[Footnote 2:  Rajaratnacari, ch. ii., Rajavali, b. i. p. 185.]

[Footnote 3:  The king was Mahachula, 77 B.C.—­Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv.]

From the necessity of providing food for their followers, the earliest attention of the Bengal conquerors was directed to the introduction and extension of agriculture.  A passage in the Mahawanso would seem to imply, that previous to the landing of Wijayo, rice was imported for consumption[1], and upwards of two centuries later the same authority specifies “one hundred and sixty loads of hill-paddi,"[2] among the presents which were sent to the island from Bengal.

[Footnote 1:  Kuweni distributed to the companions of Wijayo; “rice and other articles, procured from the wrecked ships of mariners.” (Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 49.) A tank is mentioned as then existing near the residence of Kuweni; but it was only to be used as a bath. (Ib. c. vii. p. 48.) The Rajaratnacari also mentions that, in the fabulous age of the second Buddha, of the present Kalpa, there was a famine in Ceylon, which dried up the cisterns and fountains of the inland.  But there is no evidence of the existence of systematic tillage anterior to the reign of Wijayo.]

[Footnote 2:  Mahawanso, ch. xi. p. 70. Paddi is rice before it has been freed from the husk.]

[Sidenote:  B.C. 504.]

In a low and level country like the north of Ceylon, where the chief subsistence of the people is rice, a grain which can only be successfully cultivated under water, the first requisites of society are reservoirs and canals.  The Buddhist historians extol the father of Wijayo for his judgment and skill “in forming villages in situations favourable for irrigation;"[1] his own attention was fully engrossed with the cares attendant on the consolidation of his newly acquired power; but the earliest public work undertaken by his successor Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was a tank, which he caused to be formed in the vicinity of his new capital Anarajapoora, the Anurogrammum of Ptolemy, originally a village founded by one of the followers of Wijayo.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. vi. p. 46.]

[Footnote 2:  The first tank recorded in Ceylon is the Abayaweva, made by Panduwasa, B.C. 505 (Mahawanso, ch. ix. p. 57).  The second was the Jayaweva, formed by Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437. (Ib. ch. x. p. 65.) The third, the Gamini tank, made by the same king at the same place, Anarajapoora.—­Ib. ch. x. p. 66.]

[Sidenote:  B.C. 307.]

The continual recurrence of records of similar constructions amongst the civil exploits of nearly every succeeding sovereign, together with the prodigious number formed, alike attests the unimproved condition of Ceylon, prior to the arrival of the Bengal invaders, and the indolence or ignorance of the original inhabitants, as contrasted with the energy and skill of their first conquerors.