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Paths of Faith: Following the Blessed Footsteps of Adam to Ceylon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Ananda Abeydeera
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Extract

“Adam was hurled into Hindustan. In this land there is a mountain called Serandib, and it is reported that there is no higher mountain in all the universe. Adam landed on this mountain.” The subject of Serendib plays an important role in both the geographical and travel literature of the Arabs. Serendib, or Sarandib, is the transcription of the Singhalese name Sinhaladîpa, which means “island of the descendants of lions” (singha, “lions,” in Singhaly). Already, in the Middle Ages, in the year 949, Arab merchants, who were well acquainted with the island of Ceylon, set up a branch in Colombo. The natural beauty and wealth of the island so touched the imagination of Arab voyagers that it appeared in the sixth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, and it was also believed that Adam lived on the island after having been driven from Paradise: “The island of Serendib is located directly under the equinoctial line…. Men fish for pearls along its banks and at the mouths of its rivers, and some of its valleys are rich in diamonds. As an act of faith I myself took a trip to the mountain, to the very spot where Adam was banished after being exiled from Paradise. I even climbed to its summit.”

This excerpt, from The Thousand and One Nights, well summarizes the feelings of those Arab merchants whose accounts of their travels, in large measure, contributed to the spread of myths and legends about Ceylon.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 40 , Issue 159 , August 1992 , pp. 69 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1. Tabarî, Chronique. Translated by Hermann Zotenberg (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose 1980, vol. I), p. 81. Italics are by the author of the article. This work is part of a larger project in which the author is engaged, entitled, “The Silk Trade in the Indian Ocean: Cartography and Travel Literature.” It is associated with UNESCO's “Projets d'études intégrales des routes de soie: routes de dialogue.” Throughout the article, the term Ceylon is used to designate Sri Lanka.

2. Les Milles et Une Nuits: Contes arabes. Translated by Antoine Galland (Paris: Gar nier 1960, vol. I), p. 219. A reprint of the 1704 edition.

3. Département des Manuscrits orientaux, Bibliothèque nationale. Paris.

4. Tabarî, p. 161.

5. Le livre de Gerchàsp: poème persan d'Asadî de Toûs. Translated by Henri Massé (Paris: Paul Geuthner 1951, vol. II), p. 22.

6. “Relatio Fr. Iohannis de Marignolli.” In Sinica Franciscana, vol. I: Itinera et rela tiones fratum minorum saeculi Xii ey vol. XIV. Edited by P. Anastasius Van Den Wyn gaert O.F.M. (Ad Claras Aquas, Florence: Quarracchi 1929), pp. 524-525.

7. Ibid., p. 531.

8. Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah Translated by C. Defrémery and B.R. Sanguinetti (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale 1854, vol. IV), pp. 139-140.

9. Ibid., p. 135.

10. “Marignolli's Recollections of Eastern Travels.” In Cathay and the Way Thither; Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China, ed. H. Yule (London, Hakluyt Society 1914, vol. III), pp. 227-228.

11. Le Livre de Marco Polo, G. Pauthier, ed. (Paris: Firmin Didot 1865, vol. II), p. 597.

12. Voyages, vol. IV, p. 164.

13. “Marignolli's Recollections” pp. 230-231. The locale that Marignolli called Pervilis, and that other Europeans called Berberyn and Berberin, is Beruvala, a small port on the southeast coast of Ceylon. It sits at the mouth of the Kaluganga, one of the island's four principal rivers; its source, like the source of the other rivers, is at the peak of Adam's Foot.

14. Voyages, vol. IV, pp. 185-188.

15. “Relatio Fr. Iohannis de Marignolli,” pp. 537-538.

16. Voyages, vol. IV, p. 185.

17. Ibid., pp. 206-207.

18. Ibid., p. 169.

19. Voyages, vol. IV, p. 172.

20. “Marignolli's Recollections,” pp. 227-228.

