CHAP. III.] CONQUEST OF CEYLON BY WIJAYO. 337 



accelerate colonisation, and to extend the knowledge of B - c - 

 agriculture, led in after years to dissensions, civil war, 

 and disaster. 



It was at this period that Ceylon was resolved into 

 the three geographical divisions, that, down to a 

 very late period, are habitually referred to by the 

 native historians. All to the north of the Maha- 

 welli-ganga was comprised in the denomination Pihiti, 

 or the Kaja-rafta, from its containing the ancient capital 

 and the residence of royalty ; south of this was Rohano 

 or Rohuna, bounded on the east and south by the sea, 

 and by the Mahawelh-ganga and Kalu-ganga, on the north 

 and west ; a portion of this division near Tangalle still 

 retains the name of Boona. 1 The third was the Maya- 

 ratta, which lay between the mountains, the two great 

 rivers and the sea, having the Dedera-oya to the north, 

 and the Kalu-ganga as its southern limit. 



The patriarchal village system, which from time im- 

 memorial has been one of the characteristics of the 

 Dekkan, and which still prevails throughout Ceylon in 

 a modified form, was one of the first institutions 

 organised by the successors of Wijayo. "They fixed 

 the boundaries of every village throughout Lanka;" 2 

 they "caused the whole island to be divided into fields 

 and gardens ; " 3 and so uniformly were the rites of 

 these rural municipalities respected in after times, that 

 one of the Singhalese inonarchs, on learning that merit 

 attached to alms given from the fruit of the donor's own 

 exertions, undertook to sow a field of rice, and "from the 



1 The district of Rohuna included ; trict amongst Mahometan writers, 

 the mountain zone of Ceylon, and | and in the Jiaja Tarangini, it is called 

 hence probably its name, rokttno j " Rohanam," b. iii. 50. 7'2. 

 meaning the " act or instrument of I 2 It was established by Panduka- 

 ascending, as steps or a ladder." 1 bhaya, A.D. 437. Mahmr<mto, ch. x. 

 Adam's Peak was in the Maya di- ! p. 67, Jtajarattiacari, ch. i. 

 vision ; but Edrisi, who wrote in the 3 Rajaratnacari, ch. ii., RajavaK, 

 twelfth century, says, that it was then I b. i. p. 185. For the scriptural mean- 

 railed "El Rahoun.'" Geographie,^'c. \ ing of " dividing the fields," seevoL 

 viii. JATTBERT'S Trtmsl. vol. ii. p. 71. i. p. 430. n. 4. 

 Ha hn is an ordinary name for the dis- ' 



VOL. I. Z 



