JAFFNA (ante), a district comprising several islands separated by narrow creeks, which lies D. of the island, and it included in the province, of Ceylon. It is 40 m. and 15 wide; its population about 148,000, of whom 650 are whites, mostly descendants of the Dutch and Portuguese, the former conquerors of Ceylon. It is now subject to the crown of England. The natives are of the Tamil race, and are said to have begun to emigrate frcni the continent previous to B.C. 101. They are mostly idolaters. With the whole of Ceylon Jaffna became subject to the Portuguese early in the 16th century. The Dutch took it from them in 1658, and the English conquered it in 1795. When the Portuguese held the district they baptized large numbers of natives, and some thou sands still adhere to the Rdman church. The American board and some English societies have sent missionaries there, and through their labors many have professed the Christian faith, and Christian truth has largely. permeated the mass of the people. The entire district is but little elevated above the sea. Rice is cultivated on the lower lands, which are submerged during the rainy season. On the higher • land are villages with groves of cocoa-nut, palmyra, banana, areda-nut and other trees, fields of inferior grains, and gardens which yield yarns, betel, tobacco, and various fruits.
All these products require irrigation. The native name for Jaffna is Yarlpanum, from Yarlpanan, a performer on the lyre, by corruption Yarlpna, Yapna, Jamm, Jafna. tradition is held by the people to the effect that about 2,000 years ago a blind lyrist obtained, by his musical skill, from the king of Ceylon a grant of the district, and named it front his own profession; that he made himself king; but in the year of Thali, 3,000 (P.c. 101), he resigned in favor of a king of the Bolen race from the Coromandel coast, and that the descendants of this king reigned in Jaffna for 1400 years. There is said to be also an inscription in stone which relates that the lyrist, by the aid of 1000 men, transformed the district that was a sand heap into a garden by planting the various fruit trees which now abound. It, however, contradicts the legend in saying that in the year of Thali 3,000 he placed on his throne a son of the king of 'Ceylon.