576 THE KUIXED CITIES. [Part X. 



stunted plants in siicli crevices as retain sufficient moisture 

 to support vegetation. 



The cavern, wliich lias been converted into a temple of 

 Buddha, is the recess formed by the cylindiic out- 

 hne of the rock, enlarged by detaching with wedges 

 fiu'ther portions from the overhanging mass. No 

 attempt has been made to impart an artificial cha- 

 racter to the interior \ and it retains the rude aspect 

 of a cave, extending about one hundred and seventy 

 feet in length and seventy feet broad, with a height of 

 twenty feet in front, contracting as it recedes till it sinks 

 into the level of tlie floor. It contains several separate 

 apartments without any architectural arrangement, 

 being merely irregularities in the natural recess some- 

 what enlarged by human labour. There is no effort at 

 external decoration ; the chff is not scarped or cut into 

 facades and columns, as at Karli and Ellora ; and the 

 partitions wliich separate the internal chambers are not 

 pillars or colonnades, as in the caves of Elephanta and 

 Ajunta, but rude walls of rock left untouched by the 

 workman. 



The ascent is by a steep and toilsome path across the 

 lower mass of the great rock, and the grand gateway, 

 profusely adorned with carvings in stone '^, and disclosing 

 within a sedent figure of " the vanquisher," is approached 

 on crossing a comt-yard, wliich encloses a Bo-tree and 

 some coco-nut palms. 



The scene presented on entering is very striking, — 

 the Hglit being barely sufficient to display the long 

 lines of statues of Buddha in the varied attitudes of 

 exhortation and repose. They are arranged in unusual 



^ A detailed account of the Temple ] ^A prnminent object among the 



of Uambool is friven inFoBBEs's^/ewM canings at Dambool, and on othex' 



Years in Ceylon, vol. i. ch. xvi. p. Buddhist monnments. is the JlaJifira, 



.307, and one more recent by Mr. a monster ■with tlie trunk of an ele- 



Knigutox, was published in the pliant, the feet of a lion, tlie teeth of 



Journal of the Asiatic Society of 

 Bewfol for 1847, vol. xvi. pt. i. p. 

 340; 



a crocodile, the eyes of a monkey, and 

 the ears of a pig. 



