n and western coasts of Ceylon, and the Yakkhos the
interior[5]; and, notwithstanding their alleged barbarism, both had
organised some form of government, however rude.[6] The Yakkhos had a
capital which they called Lankapura, and the Nagas a king, the
possession of whose "throne of gems"[7] was disputed by the rival
sovereign of a neighbouring kingdom. So numerous were the followers of
this gloomy idolatry of that time in Ceylon, that they gave the name of
Nagadipo[8], _the_ _Island of Serpents_, to the portion of the country
which they held, in the same manner that Rhodes and Cyprus severally
acquired the ancient designation of _Ophiusa_, from the fact of their
being the residence of the Ophites, who introduced serpent-worship into
Greece.[9]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii.; FA HIAN, _Fo[)e]-kou[)e]-ki_, ch.
xxxvii.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 169.]

[Footnote 3: REINAUD, Introd. to _Abouldfeda_, vol. i. sec. iii. p.
ccxvi. See also CLOUGH'S _Singhalese Dictionary_, vol. ii. p. 2.]

[Footnote 4: MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S, _History of India_, b. iv. ch.
xi. p. 216.]

[Footnote 5: The first descent of Gotama Buddha in Ceylon was amongst
the Yakkhos at Bintenne; in his second visit he converted the "_Naga_
King of Kalany," near Colombo, _Mahawanso_, ch. i. p. 5.]

[Footnote 6: FABER, _Origin of Idolatry_, b. ii ch. vii. p. 440.]

[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. i.]

[Footnote 8: TURNOUR was unable to determine the position on the modern
map of the ancient territory of Nagadipo.--Introd. p. xxxiv. CASIE
CHITTY, in a paper in the _Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society_, 1848,
p. 71, endeavours to identify it with Jaffna, The _Rajaratnacari_ places
it at the present Kalany, on the river of that name near Colombo (vol.
ii. p. 22). The _Mahawanso_ in many passages alludes to the existence of
Naga kingdoms on the continent of India, showing that at that time
serpent-worship had not been entirely extinguished by Brahmanism in the
Dekkan, and affording an additional ground for conjecture that the first
inhabitants of Ceylon were a colony from the opposite coast of Calinga.]

[Footnote 9: BRYANT'S _Analysis of Mythology_, chapter on Ophiolatria,
vol. i p. 480, "Euboea means _Oub-aia_, and signifies the serpent
island." (_Ib_.)

But STRABO affords us a still more striking illustration of the
_Mahawanso_, in calling the serpent worshippers of Ceylon "Serpents,"
since he states that in Phrygia and on the Hellespont t