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



pestered by suitors for his daughter's hand, and to avoid their 

 importunity secretly sent her adrift in a boat with thirty-two 

 female attendants. They are so fortunate as to be cast 

 ashore in Ceylon after Panduvisadewa had, with thirty-two 

 followers, established himself at Upatissa. The marriage of 

 the prince and his thirty-two men with the princess and 

 her thirty -two maidens followed as a matter of course. 



This story, following as it does the similar story in con- 

 nection with Vijaya, throws great doubt on the latter story. 

 I observe that the learned translator of the Mahdwansa 

 assumes that the princess and her maidens were sent adrift in 

 the Ganges, which to any one who knows the navigation of 

 that river and of the Bay of Bengal makes the story doubly 

 improbable. That a father should imperil his daughter in 

 this manner is against nature, and the motive for his 

 inhumanity is insufficient. It is much to be regretted that 

 if there was a basis of fact in the emigration of the princess 

 a myth should thus have been interwoven with her story. 

 The name of her father, Sakya Pandu, suggests the same 

 nationality as that of the Prince Panduvisadewa. The 

 relationship to Buddha was probably added to natter the 

 royal family who had commanded the completion of the 

 national annals. 



Casie Chitty ("Gazetteer") says it was a misfortune that 

 when the Sinhalese occupied Kalinga (modern Cicacole) in 

 the Northern Circars of the Coromandel Coast (between 

 Gangam and Masulipatam) they should have been subject 

 to the Kalingas, and that after emigrating to Ceylon they 

 shotild have submitted to the rule of the Telugus and 

 Tamils. Casie Chitty alludes to the opinion prevailing with 

 some, which ascribes to the Sinhalese a mixed origin, partly 

 Telugu and partly Tamil. 



In all investigations on this point we have to be guided 

 by the fact that the Sinhalese language is a distinctive 

 one, and which competent authorities have classified as 

 non-Dravidian. Had Ceylon not been an island subject to 

 constant incursions from the adjoining continent, this 



