34 CEYLON BRANCH KOYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



however, about Singhalese histories, which does render them 

 in some degree less instructive than they would otherwise 

 have been, and this peculiarity is, that the authors were 

 invariably priests. Attached of course to that system which 

 they were in the daily habit of teaching, and by which they 

 lived, they did not fail to give prominence to the pious dona- 

 tions of the various Sovereigns, whose actions they recorded ; 

 and doubtless in many cases, they have not been prevented 

 from representing these devout Kings, as the peculiar 

 favourites of heaven, blessed with every regal virtue, even 

 when their characters may have been in every other respect, 

 not above, and perhaps below, the average of mankind. In 

 the mere matter of the history of the various events, however, 

 there seems no reason for supposing that they have wilfully 

 erred, and the general, without the exact, coincidences of the 

 various accounts, add a strong testimony to their truth. 

 Many who have lived long in the Island, perhaps, will be 

 surprised to hear that about the time when William the 

 Conqueror was issuing from the continent of Europe to 

 overpower the adjacent Island, an Eastern William* w T as 

 issuing from Ceylon, to spread the terror of his arms over 

 the adjoining continent, and did not leave his throne till he 

 had brought the entire of the South of India, with Siam and 

 Cambodia under his dominions. These native histories are 

 peculiarly interesting to the student of mankind, as exhibit- 

 ing on the small scale of Ceylon, an epitome of the history of 

 the universe. Consider the facts alone, without the name, 

 and you have the relation of the great events, which have 

 everywhere taken place — the same story of energetic and 

 reckless ambition — the same recital of w r eak baseness, or of 

 monarchical bloodthirstiness, which is to be found, in a less 

 or greater degree, in the history of every nation under heaven. 

 J Tis true we find in it no Socrates resigning himself to death, 

 with the composure of a philosopher, and no Leonidas dying 



* Praekrama Bahoo the First. 



