154 



AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN OF THE 



querors. We are not told what was the language of the letters 

 which accompanied the embassy sent by Vijaya to King Panduwa 

 for a Royal Princess; but it is probable that the letter of invitation, 

 to his brother (See Mahawansa p. 53,) Sumitta, was in the Pali 

 or the Prakrit, a language of the North, which, we learn from his- 

 tory, was greatly cultivated throughout the greatest part of Central 

 India, which was at this time subject to Magadha. It is also ascer- 

 tained from our historical Annals that our Kings had frequent 

 intercourse with Arian and Dra vidian Princes, and in some places 

 the Historian describes the correspondence as having been carried 

 on in ' the Pali language.' 



There is another circumstance which may be here noticed. The 

 birthplace of the first settlers of Ceylon was Lata. It is iden- 

 tical with Lata and Lada, and Dandi, the author of Kavyadarsa, 

 says that even in comparatively a modern age, that of the Dramas, 

 the language of Lata as well as of Banga (which latter is only a 

 different pronunciation of Vanga, and merely another name for 

 Gawda) is usually the Prakrit. His authority goes further, for 

 he places the language of Lata in the same class as that of Caw- 

 da, Surasena, etc: and his Commentator explains the t et cetera' 

 to mean the MagadM (or Pali) and Panchala (the Zend). Hence 

 all circumstances considered it is very clear that the Pali was the 

 language of the band from Lala who colonized Ceylon, or rather 

 a modification of it which bore the nearest relation to such lan- 

 guages as the Suraseni, and the Zend — at all events a so-called 

 Prakrita dialect; therefore a language of the Arian and not of the 

 South Indian class. 



The la&t inference receives confirmatory proof from another his- 

 torical fact, viz. ; that on the arrival of Mahindu in the Island he 

 was not only able to converse readily with the people, but without 

 loss of time to preach to them in 'the Sinhalese' language, or 'the 

 language of the land.' This shows the intimate relationship which 

 originally existed between the Sinhala and the dialect of Pataliputta; 

 and although in course of several centuries as stated in the Sua- 

 basalankara, the Sinhalese has undergone a vast change, yet it 



