The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s10.10

c5.s10.10

Laṅkā—1 Ceylon 2 The town of Laṅkā or Laṅkāpatanam is said to be a mountain on the south east corner of Ceylon, it is described as Trikūṭa or three-peaked in the Rāmāyaṇa (Sundara K, ch I) and was the abode of Ravana (Laṅkā Kāṇḍa, ch 12). It is believed by some to be the present Mantotto in Ceylon others think it to be a town submerged (Mutu Coomara Swamy's Dāṭhavaṃsa p 97) There is a place called Nikumbhilā, about 40 miles from Colombo where Indrajit performed his sacrifice (Buddhist Text Society's Journal vol III pt I, appendix) There are some very good reasons to suppose that Laṅkā and Ceylon are not identical islands (1) the Rāmāyaṇa (Kishk K, ch 41) says that one must cross the river Tāmraparṇī and go to the south of the Mahendra range which abuts into the ocean and cross it to reach Laṅkā, or in other words, the island of Laṅkā, according to the Rāmāyaṇa, was situated to the south of the Cardamum Mountains which form the southern portion of the Mahendra range, while if Ceylon be the ancient Laṅkā, one is not required to cross the Tāmraparṇī river to go to the southern extremity of the Mahendra Mountain in order to reach that island by the Adam’s Bridge (or Setubandha Rāmeśvara); (2) Barāha-mihira, the celebrated astronomer, says that Ujjayinī and Laṅkā are situated on the same meridian, while Ceylon lies far to the east of this meridian; (3) Some of the works of the Pauranic times mention Laṅkā and Siṃhala (the corruption of which is Ceylon) as distinct islands (Bṛihat-Saṃhitā, ch. 14 and Devī P., chs. 42, 46). On the other hand, the Mahāvaṃśa, the most ancient history of Ceylon composed in the 5th century A.D., distinctly mentions that the island of Laṅkā was called Siṃhala by Vijaya after his conquest, and calls Duṭṭhagāmani and Parākramabāhu kings of Laṅkā or Siṃhala (Geiger’s Mahāvaṃśa, chs. VII, XXXI). The Rājāvalī also mentions the tradition of the war of Rāvaṇa in the island of Ceylon (Upham’s Rājāvalī, pt. I). Dhammakitti, the author of the Dāṭhāvaṃśa, who lived in the twelfth century A.D., in the reign of Parākramabāhu I, king of Ceylon, states that Siṃhala and Laṅkā are the same island. It is called Zeilan or Silan (Ceylon) by Marco Polo, who visited it in the thirteenth century A.D. (Wright’s Marco Polo). For other derivations of the name of Silan, see Col. Yule’s Travels of Marco Polo, vol. II, p. 254, note.