The historical notices of the island by the Chinese relative to the period immediately preceding the fourteenth century, are meagre, and confined to a native tradition that “about 400 years after the establishment of the kingdom, the Great Dynasty fell into decay, when there was but one man of wisdom and virtue belonging to the royal house to whom the people became attached:  the monarch thereupon caused him to be thrown into prison; but the lock opened of its own accord, and the king thus satisfied of his sacred character did not venture to take his life, but drove him into banishment to India (Teen chuh), whence, after marrying a royal princess, he was recalled to Ceylon on the death of the tyrant, where he reigned twenty years, and was succeeded by his son, Po-kea Ta-To."[l] In this story may probably be traced the extinction of the “Great Dynasty” of Ceylon, on the demise of Maha-Sen, and the succession of the Sulu-wanse, or Lower Dynasty, in the person of Kitsiri Maiwan, A.D. 301, whose son, Detu Tissa, may possibly be the Po-kea Ta-to of the Chinese Chronicle.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Leang-shoo, “History of the Leang Dynasty,” b. liv. p. 10.]

[Footnote 2:  Mahawanso, c. xxxvii. p 242.  TURNOUR’S Epitome, &c., p. 24.]

The visit of Fa Hian, the zealous Buddhist pilgrim, in the fifth century of our era, has been already frequently adverted to.[1] He landed in Ceylon A.D. 412, and remained for two years at Anarajapoora, engaged in transcribing the sacred books.  Hence his descriptions are confined almost exclusively to the capital; and he appears to have seen little of the rest of the island.  He dwells with delight on the magnificence of the Buddhist buildings, the richness of their jewelled statues, and the prodigious dimensions of the dagobas, one of which, from its altitude and solidity, was called the “Mountain without fear."[2] But what most excited his admiration was his finding no less than 5000 Buddhist priests at the capital, 2000 in a single monastery on a mountain (probably Mihintala), and between 50,000 and 60,000 dispersed throughout the rest of the island.[3] Pearls and gems were the wealth of Ceylon; and from the latter the king derived a royalty of three out of every ten discovered.[4]

[Footnote 1:  The Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki, or “Description of Buddhist Kingdoms,” by FA-HIAN, has been translated by Remusat, and edited by Klaproth and Landresse, 4to.  Paris, 1836.]

[Footnote 2:  In Chinese, Woo-wei.]

[Footnote 3:  Fo[)e]-Kou[)e] Ki, c. xxxviii. pp. 333, 334.]

[Footnote 4:  Ibid., c. xxxvii. p. 328.]

The earliest embassy from Ceylon recorded in the Chinese[1] annals at the beginning of the fifth century, appears to have proceeded overland by way of India, and was ten years before reaching the capital of China.  It was the bearer of “a jade-stone image of Buddha, exhibiting every colour in purity and richness, in workmanship unique, and appearing to be beyond human art[2].”