434 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PART IV. 



Simultaneously with the construction of works for the 

 advancement of agriculture, the patriarchal village system, 

 copied from that which existed from the earliest ages 

 in India 1 , was established in the newly settled districts; 

 and every hamlet, with its governing "headman" its 

 artisans, its barber, its astrologer and washerman, was 

 taught to conduct its own affairs by its gam-sabe or 

 village council ; to repair its tanks and watercourses, and 

 to collect the harvests in each year by the combined 

 labour of the whole community. 



Between the agricultural system of the mountainous 

 districts and that of the lowlands, there was at all times 

 the same difference which distinguishes at the present day 

 the tank cultivation of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny from 

 the hanging rice lands of the Kandyan hills. Among the 

 latter, reservoirs are comparatively rare, as the natives 

 rely on the certainty of the rains, which seldom fail at 

 their due season in those lofty regions. Streams are con- 

 ducted by means of channels ingeniously carried round 

 the spurs of the hills and along the face of acclivities, so 

 as to fertilise the fields below, which in the technical 

 phrase of the Kandyans are " assoedamised " for the 

 purpose ; that is, formed into terraces, each protected 

 by a shallow ledge over which the superfluous water 

 trickles, from the highest level into that immediately 

 below it; thus descending through all in succession till 

 it escapes in the depths of the valley. 



For the tillage of the lands with which the temples 

 were so largely endowed in all quarters of the island, 

 the sacred communities had assigned to them certain 

 villages, a portion of whose labour was the property 

 of the wihara. 2 Slaves were also appropriated to them, 

 and an instance is mentioned in the fifth century 3 , of 

 the inhabitants of a low-caste village having been be- 

 stowed on a monastery by the king Aggrabodhi, " in order 



1 MaJutwanso, eh. x. p. 07. See 

 fe, pp. 89, 497. 



2 Ibid., ch. xxxvii. p. 247. 



3 ilock inscriptions at Mihintala 

 and at Dambool. 



