420 



THE NORTHERX FORESTS. 



[Part IX. 



at an anp;lc wliere tlie river, after running clue east from 

 Kancly for fifty miles, turns suddenly north to seek the 

 sea at Trincomahe. The tracts around this spot are 

 watered by a stream wliich joins the river, but is inter- 

 cepted near the village of Horrabora, about three miles 

 from Bintenne, and there serves to fill one of tliose stu- 

 pendous tanks, the ruins of whicli occur so frequently 

 throughout tlie north of Ceylon. If husbanded, the 

 contents of tliis reservoir would be sufficient to UTigate 

 a prodigious extent of rice land, but at present its 

 embankment is broken, its contents are permitted to 

 run to waste, and only a few fields are enriched by 

 them ; but even these are capable of more than supply- 

 ing the wants of the declining population of Bintenne and 

 the surrounding district. 



In point of antiquity Binteime transcends even the 

 historic renown of Anarajapoora. Long before the 

 Wijayan invasion, it was one of the chief cities of the 

 aborigines, and Gotama, on his first visit to Lanka, de- 

 scended " in the agreeable Mahanaga garden, the assem- 

 bhng place of the Yakkos ;" the site of which is still 

 marked by the ruins of a dagoba, buih three liundred 

 years before tlie Christian era, by the brother of King 

 Devenipiatissa, in commemoration of that great event. ^ 

 The city, which was then caUed Mahayangana, continued 

 for many centuries to be one of the most important 

 places in Ceylon. It was the birthplace of Sangatissa, 

 the king who, in the year a.d, 234, placed a glass ])in- 

 nacle on the spire of the Ruanwelle dagoba, at the capital 



^ 3Ia]iawanso, ch. i. p. 3. Accord- 

 ing' to tlie 3I(th(twimso, Gotcama gave 

 to the chief of the devos Sumano, ^' a 

 handful of pure blue locks from 

 the growino- hair of liis head," and 

 this, together Avith the bone of liis 

 thorax recovered from liis funeral 

 pile, was enclosed in the origi- 

 nal dagoba, built shortly after his 

 decease. " Tlic younger brother of 

 King Devenipiatissa (B.C. 307), dis- 

 covering this marvellous dagoba, con- 

 structed another, encasing it, thirty 



cubits in height ; the King Dutlia- 

 gaminu (b.c. 104) constructed a 

 dagoba, enclosing tliat one eiglity 

 cubits in height ; and th as was the 

 Mahayangana dagoba coniplcited." — 

 Ihkl., ch. i. p. 4. Tlie existence of 

 this dagoba and its contents, were 

 alluded to as antiquities by Mahindo, 

 in his conversations with Deveni- 

 piatissa, previously to tlie final (estab- 

 lishment of tlie lUiddliist religion in 

 Ceylon.- — Ibid., ch. x\ ii. p. 104. 



