No. 43.— 1892.] ETHNOLOGY OF CEYLON. 



267 



Anuradhapura Mr. Nell found the colossal figure of Buddha 

 invested with the sacred thread like a Brahman. This 

 turns out to be the hem of the robe. 



Coming to the period when the king of Vanga married 

 the daughter of the king of Kalinga, Mr. Nell concludes 

 " that the issue of that marriage was a Telangu princess." 

 And he continues, " what is the conclusion we must draw 

 from the marriage of Vijayaandhis seven hundred followers 

 with the ladies from Madura, but that their descen dents were 

 semi-Tamils ? And the officers of state, the servants, and 

 artisans, who are mentioned as immigrants to Ceylon from 

 Madura, are likely to have come with their families, thus 

 leaving purely Tamil descendants. 



" The place where Vijaya had been sent adrift with seven 

 hundred followers must have been on the sea coast, and at 

 a not very great distance from Ceylon. And even if we do 

 not assign to Vijaya and his followers a Dravidian birth, 

 which is probable from his getting the daughter of the 

 Pandava of Madura, he and his fellow-settlers must certainly 

 be held to have left Tamil descendants. To avoid this 

 conclusion, we must either reject the whole story as a myth, 

 or assume that the Pandava was not a Dravidian, an impos- 

 sible assumption, because we shall have first to sweep away 

 all the traditions, inscriptions, and chronicles of the Tamil 

 race," &c. 



We do not think it would be right to discard the Sinhalese 

 traditions, inscriptions, and chronicles, which point to an 

 Aryan descent, in favour of the Tamil traditions, inscrip- 

 tions, and chronicles, which, Mr. Nell says, are opposed to 

 them. , 



The Aryas were an energetic race, who, according to 

 Max Miiller, inhabited a country supposed to have been as 

 far east as the western slopes of the Belurtag and Mustag, 

 near the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes. Some of them 

 migrated to Europe, some to Persia, and some to India. 

 Their language is supposed to have been Sanskrit. They had 

 a religion of their own. They knew certain arts and sciences, 

 and brought with them a system of astronomy, astrology, 

 and jurisprudence, and the art of medicine, which were 

 developed to a great extent after they had settled down in 

 India. With their religion they introduced a system of caste. 



According to Amarakosha, the Sanskrit vocabulary by 

 Amarasi^ha, the division was as follows : — 1, Brahmana, or 

 the priestly class ; 2, Kshatrya, the military class ; 3, Vaisya 

 and Sudras ; the rest were all Mlecchas or babarians to the 

 Aryas. Even the Draviras, before they became converts 

 to the Vaidic religion of the Aryas, were called Mlecchas. 

 The Vaisyas were divided into three classes : the Bhu-vaisya, 



