384 



JOURNAL, E.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



correct writing of it to be Vaedda, or originally Veadi 

 (Vaediminitta — Vedda-people), agrees entirely with the 

 derivation from Vyadhah, and Childers therefore defines the 

 Veddas as " wild Sinhalese." 



How long the name has been in use is not yet clearly 

 established. In the works of ancient Occidental writers only 

 one passage has as yet been discovered wherein the Vedda 

 name is preserved, although in a mutilated poem. In a 

 work* ascribed, falsely perhaps, to the Bishop Palladius of 

 Helenopolis in Bithynia (defunct 410 A.D.), which describes 

 the journey of a man from Thebes in Egypt to Ceylon, we 



read ei'fft de Kal oi BiOcradeg dv9p(OTcdpia icoXopa, fxeXavoicecpaXa aKapra Kai 

 a-xXoTpixa.f 



Sir E. Tennent, J following another edition, reads BiaddeQ ; 

 but BiOvadeg is more like the word Vedda. Since the fur- 

 ther description likewise suits the Vedda right well, we may 

 conclude that here the name was for the first time transmitted 

 to the Occident. Before this we only hear that Megasthenes 

 in the time of Alexander knew§ of " Palseogonen " upon the 

 Island, which signifies, according to Sir E. Tennent,|| " Pali- 

 putra " (sons of Pali) ; but according to Lassen,1[ referring 

 to the Rakshasas, or giants. In the first case it should apply 

 rather to the Sinhalese, in the latter to the Veddas (though 

 certainly not in the sense of giants). The inland writers do 

 not use the name of Veddas until much later. 



Mr. Hartshorne,** on the authority of an ancient ola 

 (a book written with a stilus upon palm leaves) which was 



* HaXXadiov irepi t&v tt)q IvSiag kqi to>v Bpay[xav(ov. Palladius De 

 gentibus Indice et Bragmonibus . London, 1668, p. 5. 



f Tennent gives fieyaXoKetpaXa instead _ of (xeXavoKe(paXa, as read in 

 the edition from which. I ha ve quoted, although the first perhaps seems 

 more consistent. I must remark that the Latin translation given in the 

 edition of 1668 is cajoite nig to. 



% Tennent, I., p. 538. note 2 ; II., p. 438, note 6. 



§ Plinius. Natural History, lib. 6.. cap. 24. 



|| Tennent, I., p. 529. 



*j[ Lassen. De Taprobane Insula, p. 9. 



** Hartshorne, I. c, p. 414. 



