Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/527

* CEYLON. 449 CEYLON. a director assisted by a staff of inspectors. The total uuiuber of schools in 1899 was 3040, with a total attendance of over 193,000, or a little less than 6 per cent, of the total population. Of the total number of schools, 489 were maintained by the Government, 1263 received grants in aid, and 1887 were unaided. Among the educational establishments of the island there are two col- leges, one agricultural school, and one school of forestry, and a number of industrial schools. l.MiABiTANT.s. According to the census of 1901, the total number of inhabitants of Ceylon, including all races, was 3,570,990. The two principal races are the Singhalese and the Tamil. The Singhalese form about two-thirds of the native population and they live in the southern and south central portit)n of the island. They are the descendants of colonists from the valley of the Ganges who first settled on the island during the Sixth Centurv' B.C. In their customs, costume, and general appearance, they have re- mained unchanged since the days of Ptolemy. The dress of the men, who have delicate features and slender limbs, is singularly effeminate, and consists of a comboy, fastened at the waist and hanging straight to the ankles in a manner very much resembling a white cotton petticoat, while a jacket of white linen or duck covers the upper part of the body. Their long hair, turned back from the foreliead, is confined with combs, and earrings are worn by way of ornament. The women, in addition to the comboy, cover the upper part of the figure with a white muslin jacket, and adorn themselves with necklaces, bangles, rings, and jewelry. The Singhalese are -Aryans by language, but in blood they are some- what mixed, though fundamentally of the white race. The Kandyans, or ' Highlanders, are a sturdy race, and maintained their independence for centuries after the conquest of the low country by European settlers. They keep up more of their ancient customs than the coast Singhalese. Polyandry, which was formerly universal, still lingers among them, and is an ancient usage to which they strongly adhere. The Malabars, or Tamils, are of Dravidian stock and are sprung from those early invaders of Ceylon who from time to time swept across from southern Hindu- stan, and contended with the Singhalese kings for the sovereignty of the island. The Moormen, so called by the Portuguese, are the most ener- getic and intelligent of the native communities, and are met with in every province as enter- prising traders. They are a very distinct race from the Singhalese, but have no tradition of their origin. Europeans generally believe them to be of Arab descent, but Tennent is of the opin- ion that "they may be a remnant of the Persians, by whom the island was freqviented in the Fourth and Fifth centuries." The Tamils are largely devotees of Hinduism, while the Singhalese are Buddhists: Ceylonese Buddhism, indeed, is the most vigorous branch of that faith. The "burghers' are a people of European de- scent, who have become naturalized. Those of Portuguese extraction hold the lowest place, and are mostly tradesmen and artisans; but the Dutch burghers frequently fill responsible posts, and are employed in the Government offices. The aboriginal inhabitants of the country are represented by the Veddas. a people occupying one of the lowest stages in hiiman culture at the present time. They number about 3000, and oc- cupy a district in the eastern part of the i.sland, where they have preserved their ancient customs and maimer of living for more than 2000 years. They appear to have little religion, although they recognize gods, as Vilhelm Geiger's investi- gations liave shown. The tribe is divided into the Coast Veddas, Rock Veddas, and Village Ved- das. The Coast Veddas are a little more civilized than the others. The Rock Veddas hide them- selves in the jungle, live by the chase, and sleep in trees or caves. They use fire to cook their meat, and their greatest gastronomic treats are the iguana lizard and roasted monkey. The vil- lage Veddas locate themselves in the vicinity of European settlements on the eastern coast, living in rude huts of mud and bark, and are hardly more civilized than their brethren of the jungles. The exertions of the Government to reclaim this shy and harmless but degraded people have in some degree succeeded. Langiage and Litebatube. The Ceylonese, Singhalese, or Sinhalese is a modern Indian dia- lect spoken in the south of Ceylon, while a Dravidian dialect, the Tamil, is the language ot the northern part of the island. The Singhalese is allied most closely to the ilahfirashtri Prak- rit, and the Pali, the most important Middle Indian dialects, and it seems to have come from the northwest of India. The Singhalese differs more from the Prakrit and Pali than is the ease with most of the modern Indian dialects. The change of vowels on account of a following u, or i ('umlaut'), the entire loss of the aspirates, and the change of c to s, and of j to d, while s, whether original or developed, may become h or remain imchanged, are noteworthy character- istics of this dialect. In its nominal system Singhalese has become analytic, like the other modern Indian dialects, but in its verbal system it represents a comparatively old stage of lin- guistic development. There was formerly much discussion whether Singhalese was an Indian or a Dravidian language. It is now, however, gener- ally regarded as a true Aryan dialect, despite the many loan-words which have been incorpo- rated into its vocabiilary. The older form of Singhalese is called Elu, which is still employed for poetical composition. Dialects of the Sin- ghalese are Maldive. and the patois of the Ved- das, as well as the jargon of the Rodiyas, which seems to be a slang of the standard language. Singhalese is written in a special, graceful char- acter, apparently derived, like the epigraphical letters, from the Brahmt alphabet of the Asoka inscriptions. ■ Singhalese literature is rather scanty. The oldest monument of it is a glossary to the com- mentary on the Dhammapada in the Tenth Cen- tury. The prose literature is chiefly religious, but there are also grammatical works, such as the f^iddt-sanffdrax-a, and, what is especially note- worthy in Indian literature, histories, such as the Dlpavansa. The golden period of Singhalese poetry was in the Fifteenth Century, when the l^iilaUhini-sandeiaya was written. !Many of the poems deal with the Buddhist birth-stories, or Jatakas, as the ku.iajataka of Alagiyavanna Mohottala or Mukavcti, a poet of the Singhalese Renaissance at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. There are many inscriptions in Singha- lese, dating from the last centuries n.c. to the Xineteenth Century .n. .fter the Fifth Cen- tury, however, they are comparatively infrequent.