74 



CEYLON BRANCH 



Nag a Tambiran, or the god of the Nhgas, in which worship is 

 offered to serpents to this day.* 



From what has been recorded in the Mahawanso,] it would 

 appear, that during the reign of the King Dewenipiatisso, 

 which extended from the year b, c. 307 to the year B. c, 

 267, the present Colombogam, in Jaffna, flourished as a port 

 under the designation of Jambukolo or Jambukolopattna, and 

 the sacred i?0-branch, which he sent for from the continent of 

 of India, having been landed there, in the year b. c. 307, a 

 Wiharo was erected by him on the spot where it was depo- 

 sited on its debarkation. \ In a Singhalese tract, which treats 

 of the transportation of the jBo-branch to Ceylon, it is stated, 

 that the King Dewenipiatisso bestowed Trincomalie and Jaffna 

 on Prince Rama, one of the Ambassadors, who escorted the 

 i?o-branch from the Continent ;{J but no allusion being made 

 to it in the Mahawanso, the correctness of the statement may 

 be questioned. 



The account of the colonization of Jaffna by the Tamils 

 is comprised in the Kyldsa Maid, a poem attributed to one of 

 their ancient bards. According to this work, the peninsula of 

 Jaffna was lying a complete wilderness, when a certain princess 

 of Chola, § who having paid homage to the god Skanda in 

 hopes of being relieved from the deformity of a horse's head 

 with which she had the misfortune to be born, was directed by 

 him in a vision to repair thither, and bathe in the well of 



* Ceylon Gazetteer, p. 169. 



f Tumour's Translation of the Mahawanso, chapter xi. p. 69. 

 chap, xviii. p. 110. 



X Ibid chap. xix. p. 119. 



XX Upham's Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, vol. iii, 

 p. 226. 



§ That part of the South of India, comprising Tanjore, and the 

 country along the river Cdveri. 



