No. 33.— 1886.] the veddas of ceylon. 



479 



and Ceylon. Rama himself, who is said to have come from 

 Oude, makes war upon Rawana, king of Ceylon (Larika), 

 champion of the Yakkho and Rakshasas worship, and 

 conquers him. Curiously enough a tradition has been 

 preserved among the Hayas (Vayas, Haius) in Nepal that at 

 the time when Rawana was slain they immigrated from 

 Ceylon to the Dekkan, and later from thence to Samroanghar, 

 and finally reached the mountains, which are their present 

 home.* The Varalis, who inhabit the mountains of Konkan,f 

 tell the same tale of their tribe. All these traditions are of 

 course of no positive value for the diagnosis of the different 

 tribes, but they must warn us not to decide our investigations 

 among the aboriginal races of India and Ceylon simply on 

 the ground of some crude linguistic indications, or the 

 physical characteristics of a few better known tribes. All 

 the same, whether the earliest inhabitants of Ceylon immi- 

 grated in boats over the small extent of sea which separates 

 the Island from the mainland, or whether, as has been so often 

 conjectured, and is rendered highly probable by the fauna 

 of Ceylon, the Island was once a part of the continent, and as 

 such inhabited by the same tribes, we cannot avoid the 

 conviction that they stand in a close affinity to the aborigines 

 of India. 



Whether these were proto-Dravidian or even pre-Dravidian 

 tribes we cannot with certainty decide at present. 



The traditions, however far back they may go, with 

 regard to this give very little light. Mr. ZimmerJ has lately 

 compiled from the books of the Vedas comprehensive 

 accounts of the condition of the Indian people in past ages, 

 but they hardly afford sufficient foothold to enable us to judge 



* Dalton. Ethnological Description of Bengal, re-published by Oscar 

 Flex. Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1874, bd. VI.. s. 



f Louis Rousselet. Tableau des Ilaces de l'lnde Centrale. Revue d' An- 

 thropologic. Paris, 1873, t. II., p. 69. 



% Heinrich Zinimer. Altindiselies Le'oen. Die cultiir der vedischen 

 Arier. Berlin, 1879, s. 100 et srq. 



K *2 



