[Footnote 3: Watters, _Yüan Chuang_, vol. II. p. 228.]
[Footnote 4: But not contemporary Annals. The Liang Annals make the statement about the reign of Hsüan Li 73-49 B.C.]
[Footnote 5: Especially at Ligor or Dharmaraja.]
[Footnote 6: The statement of I-Ching that a wicked king destroyed Buddhism in Funan is important.]
[Footnote 7: See Fleet in _J.R.A.S._ 1901, p. 548.]
[Footnote 8: There are settlements of Kalmuks near Astrakhan who have Lama temples and maintain a connection with Tibet.]
[Footnote 9: The existence of a Hindu kingdom on the _East_ Coast of Borneo in 400 A.D. or earlier is a strong argument in favour of colonization from Java. Expeditions from any other quarter would naturally have gone to the _West_ Coast. Also there is some knowledge of Java in India, but apparently none of Camboja or Champa. This suggests that Java may have been the first halting place and kept up some slight connection with the mother country.]
The island of Ceylon, perhaps the most beautiful tropical country in the world, lies near the end of the Indian peninsula but a little to the east. At one point a chain of smaller islands and rocks said to have been built by Rama as a passage for his army of monkeys leads to the mainland. It is therefore natural that the population should have relations with southern India. Sinhalese art, religion and language show traces of Tamil influence but it is somewhat surprising to find that in these and in all departments of civilization the influence of northern India is stronger. The traditions which explain the connection of Ceylon with this distant region seem credible and the Sinhalese, who were often at war with the Tamils, were not disposed to imitate their usages, although juxtaposition and invasion brought about much involuntary resemblance.
The school of Buddhism now professed in Ceylon, Burma and Siam is often called Sinhalese and (provided it is not implied that its doctrines originated in Ceylon) the epithet is correct. For the school ceased to exist in India and in the middle ages both Burma and Siam accepted the authority of the Sinhalese Sangha.[10] This Sinhalese school seems to be founded on the doctrines and scriptures accepted in the time of Asoka in Magadha and though the faith may have been codified and supplemented in its new home, I see no evidence that it underwent much corruption or even development. One is inclined at first to think that the Hindus, having a continuous living tradition connecting them with Gotama who was himself a Hindu, were more likely than these distant islanders to preserve the spirit of his teaching. But there is another side to the question. The Hindus being addicted to theological and metaphysical studies produced original thinkers who, if not able to found new religions, at least modified what their predecessors had laid down. If certain old texts were held in too high esteem to be neglected, the ingenuity of the commentator rarely failed to reinterpret them as favourable to the views popular in his time. But the Sinhalese had not this passion for theology. So far as we can judge of them in earlier periods they were endowed with an amiable and receptive but somewhat indolent temperament, moderate gifts in art and literature and a moderate love and understanding of theology. Also their chiefs claimed to have come from northern India and were inclined to accept favourably anything which had the same origin. These are exactly the surroundings in which a religion can flourish without change for many centuries and Buddhism in Ceylon acquired stability because it also acquired a certain national and patriotic flavour: it was the faith of the Sinhalese and not of the invading Tamils. Such Sinhalese kings as had the power protected the Church and erected magnificent buildings for its service.