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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. XII. 



of a population which had nothing in common with Hindus,, 

 or Brahmanism, and who probably derived their name of 

 Yahko from their practice of demonolatry and pretensions 

 to demoniacal power. There are indications also in the 

 Vijayan period of the existence of a race of Nagas, besides an 

 outcast race called Chandalas.* If we accept the story of the 

 landing of Vijaya, we cannot reject the surrounding circum- 

 stances in the same narrative, where those surrounding 

 circumstances are not tainted with improbability. 



The Mahdwansa informs us that the king of Kalinga 

 had a daughter who became the queen of the king of 

 Yanga ; that this king and queen had a daughter called 

 Suppadevi, for whom fortune-tellers predicted that she 

 would consort with a lion. The narrative proceeds to the 

 fulfilment of the prediction, with the consequent birth of a 

 prince and princess. This of course must be at once rejected 

 as unnatural and false, and relegated to the limbo of the 

 Roman she-wolf and similar traditions of North American 

 Indians and other savage races of mankind. In a manner 

 very similar to the Roman myth, Suppadevi's two children 

 came to be identified by her maternal uncle, and the throne 

 of the country is ultimately offered to the son of the lion. 

 But Sihabahu, rejecting this, returns with Sihasivali to the 

 wilderness of Lala, where he was born, founds a city, begets 

 children, the eldest of whom, Yijaya, he instals when of 

 age as sub-king. 



It is through Vijaya's father, Sihabahu, therefore, that 

 the title of the Sinhalese nation is claimed, and this- 

 point is not worth contesting in rejecting the false story 

 of the parentage in a 5 wild beast. The lion who attacked 

 the caravan which Suppadevi had clandestinely joined was 

 probably a robber, so named for his daring in attacking 

 travellers passing through the wilderness. To believe even 

 this is a compromise. One thing is certain, that there never 



* See Note B. 



