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



Without abandoning these, I suggest to-day another object 

 of combined work — The Verification of the Native Chronicles 

 and Histories of Ceylon. Of the materials necessary for this, 

 by far the greater part is accessible to the English reader. It 

 is one of the peculiar distinctions of the Island, that from 

 early times it has possessed historians. The Sinhalese stand 

 alone, or almost alone, among Indian peoples, as having had 

 an interest in history. Their chronicles are the oldest, I 

 believe, and for centuries the only instances of histories in the 

 Indian world. The Continent had its great epic poems ; but 

 in these, though they had no doubt some foundation in fact, 

 the fiction was the chief part, — the facts are not commemorated 

 from the annalist's point of view, but from the poet's. The 

 Sinhalese chronicles are distinctly historical in form, not epical. 



Now the inquiry I propose is the important one : To what 

 extent are the Sinhalese histories true ? There is certainly 

 obvious fiction mingled with statements of fact. Putting the 

 obvious fiction apart, are the statements of fact trustworthy ? 

 The dates, the names of persons, the wars, the buildings, the 

 social and religious conditions,— in regard to these, to what 

 extent can we rely on our authorities ? This is not a question 

 that can be answered in one word, by saying they are trust- 

 worthy or they are not. It is all but certain that they will be 

 found more trustworthy for one period than for another ; more 

 to be trusted about one class of fact than about another ; 

 trustworthy within certain limits, and not beyond them. I 

 propose that we should bring together, little by little and in 

 course of time, all the evidence by which they can be tested. 



There are several different kinds of tests, of which I will 

 mention three kinds which occur to me as the chief . First, 

 the histories are to be tested by existing buildings, monuments, 

 and inscriptions. If the history says a building was erected 

 by such a king in such a year, and we find upon it an inscription 

 — evidently contemporary — to the same effect, we know that 

 the historian had access to correct information on that point. 

 Secondly, by comparison with independent literary records. 

 If our history describes a certain state of things as existing at 



