Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1116

 1092 TAPUOBANE. by the Aethiopians, and, after a time, with one other coinpanion, placed in a boat and left to his fate. After a lon<; voyage, he came to an island, rich in all kinds of natural productions and 5000 stadia round (^ffTpoyyvXr] fifp vnapxavar] tm ffX'^M")- lambulus stayeil there seven years, and thence went to Palibothra, where he was well received by the king, who is said to have been (piAeWiju (Diod. ii. 55, &c.). That the details of this voyage are fabulous no one can doubt, yet the narrative is probably founded on fact, and points to an early intercourse between the shores of Eastern Africa and India. The fullest and by far the most interesting account of Ceylon, is that preserved by Cosnias Indicopleus- tes, which was published by Montfaucon (^Coll. Nov. Pair. ii. p. 336). Cosmas, who flourished in the reign of Justinian, about a.d. 535, states that he obtained his information from a Greek named So- patius, whom he met at Adulis. According to this writer, the Taprobane of the Greeks is the Sielediba of the Hindus, an island lying beyond the Pepper Coast, or Malabar, and having near it a great number of small islands (i. e. the Maldwes). He reckons it about 900 miles in length and breadth, a measure he deduces from a native measure called Gaiidia (still said to be known in the island, and the same as the Tamil naliguai, Vincent, ii. p. 506). There were, at the time he received his information, two kings in the island, one the possessor of the Hyacinth (i. e. of the mountain districts which abound in pre- cious stones), and the other of the plain country and coast, where in later times the Arabians, Portu- guese, Dutch, and English, h.ave in succession esta- blished factories. A Christian church, he adds, was established there eiri.'Srifi.ovvroiv Tlepffocv Xpicr- Tiavcit', with a priest and deacon ordained in Per- sia. There is no doubt that these were Nestorians, whose Catholicos resided at Ctesiphon, and who, on the Malabar coast, are often called Christians of St. Thomas. He determines the position of Sielediba, by stating that it is as far from it to China, as from the Persian Gulf to the island (p. 138). Again, he says, which is less correct, that Sielediba is five days' sail from the continent ; and that on the con- tinent is a place named ]Iarallo {Islarawar ?), which produces the pearl oysters ; and adds, that the kirjg of Ceylon sells elephants for their height ; and that in India elephants are trained for war, while in Africa they are captured for their ivory. Horses imported from Persia pay no tax. It is remark- able that this notice of the elephants is in strict accordance with that of Aelian, who asserts that they were bred in Ceylon and transported in large native vessels to the opposite continent, and sold to the king of Calingae {Hist. An. xxvi. 1 8). Pliny (I. c), on the authority of Onesicri- tas, affirms that larger and more warlike elephants are reared in this island than anywhere else in India, and that the huntingof themwasaconstantsport: and Ptolemy places under the JIalea JI. {Adam's Peak) his ^Ki6.vTwv voixai, in the exact position in which they were, till lately, most abundant (vii. 4. § 8). The testimony of all modern travellers on the subject of the Ceylon elephant is, that those bearing great tusks, and therefure valuable for their ivory, are ex- tremely rare in the island. (Compare also Dionys. Perieg. v. 593, who calls Ceylon fx.'i^rfpa ' hair^yn'iwv iM<pavT(^v; Alex. Lychn. in Steph. B., who speaks of ev^piuot ihicpavTes as the product of the island ; Solin. c. 56; and Tzetzes Chil. viii. Hist. 215). Cosnias concludes his remarkable story with a notice TAPROBANE. of a conference between the king of Ceylon and So- ' patrus, in which the latter convinced the king that the Eomans were a greater people than the Persians, by exhibiting some gold coins of Byzantium. It confirms the veracity of the narrator that we know from other sources that the Sassanian princes of the sixth century had only silver money, while at the capital of the Eastern Empire gold coin was not rare. There were many temples in the island, one of them famous for a hyacinth of extraordinaiy size. Few islands have borne, at different times, so large a number of names : as many of these have consider- able interest, we shall notice them in succession. The first, as we have stated, by which it was known to the Greeks was TairpoSdvy]. Several ex- planations have been given of this name ; the best is probably Tamraparni (Sanscrit for red-leaved ; cf. Burnouf, Joiirn. Asiat. viii. p. 147 ; Mahairanso, ed. Turnour, p. 50; Lassen, Inst. Ling. Pracrit. p. 246), a form slightly changed from the Pali Tdnibapatini, the spot where the first king Vigaya is said to have landed {Makawanso, I. c). This name is not un- known in other Indian writings : thus we find so named a place on the adjoining continent of Hindo- stdn, and a river of the same district which flows from the Ghats into the sea near Tinnevelly (Wilson, Vishnu Purana, p. 176); and a pearl-fishery at the mouth of this stream is noticed in the Raghu-vansa (iv. p. 50; cf. also Vishmi Purana, p. 175, and Asiat. Pesearck. viii. p. 330). Other interpretations of Taprobane may be found in Bochart {Geogr. Sacra, p. 692), who, after the fashion of the scholars of his day, derives it from two Hebrew words, and imagines it the Ophir of the Bible ; Wahl {Erdheschr. r. Ost-lndien, ii. 682, 683), Mannert (v. p. 285), Duncan (Asiat. Research, v. p. 39), Gladwin {Ayin Akheri, iii. 36), Bohlen {Altes Indien, i. 27), Vin- cent {Peripliis, ii. p. 493), none of which are, how- ever, free from objection. There can be no doubt that the early language of Ceylon approximated very closely to that of the adjoining continent, and was, in fact, a form of Tamil. (Cf. Rask, Cingal. Sh'ift.jt. 1, Colombo, 1821; Buchanan Hamilton, ap. M. JIartin's East India, ii. p. 795; cf also Ptol. viii. 1. § 80). It may be observed that the name Tdmbapanni is found in the Girnar inscrip- tion of Asoka (li. c. 280), and would therefore na- turally be known to the Seleucidan Greeks. {As. Journ. Beng. vii. p. 159.) We may add that Pliny states that the ancient inhabitants were called by Megasthenes Palaeogoni {I. c), doubtless the transLation into Greek of some Indian name. It is not impossible that Megasthenes may have been acquainted with the Indian fable, which made the Rakshasas, or Giants, the children of the Earth, the earlie>t inhabitants of this island. The nest name we find applied to Ceylon was that of Simundu or Palaesimundu, which is found after the time of Strabo, but had, nevertheless, gone out of use before Ptolemy. (Ptol. /. c. ; Steph. B. s. V. Taprobane ; Peripl. M. E., ed. Hudson, J). 2; JIarcian, ed. Hudson, p. 26, and pp. 2, 9.) There is a difficulty at first sight about these names, as to which form is the correct one: on the whole, we are inclined to acquiesce in that of Palaesimundu {UaXaiaifxovvZov), on the authority of Marcian {I. c.) and of the Periplus (§61, ed. Miiller). Pliny, too, in his account of the embassy to Rome, calls the city, where the royal palace was, Palaesimundu. There can be little doubt that this word is the Graecised form of the Sanscrit Puli-Simanta, the