ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



77 



Wanny, as well as over the Island of Manaar,* and the main- 

 land of Mantotta, which till then had been under the Sin^ha- 

 lese. He also introduced fresh settlers from the Continent, 

 fortified all his frontiers, and stationed wardens and watchers 

 in different parts of the kingdom to protect it from invasion. 

 Some think that it was during his Government that the Giant's 

 Tank, which once irrigated immense paddy lands in the Mar- 

 totta district, was formed, but this requires confirmation. He 

 is stated to have had a long reign, the exact period of its close 

 is, however, not known ; nor do we possess any information 

 even as to the names of the princes who reigned after him until 

 the end of the thirteenth century. We are, nevertheless, able 

 to state from what has been recorded by the Greek and Ara- 

 bian writers, that during this long interval the kingdom of 

 Jaffna enjoyed considerable prosperity, arising chiefly from a 

 very extensive commerce which was carried on with its ports 

 at first by the Greeks and Komans,f and subsequently by the 



* Baldens and other European writers derive the name Manaar 

 from the Tamil words man, sand, and aar, a river. They have, 

 however, been misled by the mere euphony of these words, and have 

 neglected the true orthography; the words for " sand" and " river" are 

 spelt respectively with a hard n (<sm) and hard r (no) while in the 

 name Manaar the soft n (sot) and soft r (it) are employed, and by 

 this alteration a total difference of signification is produced, and it is 

 found to convey no definite idea, but merely a vague reference to some 

 unknown foes. 



f There can be no doubt that the commercial intercourse of 

 the Greeks and Romans with Ceylon was confined to the northern 

 and north-western parts, and I suppose this to have been the reason 

 why their writers did not notice Cinnamon amongst the products of 

 the island, the plant being found only on the south-west Coast and 

 in the interior. As a further confirmation of this opinion it may be 

 added that traces of their visits have hitherto been only discovered on 

 the northern Coast. We learn from Valentyn that in the year 1574 

 or 1575, when some houses were being built at Mantotta, there were 

 discovered the remains of a Roman building, and an iron chain of a 



