“The Land of Delights”, Sri Lanka

An excerpt from
Ceylon, Ancient & ModernA general description of the island, historical, physical, statistical
By An officer, late of the Ceylon Rifles
London: Chapman & Hall, 193, Piccadill6 1876
Excerpt 1 from Chapter 1 of above mentioned work

Ancient Renown of Ceylon

Few countries have had a more ancient or extended renown than island of Ceylon, of whose Elysian charms ancients & moderns, Europeans & Asiatics, have alike written in terms of delight. From the earliest times a haze of romance has been thrown around it in the legends of the Hindus as the scene of the “Ramayana” one of the oldest epic poems in existence, which describes a war famous in the East as that of Troy in the West.

To the Greeks & Romans it was known as the mother of the most stately of elephants, the land of the sapphire & the hyacinth, the ruby & the pearl; an island, according to Plinny, about which many fabulous stories were circulated. The Chinese called it "the island of gems”, the Hindu poets “the pearl on the brow of India”, & the Persians “the island of rubies.” To the natives of the burning sands of Arabia, the arid & stifling coasts of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, & many parts of India, the aspect of Ceylon as it rises from the sea-its lofty mountains & shores clothed to the water’s edge with the brilliant & luxuriant vegetation of the tropics-must have been a delightful change.

Persian writers dazzle the reader’s imagination with accounts of its productions, & rave of the delights of Serendib, where Adam & Eve consoled themselves for the loss of Paradise- a land flowing with milk & honey compared to the inhospitable & barren mountains of Persia.

Wassaf, a Persian poet, says it was so arranged by the Almighty, in order to break the force of a sudden change from the best to the worst; because if Adam had been expelled from Eden to a bad climate, it would have been the death of him.

The Mohammedans have many versions concerning the expulsion of our first parents from Eden. One legend states, that when they were cast down from paradise, Adam fell on the island of Ceylon, & Eve near Jeddah, the port of Mecca; after a separation of two hundred years, Adam was conducted by the angel Gabriel to a mountain near Mecca, where he found his wife, thence called Arafat, & that they afterwards retired to Ceylon; others say Adam fell on the peak, & remained standing on one log doing penance for a number of years. (Note Sale’s Koran, ch, ii.) Some say when the expulsion took place Iblis, or Satan, was sent to Moultan, the serpent to Ispahan, Adam to Ceylon, & Eve to Jeddah. This is again varied by including the peacock, which was expelled on account of its pride in its splendid plumage, & sent to Hindustan. It is uncertain whether the idea of placing Adam in Ceylon originated with the Mohammedans or Christians; perhaps the earliest mention of its found in Eutychius, Patriarch of Alexandria, AD. 864
In succeeding ages writers & travelers from all climes who have visited its shores, with few exceptions, join in a chorus of praise of its natural attractions. The sides of its mountains were strewn with gems formed from the tears of Adam, & the air was perfumed with the odour of cinnamon. In the fourteenth century Marlgnolli, Legate of Pope Clement VI., who visited the island on his way from China, alludes to the mountain “opposite Paradise,” & repeats the Mahometan belief in its proximity to heaven, which was only “about forty miles distant.” Ribeyro says, “as Ceylon is the key of India, it appears as if God had taken pleasure in enriching it with the earth’s choicest treasures.”

The renown of Ceylon as it reached in the seventeenth century, is quaintly summed up by Purchas, in his ‘Pilgrimage:’ ‘The heavens with their dew, the air with a pleasant wholesomeness & fragrant freshness, the water in their many rivers & mountains, the earth diversified in aspiring hills, lowly valleys, equal & indifferent Plains, filled in her outward court & upper face stored with the whole woods of the best cinnamon that the sun seethes, beside fruits, oranges, lemons, etc.,surmounting those of Spain; fowls & beasts both tame & wild, among which the elephant, honoured by a natural acknowledgment of excellence of all other elephants in the world, these all have conspired & joined in common league to present with a long & healthful life in the inhabitants to enjoy them, no marvel then if sense & sensualities have here stumbled on a Paradise.”
End

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