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



specified by the same author in the same work. At best, 

 the inference drawn from that solitary fact that there was 

 no rice locally grown is lame and impotent, but when the 

 fact itself is shown to be uncertain, as well as inconsistent 

 with the rest of the history, it becomes still weaker and more 

 worthless. Regarded as an item of the narrative consistent 

 with all the rest, the rice given by Kuweni, the only item 

 specified, should be considered as the rice given on all those 

 subsequent occasions was, namely, as the national food of 

 the period. After twenty-five centuries that have elapsed since 

 the date of Kuweni's feast rice is still the food of the country. 

 It has been proved to have been such less than a century 

 afterwards. Is it then at all probable that a people, so little 

 prone to change as are all Orientals, should have completely 

 changed their national diet just at that period when authen- 

 tic history began its record ? Is it not much more likely that 

 before, as well as after Wijayo's landing, rice was the staple 

 food, and that Kuweni followed the custom of her country 

 in giving the guests rice along with other things procured 

 from wrecked ships ? 



The evidence of the Mahdwa?isa, as given in the passages 

 above quoted, affords a satisfactory answer as to what was 

 the national food of the country during the period they 

 cover, but neither their evidence nor the tenour of that 

 work gives support to the theory that the people of that 

 period lived on fruit, honey, and the products of the chase. 



A student who should commence the perusal of the 

 Mahdwansa, under the impression of its being the history 

 of a people subsisting by the chase, would feel some surprise 

 to meet, on the very threshold, with a princess of the country 

 engaged in spinning, and surrounded by such luxuries as 

 the lovely gems and ornaments she wore, the curtained bed 

 she possessed, and the other accessories of the introductory 

 scene. Her familiarity with the affairs of neighbouring 

 courts, the wedding festival she described as about to unite 

 two princely families, and, above all, the court dresses and 

 other circumstances of that ceremonial, would increase his 



