lpless
bondage, so slavery in Ceylon was an attribute of race[1]; and those
condemned to it were doomed to toil from their birth, with no requital
other than the obligation on the part of their masters to maintain them
in health, to succour them in sickness, and apportion their burdens to
their strength.[2] And although the liberality of theoretical Buddhism
threw open, even to the lowest caste, all the privileges of the
priesthood, the slave alone was repulsed, on the ground that his
admission would deprive the owner of his services.[3]

[Footnote 1: In later times, slavery was not confined to the low castes;
insolvents could be made slaves by their creditors--the chief frequently
buying the debt, and attaching the debtor to his followers. The children
of freemen, by female slaves, followed the status of their mothers.]

[Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. x. p. 482.]

[Footnote 3: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. iv. p. 18.]

Like other property, slaves could be possessed by the Buddhist
monasteries, and inscriptions, still existing upon the rocks of
Mihintala and Dambool, attest the capacity of the priests to receive
them as gifts, and to require that as slaves they should be exempted
from taxation.

Unrelaxed in its assertion of abstract right, but mitigated in the forms
of its practical enforcement, slavery endured in Ceylon till
extinguished by the fiat of the British Government in 1845.[1] In the
northern and Tamil districts of the island, its characteristics differed
considerably from its aspect in the south and amongst the Kandyan
mountains. In the former, the slaves were employed in the labours of the
field and rewarded with a small proportion of the produce; but amongst
the pure Singhalese, slavery was domestic rather than praedial, and those
born to its duties were employed less as the servants, than as the suite
of the Kandyan chiefs. Slaves swelled the train of their retainers on
all occasions of display, and had certain domestic duties assigned to
them, amongst which was the carrying of fire-wood, and the laying out of
the corpse after death. The strongest proof of the general mildness of
their treatment in all parts of the island, is derived from the fact,
that when in 1845, Lord Stanley, now the Earl of Derby, directed the
final abolition of the system, slavery was extinguished in Ceylon
without a claim for compensation on the part of the proprietors.

[Footnote 1: An account of slavery in Ceylon