Only one embassy is mentioned in the seventh century, when Dalu-piatissa despatched “a memorial and offerings of native productions;"[1] but there were four in the century following[2], after which there occurs an interval of above five hundred years, during which the Chinese writers are singularly silent regarding Ceylon; but the Singhalese historians incidentally mention that swords and musical instruments were then imported from China, for the use of the native forces, and that Chinese soldiers took service in the army of Prakrama III.  A.D. 1266.[3]

[Footnote 1:  A.D. 670. Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei, b. dcccclxx. p. 16.  It was in the early part of this century, during a period of intestine commotion, when the native princes were overawed by the Malabars, that Hiouen-Thsang met on the coast of India fugitives from Ceylon, from whom he derived his information as to the internal condition of the island, A.D. 629—­633.  See Transl. by STANISLAS JULIEN, “La Vie de Hiouen-Thsang,” Paris, 1853, pp. 192—­198.]

[Footnote 2:  A.D. 711, A.D. 746, A.D. 750, and A.D. 762. Ts[)i]h-foo yuen-kwei, b. dcccclxxi. p. 17.  On the second occasion (A.D. 746) the king, who despatched the embassy, is described as sending as his envoy a “Brahman priest, the anointed graduate of the threefold repository, bearing as offerings head-ornaments of gold, precious neck-pendants, a copy of the great Prajna Sutra, and forty webs of fine cotton cloth.”]

[Footnote 3:  See the Kawia-sakara, written about A.D. 1410.]

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the only records of intercourse relate to the occasional despatch of public officers by the emperor of China to collect gems and medical drugs, and on three successive occasions during the earlier part of the Yuen dynasty, envoys were empowered to negotiate the purchase of the sacred alms-dish of Buddha.[1]

[Footnote 1:  “In front of the image of Buddha there is a sacred bowl which is neither made of jade, nor copper, nor iron; it is of a purple colour and glossy, and when struck it sounds like glass.  At the commencement of the Yuen dynasty, three separate envoys were sent to obtain it.”—­Taou-e che-leo “Account of Island Foreigners,” A.D. 1350, quoted in the “Foreign Geography”, b. xviii. p. 15.  This statement of the Chinese authorities corroborates the story told by MARCO POLO, possibly from personal knowledge, that “the Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to Ceylon with a request that the king would yield to him possession of ‘the great ruby’ in return for the ’value of a city.’”—­(Travels, ch. xix.) The MS. of MARCO POLO, which contains the Latin version of his Travels, is deposited in the Imperial Library of Paris, and it is remarkable that a passage in it, which seems to be wanting in the Italian and other MSS., confirms this account of the Chinese annalists, and states that the alms-dish of Buddha was at length