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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. X. 



Hindustan. From this time it becomes difficult to pronounce 

 as to the race to which the term Yavana applies. At first, 

 indeed, the Musalman invaders, especially in Southern 

 India, were distinguished from the dynasties of Ionian 

 Yavanas by the more opprobrious epithet of Mlechchas. But 

 as Islam obtained firmer hold upon the country, this dis- 

 tinction disappeared ; and popular speech, preserving the old 

 association of northern invasion and a new creed with the 

 word Yavana, applied it indiscriminately to the ancient 

 lonians and to the new Musalmans. Before the Muhammadan 

 power, the heretic and the orthodox dynasties of India alike 

 collapsed, and in a few centuries the ancient Yavanas had 

 ceased to preserve any trace of their nationality. All former 

 differences of race or creed were pulverised in the mortar of 

 Islam, and the word Yavana grew into an exclusive epithet of 

 the Musalmans." Prof. Weber has emphasised these views in 

 his History of the Indian Literature, 1 and proves conclusively 

 that the Arabs and other Muslims were the last to receive the 

 name of Yavanas. From the ninth to the fourteenth centuries 

 the Muhammadans in South India were known as Mlechchas, 

 or "barbarians," just as the Sinhalese knew them in Ceylon 

 in those ages as Bamburo. In later days they knew them 

 as Yonno, while the Tamils learnt to use the word Chonahar. 



To sum up. It has been shown that the 185,000 Moors in 

 the Island fall under two classes, " Coast Moors " and 

 " Ceylon Moors," in almost equal numbers ; that the " Coast 

 Moors " are those Muhammadans who, having arrived from 

 the Coromandel coast or inner districts of South India as 

 traders or labourers, continue steadily to maintain relations 

 of amity and intermarriage with their friends in South 

 India ; and that such " Coast Moors " are Tamils. 



As regards the nationality of the " Ceylon Moors," number- 

 ing about 92,500 out of the 185,000, we have ample reasons for 

 concluding that they too are Tamils, — I mean the masses of 

 them ; for, of course, we meet with a few families here and 



1 Page 220, note. 



