Form of Government—­The form of government was at all times an unmitigated despotism; the king had ministers, but only to relieve him of personal toil, and the institution of Gam-sabes, or village municipalities, which existed in every hamlet, however small, was merely a miniature council of the peasants, in which they settled all disputes about descent and proprietorship, and maintained the organisation essential to their peculiar tillage; facilitating at the same time the payment of dues to the crown, both in taxes and labour.

Revenue.—­The main sources of revenue were taxes, both on the land and its produce; and these were avowedly so oppressive in amount, that the merit of having reduced or suspended their assessment, was thought worthy of being engraved on rocks by the sovereigns who could claim it.  In the inscription at the temple of Dambool, A.D. 1187, the king boasts of having “enriched the inhabitants who had become impoverished by inordinate taxes, and made them opulent by gifts of land, cattle, and slaves, by relinquishing the revenues for five years, and restoring inheritances, and by annual donations of five times the weight of the king’s person in gold, precious stones, pearls, and silver; and from an earnest wish that succeeding kings should not again impoverish the inhabitants of Ceylon by levying excessive imposts, he fixed the revenue at a moderate amount, according to the fertility of the land."[1]

[Footnote 1:  TURNOUR’s Epitome App. p. 95; Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 211]

There was likewise an imperial tax upon produce, originally a tenth, but subject to frequent variation.[1] For instance, in consideration of the ill-requited toil of felling the forest land.  In order to take a crop of dry grain, the soil being unequal to sustain continued cultivation, the same king seeing that “those who laboured with the bill-hook In clearing thorny jungles, earned their livelihood distressfully,” ordained that this chena cultivation, as it is called, should be for ever exempted from taxation.

[Footnote 1:  Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.]

Army and Navy.—­The military and naval forces of Ceylon were chiefly composed of foreigners.  The genius of the native population was at all times averse to arms; from the earliest ages, the soldiers employed by the crown were mercenaries, and to this peculiarity may be traced the first encouragement given to the invasion of the Malabars.  These were employed both on land and by sea In the third century before Christ[1]; and it was not till the eleventh century of our era, that a marine was organised for the defence of the coast.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxi. p. 127.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., ch. xxxix.; TURNOUR’S MS. Transl. p. 269.]

The mode of raising a national force to make war against the invaders, is described in the Mahawanso[1]; the king issuing commands to ten warriors to enlist each ten men, and each of this hundred in turn to enrol ten more, and each of the new levy, ten others, till “the whole company embodied were eleven thousand one hundred and ten.”