CiiAP. v.] GEEAT TANK OF PADIVIL. 507 



gigantic work is at present subservient ; yet its capabilities 

 are so prodigious, that it might be made to fertihse a dis- 

 trict equal in extent to an Englisli county. 



The solution of the inquiry as to who was the construc- 

 tor of this mighty monument remains buried in obscurity. 

 So vast is the scale on wdiich it is projected, that it has 

 been conjectured to be the great lake known as " the Sea 

 of Prakrama ; " ^ but the investigations of some recent 

 explorers appear to me to have succeeded in estabhshing 

 the conjecture of Colonel Forbes '^, and in fixing the site 

 of the latter between Dambool and the Amban-ganga.^ 

 Sir H. G. Waed has ascribed the formation of Pachvil to 

 Maha Sen, a.d. 60 ^ ; but this is erroneous, as Malia Sen 

 did not ascend the throne till a.d. 275, and an inscription 

 of an earlier date on the rock at ]\Iihintala ^, records that 

 the lake of " Pahadewila " was at that period the pro- 

 perty of the temple. 



On the top of the great embankment itself, and close by 

 the breach, tliere stands a tall sculptured stone Avith two 

 engraved compartments, tlie possible record of its history, 

 but the Odear informed us that " the characters were 

 Nagari, and the dialect Pali, or some other language no 

 longer understood by the people." 



The command of labour must have been extraordinary 

 at the time when such a construction was successfully 

 carried out, and the population enormous to whose use 



' See a paper by Dk Sotza 

 ]\rooDLiAK, in the Journal of the 

 Ceylon Branch of the A--iiaf. Sac. for 

 1856-8, p. 140, in which the autlior 

 rests his supposition on a passage in 

 the Ixviiith chap, of the JLihawanso, 

 whicli rehxtes that Prakrama Bahu, 



refer only to the repair, and not to 

 the original formation of the tnnk, 

 which would appear to liave taken 

 place nearly a thousand years before. 

 ^ FoEBics' Eleven Years in Cey- 

 lon, vol. ii. ch. ii. p. 3."». 



See the Report of Mesars. Al)A Jis, 



having enlarged the Panda Wapi, or CnuRcniLL and Bailey, on the 



Tank of Panda, gave it the name of '■ Ellahara Canal. 



the " Sea of Prakrama." Panda, J)q ■* 3Iin>de on tJie Eastern Province, 



Soyza conjectures, may be identical 1856, p. 4. 



with Padivil ; but if Upham's ver- ! * See Appendix to TtrRXorii's 



sion be correct, there is a still more ' Epitome, 4'"f'., p. 79, 80. The Ma- 



striking passage in the Ixxviith diap. > hawanso, ch. xxxvii. enumerate by 



which states that Prakrama Bahu, j name the "sixteen " tanks construct- 



among others, repaired tlio tank of j ed by Maha Sen, but " Padivil " is 



" Padie." Both verses, however, ' not one of them. 



