No. 27.— 1884.] tissamahArAma archeology. 67 



hindrance would be placed in the way of the preaching of 

 the doctrine of Buddha." (Loc. ext., Vol., IV., p. 529.) 



Education, 



Although an examination of the inscriptions of the 

 Island has led Dr. Miiller to deem that the art of writing 

 was not known in Ceylon as early as in India, which, in 

 any case, would be an a priori inference, the evidence 

 afforded by the inscribed fragments of pottery appears to 

 prove the introduction of the art at a period at any rate 

 not very much later than the reign of Asoka. When the 

 small area included in our excavations at the sluice, and 

 the quantity of inscribed pieces still lying undisturbed in 

 the soil, are considered, and when it is remembered that 

 these represent only a part of the defective pottery rejected 

 at the manufactory after being burnt, it is a fair deduction 

 that a far greater number, probably hundreds at least, 

 of inscribed and perfect specimens have been made and 

 sold. Yet this writing, done by ordinary potters, is, as a 

 rule, as well executed as that of the best of the most 

 ancient inscriptions. There are few of the ill-formed 

 uncouth letters, such as illiterate people might be expected 

 to make.* If the form of the letters is any guide (and 

 among several examples, which plainly are not all the work 

 of one writer, it must be), there is only one published 

 inscription in South Ceylon, that of Ilanaga, which comes 

 within 100 years of the age of the most recent of these. 

 The letters cannot, therefore, have been engraved by persons 

 who were specially imported for the purpose of cutting 

 inscriptions, and who might, in such a case, have amused 

 themselves by decorating the hardened but unbaked 

 earthenware, and I am forced to conclude that the whole 

 work is due to the potters themselves. When the inferior 

 position of this caste is taken into consideration,! such a 

 fact must be admitted to afford evidence of a state of 

 education in the country which is unexpected. There are 

 not many potters in the Island at the present day who could 



* Even in the present day what a small percentage of English labour- 

 ing men would print a large S or N correctly ! 



f In two lists in Upham's Buddhist Tracts they are placed respectively 

 5th and 9th of the lower castes, excluding the Wellalas (pp. 331 and 345). 



B 2 



