2 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, (CEYLON BRANCH.) 



I. — Inscription at Vessagiri, Anuradhapura. 

 (Report p. 4.) 



Parumaka Palikadasa bariya parumaka Tirakita jita 

 upaqika Citaya lene qagaqa catudiqa. 



1) Parumaka "a Brahman." From this and other pas- 

 sages where either a female is called at the same time the 

 daughter of one and the wife of another "parumaka" or one 

 " parumaka" appears as the son of another " parumaka," it 

 is evident that this word must be the designation of a caste. 



Again there is another form, though not so frequently 

 employed, barumaka. This latter is easily derived from 

 Samskrt brahman " a Brahman," which would become* 

 baruma in Simhalese, and with the addition of the suffix ka 

 (which in Simhalese is even of more extensive use than in 

 the other vernaculars sprung from Samskrt) barumaka. 

 There are not a few instances in Simhalese in which a sonans 

 has been changed into a surd, particularly in the beginning 

 of a word, where, as is well known, this is the rule in the 

 Dravidian languages of the South of India. Simhalese 

 instances are : kurulld " bird," crude form kurulu (comp. 

 kureli ^^<5<g "female bird" in an inscription of the tenth 

 century, see VI. A. 11) ; derived from garuda\) which pro- 

 bably in some dialects had retained its original signification 

 of a bird in general, garuda being an early Prakrticizing 

 form of garutmat winged" through* garutta, *garuta (t 

 cerebralized by the influence of r). Kumbura " field, paddy 

 field" (ancient form kubari, l-4th century A.D.) from 

 gabhira, gambhira " deep" in the sense of a low lying, " low 

 land." Poda " drop" Samskrt bindu. i migrating into o by a 

 sort of epenthesis through the influence of u in the following 



\ ) The mythical Garufa appears in Elu poetry in the form Gurula. 



