18 



Pali, it will still be truly very difficult for any one to argue from 

 that, and still less from the Sanskrit words intermingled with it, 

 the derivation of the Veddas from the valley of the Ganges. 

 Surrounded for centuries by more highly cultivated peoples, a 

 certain intercourse with their neighbours has been unavoidable, 

 and consequently, where the Tamils have continuously pressed 

 on nearer to them— as near Batticaloa — a part of the Veddas 

 have adopted the Imn.il language, But for very much longer, 

 and in. the greater number of places, they have been in im- 

 mediate contact with the Sinhalese* What wonder, therefore, if 

 they adopted more and more Sinhalese' words and forms. The 

 question is only whether besides these, as I suppose, borrowed 

 words, their language has not preserved some individual ele- 

 ments ? To this point so little attention has been given that we 

 do not even know positively whether the Vedda language con- 

 tains any words designating numbers.. It is no use being told 

 that half the words noted clown are corrupted Sanskrit. To what 

 belongs the other half, which perhaps with greater attention 

 might be enlarged ? If we cannot class it among the Tamil 

 languages it is very possible that it may prove specific. Noth- 

 ing hitherto justifies us in any such one-sided statement as that 

 of Mr. Tyler who, without hesitation, calls the Vedda language 

 Aryan. 



The matter would take a rather different aspect if we 

 might assume that originally the Veddas alone inhabited the 

 island and that they were not only 'forced back into the forests 

 by the immigrants but had [partly] intermingled with them.* 

 According to the native annalists the origin of the Sinhalese is 

 to be traced back to the followers of King Wijeya — a victorious 

 host of immigrants from the valley of the Ganges in a numerical 

 proportion to the inhabitants which must have been somewhat like 

 that of the Danes and Normans in England. A patriarchal system 

 was introduced which has lasted for thousands of years, and a 

 series of facts testify that the aboriginal population was not wholly 



* [This has actually happened. Of the Tamils who did not immigrate, 

 till later we may say that while in the North they have entirely supplanted 

 the original population, in the East they have not merely mingled with 

 the Veddas but haye accomplished a veritable tamulization of them. — T.B.~] 



