NO. 42. —1891.] ANCIENT INDUSTRIES. 



57 



All that now remains, in order to complete the object of 

 this Paper, is to adduce from the history such evidence as it 

 affords in confirmation of the hypothesis that agriculture 

 was systematically pursued during the period immediately 

 after Wijayo's landing, and that it was directed mainly, 

 almost exclusively, to the cultivation of rice and the products 

 of the dairy. 



If it be satisfactorily demonstrated that such were the 

 pursuits of the people immediately after Wijayo's landing, 

 it must be held to have been so also before that event, for 

 there is not the least evidence of Wijayo's having wrought 

 any change, other than to consolidate the government of the 

 country. He had not the means of doing more. Whatever 

 was done by him and his immediate successors must have 

 been done by the people and the agencies he found to his 

 hand. 



The estimation in which agriculture was held, so early as 

 the time of Wijayo's immediate successor, is shown in the 

 scene wherein Girikandasiva, the Governor of a Province, 

 figures with his reapers, gathering the harvest of his domain^ 

 and receives, at the hand of his daughter, his repast of 

 rice. 



All the circumstances of that pastoral scene show that 

 agriculture was an honourable pursuit, and carried on upon 

 an extensive scale by prince and people. Seeing that the 

 narrative is no formal statement introduced to prove a case, 

 but is purely incidental, and merely marks an interesting 

 event of the vicissitudinous life of the young prince, its 

 value as evidence of the industry of the period is inestimable. 

 It forms no part of the history proper, but is a simple setting 

 in which an important event of history is framed. 



Similar evidence, introduced into the historic narrative in 

 like incidental manner in a subsequent chapter, is equally 

 significant and conclusive. In the narrative of the conflict 

 and reconciliation of the two brothers, Gamani and Tissa, 

 the former is represented as sending his offending brother 

 home, after having pardoned him, to superintend certain 



