134 



SOUTHEKX AND CENTRAL PEOVINCES. [Part YIP. 



Tarangini states tliat in tlie first centiiiy of the 

 Christian era, a king of Kashmir, about tlie year 24, 

 resorted to Ceylon to adore the rehc on Adam's Peak.^ 

 The Chinese traveller, Fa Hian, who visited Ceylon 

 A. D. 413, says that two foot-marks of Foe were then 

 venerated in the island, one on the sacred mountain, 

 and the second towards the north of the island.^ On 

 the continent of India both Fa Hian and Iliouen Thsang 

 examined many other sri-padas ^ ; and Wang Ta-youen * 

 adheres to the story of their Buddhist origin, although 

 later Chinese writers, probably from intercourse with 

 Mahometans, borrow the idea that it was the foot- 

 print of Pwan-koo, " the first man," in their system of 

 mytliology.^ In the twelftli century, the patriot King 

 Prakrama Bahu I. " made a journey on foot to worship 

 the shi'ine on Samanhela, and caused a temple to be 

 erected on its summit,"^ and the mountain was visited 

 by the King Kirti Nissanga, for the same devout pur- 

 pose, in A. D. 1201^, and by Prakrama III. a.d. 12G7.^ 

 Nor was the faith of the Singhalese in its sanctity shaken 

 even by the temporary apostasy and persecution of the 

 tyrant Eaja Singha I., who, at the close of the sixteenth 

 centmy, abjured Buddhism, adopted the worship of 

 Brahma, and installed some Aandee fakirs in the dese- 

 crated shrine upon the Pcak.^ 



Strange to say, the origin of the Mahometan tradition 

 as to its being the footstep of Adam, is to be traced to 



^ llaja-Tarmujini, book iii. si. 71 

 —79. 



'^ No second original ft)otstcp of 

 Biuldha is now preserved in Ceylon, 

 altliongli models of the gi-eat one are 

 shown at the Aln AVihara, at Cotta, 

 and at other temples on tlie island ; hut 

 a sri-pada is said in the sacred book 

 to be concealed by the waters of the 

 Ivalany-ganga. Keinaud conjectures, 

 from the great distance at whicli Fa 

 llian places it to the north, tliat the 

 second one alluded to by liim must 

 have been situated in Madura. — 

 Notes to Fa Hian, p. 342, 



' Foe-Koue Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 

 382. For accoimts of other sacred 

 footsteps in Eehar, see Trans. Roy. 

 Asiat. Soc, vol. i. p. 523 j and in 

 Siam, Ibid., vol. iii. p. 57. 



^ Taou-e Che leo, or "Account of 

 Island Foreigners," A.B. 1350. 



'•> Po-woiihi/aou-lan, or the "Philo- 

 sophical Examiner," written during 

 th(> Mvng Dvnasty, about the year 



1400, A.D. 



" llaJdvaJi, p. 254. 



^ JIahtiicanso, ch. Ixxix. 



^ Ibid., ch. Ixxxiii. 



' TuKNOUli's Ejntome, Sj-c, p. 51. 



