436 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PAST IV. 



and the stems of the standard trees are festooned with 

 climbers, pepper vines, tomatas, and betel. 



The Coco-nut Palm. It is curious and suggestive 

 as regards the coco-nut, which now enters so largely 

 into the domestic ceconorny of the Singhalese, that al- 

 though it is sometimes spoken of in the Mahawanso (but 

 by no means so often as the palmyra), no allusion is 

 ever made to it as an article of diet, or an element in 

 the preparation of food, nor is it mentioned before the 

 reign of Prakrama L, A.D. 1153 *, in the list of those 

 fruit-trees, the planting of which throughout the island 

 is so often recorded amongst the munificent acts of 

 the Singhalese kings. 



As the other species of the same genus of palms are 

 confined to the New World 2 , a doubt has been raised 

 whether the coco-nut be indigenous in India, or an im- 

 portation. If the latter, the first plant must have been 

 introduced anterior to the historic age; and whatever 

 the period at which the tree may have been first cul- 

 tivated, a time is indicated when it was practically un- 

 known in Ceylon by the fact, that a statue, without date 

 or inscription, is carved in high relief in a niche hol- 

 lowed out of a rock to the east of Galle, which tradition 

 says is the monument to the Kustia Eaja, an Indian 

 prince, whose claim to remembrance is, that he first 

 taught the Singhalese the use of the coco-nut. 3 



1 Mahawanso, ch. Ixxii. 



2 BBOWN'S Notes to TTJCKEY'S Ex- 

 pedition to the Congo, p. 456. 



3 The earliest mention of the 

 coco-nut in Ceylon occurs in the 

 Mahau-anso, which refers to it as 

 known at Rohuna to the south, B. C. 

 161 (ch. xxv. p. 140). " The milk 

 of the small red coco-nut " is stated 

 to have been used by Dutugaimunu 

 in preparing cement for building the 

 Ruanwelle" dagoba (Mah. ch. xxx. 

 p. 169). The south-west of the is- 

 land, and especially the margin of 

 the sea, is still the locality in which 



the tree is found in greatest 

 abundance in Ceylon. Hither, if 

 originally self-sown, it must have 

 been floated and flung ashore by the 

 waves ; and as the north-east coast, 

 though washed by a powerful current, 

 is almost altogether destitute of these 

 palms, it is obvious that the coco- 

 nut, if carried by sea from some other 

 shore, must have been brought 

 during the south-west monsoon from 

 the coast near Cape Comorin. ./ELIAX 

 notices as one of the leading pecu- 

 liarities in the appearance of the sea 

 coast of Ceylon, that the palm trees 



