NO. 24,— 1881.] ANCIENT KALAH, ETC. 71 



I think then these legends, thus connected, are all consis- 

 tent, and show that after the wars of Rama a second race, 

 the Yakkhos, intruded in Ceylon from South India, drove out 

 the enfeebled Nagas from the Anuradhapura district, as they 

 spread in from the N.W. coast and the trading ports, and 

 were again driven back to the Coast and Islands by excessive 

 heat and incessant drought, but subsequently, and about the 

 Wijayan era, an Aryan race spread back again to the interior, 

 where Wijaya's descendants formed again the city to which 

 their Gangetic kinsmen came to preach the law of Buddha. 



Fa-Hian naively tells us : — " This kingdom was originally 

 uninhabited by man ; only demons, genii [Yakkhos] and dragons 

 [Nagas] dwelt there. Nevertheless, merchants of other countries 

 trafficked with them. When the season for the traffic came, the 

 genii and demons appeared not, but set forward their previous 

 commodities marked with the exact price ; if these suited 

 the merchants, they paid the price and took the goods. As 

 these traders went, and came, and sojourned, the inhabitants 

 of other kingdoms learned that this country was very beauti- 

 ful ; these also came, and eventually established a great 

 kingdom."* 



Fa-Hian who went to Anuradhapura about A.D. 410 direct 

 from To-mo-li-ti in the Ganges (the Tamalitti of the Mahd- 

 wansa and almost on the site of Calcutta) says that he sailed 

 thence by a trade wind to Ceylon in fourteen days and nights, 

 (a surprisingly short time which accounts for the frequent 

 intercourse between Ceylon and the Ganges). He took pas- 

 sage in one of some large vessels going on a merchant voyage 

 to this Island. He proceeds to say that, arrived at Ceylon, 

 u to the right and to the left there are small islets to the 

 number of a hundred ; their distance from each other is in 



* Laidlay's " Pilgrimage of Fa-Hian," translated from the Foe koue Id of 

 MM, Reinusat, Klaproth, and Landresse, 1848, pp. 332-3. 



