278 journal, r.a.s. (geylon). [Vol. II., Part II, 



author of a beautiful work called Safiga Raja guna alankdre, 

 may serve as au example : — 



(1) £)Q © &Q25)d ©® &® 8<§ QabGD &$Q) 



(2) q@ © 8<§ Qz^€S ®©©c) gdsd o<J(3c)S3© C£f8 



(3) @^3(§i) cf^SDaf <q(§8<§ ©358c) ^0 



(4) 8(§ © QD(3©@»© ^(3^©@GD^f (3t^C3 Q)Qq)Q3 <g>&f0 



(1) To several chiefs have I sung to obtain clothes ; (2) if for my 

 inward coat I have received coarse cloth, (3) and although leaves 

 can be worn by being woven together, coarse cloth can I not wear 

 outermost ; (4 ) Chief Pilime Talawa will, however, give me 

 (something fine'") as a token of remembrance. 



There are also different kinds of " puns " by poets, soaring 

 high in the immense regions of fancy ; and to give even a 

 sketch of these beauties of native literature is to exceed the 

 bounds of this Paper. I may however mention a few. 

 Under the head of pun I may include that which is known 

 as the English "acrostic." However, the Sinhalese lan- 

 guage, which has certain sounds with which one cannot 

 commence a line {e.g., c$ I), is ill-adapted to this species 

 of composition, which on that account is rare in the 

 Sinhalese. In the absence of a suitable specimen from a 

 book, I shall here present the reader with a letter forwarded 

 by the writer a few months ago to a friend : — 



S333C>S). 



€3C5q t3qZ%i@\&)B c^C£> & 

 Rev. Bulatgaraa, of universally esteemed fame, like the moon in 



* The words within parantheses in the translation are introduced 

 here, as elsewhere, to explain what the idiom of the language conveys 

 to the reader. 



