The Dawn and Dawn Society’s Magazine March 1911

In the last January issue of this journal we have demonstrated we hope conclusively the employment of ships by the people of Bengal for purposes of commerce from the earliest years of the Muhammadan occupation of the country down to the eighteenth century. [...] Evidences derived from the contemporary accounts of the Muhammadan historians the records of Mussulman travellers the chronicles of the neighbouing kingdoms of Assam and Koch-lkhar the narratives of Portuguese and other European missionaries merchants and adventurers leave not the faintest doubt in the minds of those who would peruse those records that almost from the very beginning of Mu [...] As on the actual battle-field the horrors and barbarities of warfare are sought to be mitigated by the adoption of means and devices which would prevent the unnecessary aggravation of the sufferings of the combatants so also in modern civilised society dominated by one overruling passion—the passion for the achievement of a greater and greater mastery over the means of enjoyment and.their accumul [...] The idea has gone abroad that such institutions were the special fruits of Christianity and the champions of Christianity and of Christian civilisation generally have in ignorance of the true facts of the case preached from the house-tops that there was no room for such benevolent institutions in the heathen economy " and that as a matter of fact the " pagan systems " were wholly destitute of the [...] In dealing therefore in the following pages with the subject of Indian hospitals and dispensaries in early pre-Christian times as illustrative of the forces of benevolence charity and philanthropy as religious factors of great and mighty significance we propose now to adduce evidence of the existence in the island of Ceylon of organisations for the relief of the sick and the indigent and the in