'EOYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



73 



s On the History of Jaffna, fiom the earliest period to the Dutch 

 Conquest By Simon Casie Chitty, Esq., c. m. r. a. s, 

 —(Read 22nd May 1847.) 



In periods of remote antiquity, the northern and north- 

 western portions <of Ceylon, including Jaffna, are said to have 

 been inhabited by the Ndgas, and hence distinguished under 

 the appellation of Nugadipo, or the peninsula of the Ndgas. 

 The Ndgas, it should be observed, were not serpents as their 

 name implies, but a race of people so called merely from their 

 worship of the serpents ; and in the account given in the 

 Mahawanso % of a visit made to them by Buddha, in the j^ear 

 B. c. 581, they are described as having had at that time a 

 complete social and political organisation, with a King of their 

 own, who was possessed of "a gem-set throne." We are, how- 

 ever, profoundly in the dark as to what became of the Ndgas 

 after the invasion of Ceylon by Wijaya, in the year b. c. 543: 

 and consequently we are unable to ascertain whether they 

 were extirpated by the victor, or merged into the succeeding 

 population ; but the latter may be considered as more probable 

 than the former. Be this as it may, the name Nagadipo seems 

 to have continued to be applied to the northern portion of the 

 Island to a later period at least by the Singhalese!; and 

 Ptolemy, who flourished about A. D. 200, refers to JSTagadibii 

 as a town in Taprobauc at his time, but erroneously places it 

 on the east side .J It may also be mentioned, that in the list 

 of Singhalese Sovereigns we meet with several who bore the 

 epithet Nag a as an affix to their patronymics, and there is still 

 a temple on one of the small Islands near Jaffna, dedicated to 



* Tumour's Translation of the Mahawanso, chap. 1. p.p. 4 — 5, 

 f Ibid. chap. xxxv. p.p 225 — 227. 



j ytnceiit's Feriplus of the Erythrean Sea, vol. ii. p. 450. 



