386 



TTIE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[PART III. 



A.D. 



330. 



339 



Unembarrassed by any questions of external policy 

 or foreign expeditions, and limited to a narrow range 

 of internal administration, a few of the early kings 

 addressed themselves to intellectual pursuits. One im- 

 mortalised himself in the estimation of the devout by his 

 skill in painting and sculpture, and in carving in ivory, 

 arts which he displayed by modelling statues of Buddha, 

 and which he employed himself in teaching to his 

 A.D. subjects. 1 Another was equally renowned as a medical 

 author and a practitioner of surgery 2 , and a third was 

 so passionately attached to poetry that in despair for 

 the death of Kalidas 3 , he flung himself into the flames 

 of the poet's funeral pile. 



With the -exception of the embassy sent from Ceylon 

 to Borne in the reign of the Emperor Claudius 4 , the 

 earliest diplomatic intercourse with foreigners of which 

 a record exists, occurred in the fourth or fifth centuries, 

 when the Singhalese appear to have sent ambassadors 

 to the Emperor Julian 5 , and for the first time to have 

 established a friendly connection with China. It is 

 strange, considering the religious sympathies which 

 united the two people, that the native chronicles make 

 no mention of the latter negotiations or their results, so 

 that we learn of them only through Chinese historians. 

 The Encyclopedia of MA-TOUAX-LIX, written at the 

 close of the thirteenth century 6 , records that Ceylon 



1 Detu Tissa, A.D. 330, Maha- 

 icanso, xxxvii. p. 242. 



2 Budha Daasa, A.D. 339. Maha- 

 wanso, xxxvii. p. 243. His woi-k on 

 medicine, entitled Sara-sanyralm or 

 Sarat-tha- Sambo, is still extant, and 

 native practitioners profess to consult 

 it. TURNOTJR'S Epitome, p. 27. 



3 Not KALIDAS, the author of Sa- 

 contcda, to whom Sir W. Jones awards 

 the title of " The Shakspeare of the 

 East," but PANDITA KALIDAS, a Sin- 

 ghalese poet, none of whose verses 

 have been preserved. His royal 

 patron was Kiunara Das, king" of 



Ceylon, A.D. 513. For an account of 

 Kalidas, see DE ALWIS'S Sidath San- 

 gara, p. cliv. 



4 PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24. 



5 AlIMIASTSMAKCELLIXrS, lib. XX. 



c. 7. 



6 KLAPROTH doubts, "si la science 

 de 1'Europe a produit jusqu'a pre- 

 sent un ouvrage de ce genre aussi 

 bien execute" et capable de soutenir 

 la comparaison avec cette encyclo- 

 pedic chinoise." Jmtrn. Asiat. torn. 

 xxi. p. 3. See also Asiatic Journal, 

 London, 1832, vol. xxxv. p. 110. It 

 has been often reprinted in 100 large 



