Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s38.57

c11.s38.57

Ceylon, like South India, steps into the light of history with its notice by Megasthenes and by the Aśoka inscriptions—both under the name Tāmbapaṇṇi which becomes Taprabane with the Greek writer. The opening chapters of the *Mahāvamsa* contain much edifying legend about the Buddha's visits to the island, the arrival of Vijaya, and his encounter with Kuvaṇṇā (Kuveṇi in other accounts), and his marriage with a princess from the Pāṇḍya country. Modern research has shown that the primitive population of the island were the Vaeddas, who were hunters living in forests and natural rock-dwellings ; the first immigrants into the island were probably people from the Malabar coasts who called themselves Nāgas and gave the name Nāgadvipa to the northern section of the island, the ancestors of the modern Nāyars of Malabar—Nāya being but the Prākṛit form of the word Nāga. The Vijaya legend, the Sinhalese language, and the Brāhmi script of the earliest inscriptions, are clear proofs of the advent of North Indian influences directly by sea, and the story of the marriage of Vijaya with a Pāṇḍyan princess represents perhaps the growth of contact between Ceylon and South India after they had both been Aryanized, each in its own way. Sinhalese memory goes back to a time prior to the advent of Vijaya when trading vessels coming in search of local products like ivory, wax, incense, pearls and gems, were sometimes wrecked on the shores of Ceylon. Much of this pre-history is necessarily speculative, and there can be no certainty about details. By the beginning of the Mauryan period in India, however, we may be certain that important settlements had been established in different parts of Ceylon and a fairly high degree of culture attained. The northern plain where was located Anurādhapura, the capital city, Rōhaṇa in the South-east, and Kalyāṇi in the South-west were perhaps the most notable divisions in this period, and they might have started as independent colonies established by separate groups of settlers from the different parts of the mainland, being the first fruits, as it were, of the overflow beyond the limits of India proper and across the sea of the great movement of Aryan expansion begun in Vedic times. Agriculture was practised and rice grown in considerable quantity to meet the necessities of a growing population; artificial irrigation by means of dams thrown across rivers and canals taking off from them had come into vogue; and the art of building with large-sized burnt bricks was known.