated. 



This task Burnouf appears to have commenced, but death 

 interrupted its progress ; and he left behind only some manu- 

 script materials, consisting of lists of the names of those towns 

 and villages, the great majority of which he had found it impos- 

 sible to identify. These papers have been confided to me by his 

 literary executor, M. Jules Mohl, and by their help and the aid 

 of similar collections made by Turnour and others, I have ven- 

 tured to produce the map which accompanies this chapter. Not- 

 withstanding the omission of a great number of names that it is 

 no longer possible to identify, this map fixes, with at least compa- 

 rative accuracy, the principal localities, mountains, rivers, and 

 cities mentioned in the Mahawanso, the Rajavali, and Raja- 

 ratnacari. The names wanting are chiefly those of villages, 

 tanks, and wiharas, which, although occurring frequently in the 

 ecclesiastical portion of the national chronicles, are of little poli- 

 tical or historic importance. 



