class="label">[6] The statement of I-Ching that a wicked king destroyed Buddhism in Funan is important.

CHAPTER XXXV

CEYLON

1

The island of Ceylon, perhaps the most beautiful tropical country in the world, lies near the end of the Indian peninsula but a little to the east. At one point a chain of smaller islands and rocks said to have been built by Rama as a passage for his army of monkeys leads to the mainland. It is therefore natural that the population should have relations with southern India. Sinhalese art, religion and language show traces of Tamil influence but it is somewhat surprising to find that in these and in all departments of civilization the influence of northern India is stronger. The traditions which explain the connection of Ceylon with this distant region seem credible and the Sinhalese, who were often at war with the Tamils, were not disposed to imitate their usages, although juxtaposition and invasion brought about much involuntary resemblance.

The school of Buddhism now professed in Ceylon, Burma and Siam is often called Sinhalese and (provided it is not implied that its doctrines originated in Ceylon) the epithet is correct. For the school ceased to exist in India and in the middle ages both Burma and Siam accepted the authority of the Sinhalese Sangha.[10] This Sinhalese school seems to be founded on the doctrines and scriptures accepted in the time of Asoka in Magadha and though the faith may have been codified and supplemented in its new home, I see no evidence that it underwent much corruption or even development. One is inclined at first to think that the Hindus, having a continuous living tradition connecting them with Gotama who was himself a Hindu, were more likely than these distant islanders to preserve the spirit of his teaching. But there is another side to the question. The Hindus being addicted to theological and metaphysical studies produced original thinkers who, if not able to found new religions, at least modified what their predecessors had laid down. If certain old texts were held in too high esteem to be neglected, the ingenuity of the commentator rarely failed to reinterpret them as favourable to the views popular in his time. But the Sinhalese had not this passion for theology. So far as we can judge of them in earlier periods they were endowed with an amiable and receptive but somewhat indolent temperament, moderate gifts in art and literature and a moderate love and understanding of theology. Also their chiefs claimed to have come from northern India and were inclined to accept favourably anything which had the same origin. These are exactly the surroundings in which a religion can flourish without change for many centuries and Buddhism in Ceylon acquired stability because it also acquired a certain national and patriotic flavour: it was the faith of the Sinhalese and not of the invading Tamils. Such Sinhalese kings as had the power protected the Church and erected magnificent buildings for its service.

If Sinhalese tradition may be believed, the first historical contact with northern India was the expedition of Vijaya, who with 700 followers settled in the island about the time of the Buddha's death. Many details of the story are obviously invented. Thus in order to explain why Ceylon is called Sinhala, Vijaya is made the grandson of an Indian princess who lived with a lion. But though these legends inspire mistrust, it is a fact that the language of Ceylon in its earliest known form is a dialect closely connected with Pali (or rather with the spoken dialect from which ecclesiastical Pali was derived) and still more closely with the Mahârâshtri Prakrit of western India. It is not however a derivative of this Prakrit but parallel to it and in some words presents older forms.[11] It does not seem possible to ascribe the introduction of this language to the later mission of Mahinda, for, though Buddhist monks have in many countries influenced literature and the literary vocabulary, no instance is recorded of their changing the popular speech.[12] But Vijaya is said to have conquered Ceylon and to have slaughtered many of its ancient inhabitants, called Yakkhas,[13] of whom we know little except that Sinhalese contains some un-Aryan words probably borrowed from them. According to the Dîpavaṃsa,[14] Vijaya started from Bharukaccha or Broach and both language and such historical facts as we know confirm the tradition that some time before the third century B.C. Ceylon was conquered by Indian immigrants from the west coast.

It would not be unreasonable to suppose that Vijaya introduced into Ceylon the elements of Buddhism, but there is little evidence to indicate that it was a conspicuous form of religion in India in his time. Sinhalese tradition maintains that not only Gotama himself but also the three preceding Buddhas were miraculously transported to Ceylon and made arrangements for its conversion. Gotama is said to have paid no less than three visits:[15] all are obviously impossible and were invented to enhance the glory of the island. But the legends which relate how Paṇḍuvâsudeva came from India to succeed Vijaya, how he subsequently had a Sakya princess brought over from India to be his wife and how her brothers established cities in Ceylon,