36 



ON THE OKIGIN OF 



which the aggressions of the Brahmanical race had not extended 

 in the age of Manu and the Ramayana.' p. 39. 



This state of things precisely accords with the facts stated in 

 Sinhalese Historical records. For, if the Sinhalese was not im- 

 ported in an early age into Ceylon from North-India, it is but 

 reasonable to find that the Dravidian element, which grows great 

 and greater as we come downwards to the South, would be the 

 greatest in Ceylon, the most distant territory from North- 

 India. Far from such being the fact all the comparisons to which 

 I have submitted the Sinhalese, indisputably prove that the Dravi- 

 dian element is even less in the Sinhalese than 4 in those district* 

 of Northern India which were first conquered by the Aryans.' No 

 one therefore, knowing the position which, geographically, Cey- 

 lon occupies in regard to the Tamil country,* can reconcile this fact 

 with the supposition that the Sinhalese is a South-Indian dialect. 

 On the contrary- the conviction must be inevitable, that the Sinha- 

 lese, like the Magadhi or the Pali,f had been long separated from 

 Northern-India, and had remained fixed in this Island, unaffected by 

 those changes which even the Maharashtri, the dialectus principua 

 of Vararnchi and Lassen, and other undoubted dialects of the Sans- 

 krit, have in course of time undergone in India. 



Without entering into other inquiries as to how far the one- 

 tenth (I believe the proportion is really less), the apparently 

 Dravidian element in the Sinhalese, may be traced to other influen- 

 ces and causes, enough, I believe, has been shown to justify the 

 position which I maintain, that our vocabulary presents more cogent 

 evidence than even any of the vernacular dialects of Northern India, 

 of the Sinhalese language having a Sanskrit basis with a very 

 small admixture of a foreign or non-Sanskrit element. In a casa 



* f From the evidence of the words in use amongst the early Tanrilians,' 

 Mr. Caldwell deduces, amongst other facts, that they had 'no acquaintance with 

 any people beyond sea, except in Ceylon, which was then accessible on foot at 

 low water.' p. 79. 



f Kachchayana's Grammar, p. cvi. 



