102 CEYLON BRANCH — ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 



istence will be found on the slabs and rocks near the temples 

 of the interior. The inscriptions thus preserved are nume- 

 rous, generally in the square character in use upon the con- 

 tinent during the supremacy of the monarchs who professed 

 Budhism, the alphabet of which, by a process of patient in- 

 duction, was discovered by the late James Prinsep ; but 

 there many also in the Singhalese language and character. 

 The oldest book that I have read, the date of which can be 

 ascertained, is the Pujawaliya, written in the reign of Pan- 

 dita Prakrama Bahu, a. d. 1267 — 1301, by the priest Mai- 

 rupada. Another book that I have read, the Amawatura, 

 if we are to judge from the style alone, must be a much 

 older work ; but it is supposed that the style is rather affect- 

 ed than antiquated. The name of the author is Grurulu- 

 gome, but I cannot discover in what age he lived. There 

 are many works mentioned incidentally in the books yet ex- 

 tant that are not now to be procured. This disappearance 

 of the ancient literature of the Island is to be accounted for 

 by the ravages of the Malabars and the prevalence of here- 

 sies, some of which were patronised by the kings, who, to 

 show their hatred to the orthodox priests, commanded that 

 their books should be destroyed. Even of the comparatively 

 few works that are now in common use, several have had 

 to be recovered from Burma or Siam, though they were 

 originally written in this country. 



The Singhalese alphabet, as to arrangement, is formed 

 upon the model of the Devanagari ; but in the place of the 

 au, of the Devanagari there are in Singhalese two vowels, 

 ce and ce, which have been likened by your Vice President 

 to " the bleating of a sheep," and by no means add to the 

 euphony of the language. The v of the Devanagari is 

 changed into w in Singhalese, there being no w in Sanscrit, 

 as there is none in the classical languages of Europe. The 

 alphabet, which is peculiar to the Singhalese, and not used 

 for any other language, in its general character bears a con- 

 siderable resemblance to the ancient Karnataka, as seen in 

 the copper-plates of a grant made to the Syrian Church by 

 one of the early native princes, the date of whose reign is 

 not known. Fac similes of these plates are inserted in the 

 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. XIV. but 

 whether the letters that are similar in shape have the same 

 sound I am not able to state. 



Soon after my arrival in Ceylon, in 1825, 1 began to note 

 down the names of all the works I could hear of as being 

 in the possession of the Singhalese. The list now includes 

 the names of upwards of 400 separate works, reckoning the 



