40 



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



that the numerous monkeys " do much damage to the trees.'* 

 [Mr. Geo. Wall in his Papers on an Introduction to a History 

 of the Industries of Ceylon, vol. X., No. 37, 1888, makes 

 no reference to the coconut palm.] 



But nowhere throughout the Proceedings and Journals of 

 this Society extending over a period of sixty years is there 

 information afforded on a subject which, we might consider, 

 should be of special interest to its members, namely, the 

 first appearance and gradual spread, through cultivation, of 

 the coconut palm in Ceylon. Unlike cinnamon, which is 

 found growing wild as a tree in the jungles of the interior, 

 the coconut palm (Cocos* nucifera, the Pol-gas or Pol-gaha 

 of the Sinhalese) is not indigenous to the Island. All 

 that the late Dr. Thwaites, F.R.S., in his " Enumeratio 

 Plantarum Zeylanise " says of this palm under " Habitat " is t 



* Dr. Trimen mentions that " Cocos " is from the Portuguese name Coco 

 or Coquo, given to the fruit from a fancied resemblance to a monkey's 

 face. Marshall quotes Mr. Booth's Analytical Dictionary : " The three 

 holes at the end of the shell give it the appearance of the head of a 

 monkey." But he himself considers Coco is derived from the G-reek word 

 Kocos, a seed, nut, or shell. BaldEeus. in his account of the idolatry of the 

 East Indian Pagans, mentions how Ixora [Isvara] turned the head of a man 

 (beheaded by her) into a coco tree, " whence it is that the Indians say 

 that the print of a man's face was fixed in the coconut." Early European 

 writers up to the 10th century speak of it as " the nut of India," a term 

 used by Robert Knox in the 17th century. Mudaliyar A. Mendis Gunasekara 

 informs me that the Sinhalese word "pol" is considered a pure original 

 Sinhalese woid. He also writes : " Maharuk or maruk, another ancient 

 Sinhalese word for coconut, literally means the great or chief tree, and 

 indicates that it must have been in the Island in great abundance from a 

 very ancient date." 



[The derivation of the name of the nut from Portuguese coco, " bugaloo,"" 

 rests on the statement of Barros (Dec. III. III. vii.) and G-arcia da Orta 

 (Col. 16), whose books were both published in 1563. Barbosa (1516) says : 

 u We [Portuguese] call these fruits cocquos" But the anonymous writer 

 of the voyage of Vasco da Grama (1498-9) speaks of coquos as if the name 

 were the ordinary one, though the Portuguese had never seen the palm or 

 fruit before this voyage (see Count Ficalho's remarks in his edition of 

 G-areia da Orta's Colloquios, i. 247-50). See also Hobsmi-Jobson, s. v. 



The word^oZ is derived by Professor W. G-eiger (Etym. des Singh.) from 

 Sanskrit put a. " funnel-shaped, hollow space ; " Pali puta, puti, " vessel ; " 

 and he adds that in Sanskrit pnto&alia is coconut, lit. " having water in it& 

 hollow (fruit)."— D. W. F.] 