21. See, in this regard, De imagine mundi by Honorius D'Autun who, in the twelfth century, situates Paradise in the East and describes it as a “site surrounded by a wall of trees reaching up to the sky… to where the tree of life itself is located, that is to say, the tree whose fruit confers on the one who eats eternal life.” In J. P. Migne, Patrolgia Latina, vol. CLXXII, col. 123.

22. “Relatio Fr. Iohannis de Marignolli,” pp. 531-532.

23. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 232.

24. Tabarî, p. 84.

25. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 232.

26. Tabarî, p. 86.

27. Philip Baldaeus, Wahrhaftige Ausführliche Beschreibung der… Insel Zeylon (Ams terdam : Johannes Janssonius 1672), p. 147.

28. Voyages, vol. I, pp. 122-123.

29. Ibid., vol. IV, pp. 180-181.

30. Mouffazal Ibn Abil-Fazail, Histoire des Sultans mamelouks. Translated by Marc Blochet (Paris: Firmin Didot 1929), p. 191.

31. Ibid., p. 192.

32. Voyages, vol. IV, pp. 181-182.

33. Ibid., p. 182.

34. “Marignolli's Recollections,” pp. 229-230.

35. Le Livre de Marco Polo, vol. II, pp. 597-599. Cf. Ananda Abeydeera, “Le voyage de Marco Polo dans le pays du bouddhisme,” Rever L'Inde. (Paris: P.U.F. 1990), pp. 19-28.

36. Voyages, vol. II, pp. 82-83.

37. Voyages, vol. IV, p. 174.

38. Ibid, vol. I, p. 420.

39. “Relatio Fr. Iohannis de Marignolli,” p. 539.

40. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 242.

41. Ibid., pp. 242-244.

42. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 242.

43. “Relatio Fr. Iohannis de Marignolli,” pp. 540-541.

44. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 243. Emphasis is the author's.

45. Bibliorium sacrorum latinae versiones antiquae seu vetus italica. (Reims: Réginald Florentain 1713), vol. II, p. 191.

46. Psalm LCVI, verse 12, The New English Bible, Oxford 1976.

47. Thera, Vedeha In Praise of Mount Samanta. Translated by A. A. Hazlewood. (London: The Pali Text Society 1986), p. 89. Collection “Sacred Books of the Bud dhists,” vol. XXXVI.

48. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 235.

49. Tabarî, p. 82.

50. “The leaves are thin, flat and large; some are two or more feet in width, five to six feet in length. It is said that our first parents, Adam and Eve, used these leaves to cover their shame.” Wolfgang Heydt, Allerneuster geographisch und Topographischer Schau-Platz von Africa und Ost-Indie (Wilhelmsdorf: J. C. Tetschner 1744), p. 155. Heydt was also part of the delegation, headed by the Dutch ambassador Daniel Aggreens, that made an official visit to the court of the king of Kandy in 1737.

51. “It was he [the Lord] who designated the tree by whose power the original damnation by the tree would be revoked.” Le Bréviare romain (Paris: La Bergerie 1934, XVII).

52. Voyages, vol. 4, p. 179.

53. Ibid, pp. 183-184. The italics are mine. On the various optical effects of different natural phenomena, such as the luminosity of the sun on Adam's peak, see Andreas Nell, “Some Observations about Adam's Peak,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Ceylon) vol. XXVIII no. 73 (1920), pp. 8-11.

54. Henry Yule identifies this settlement with Dharmapattam, near Cannanore. “The Geography of Ibn Battuta's Indian Travels,” The Indian Antiquary (August 1874), p. 210.

55. Voyages, vol. IV, p. 85-86.

56. “Marignolli's Recollections,” p. 247.

57. Ibid., pp. 233-234.

58. Ibid.

59. Cf. Roberto Almagia and Tullia Gasparrini Leporace, Il Mappomondo di Fra Mauro (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato 1956), pp. 25-28.

60. Voyages, vol. I, pp. 231-232.