578 THE RUINED CITIES. [PartX. 



liiglil} -coloured illustrations of scenes in the history 

 of Buddhism, such as the landing of Wijayo, the 

 preaching of Mahindo, and the combat of Dutugai- 

 munu and Elala. A dagoba of graceful proportions 

 occupies the centre of the hall, and the drops Avhich 

 filter through a crevice in the overhanging rock are 

 caught in a holloAv in the floor, and held to be as sacred 

 as the waters of the Ganges. The temple contains a 

 strange commixture of Brahmanical and Buddhist wor- 

 ship, and in all the apartments the statues of Hindu 

 deities range with those of the great apostle of the 

 Singhalese faith. Here, too, national gratitude has 

 erected monuments to the memory of Walagam-bahu, 

 the king by whom the temple was first endowed B.C. 

 86 \ and of Kirti Nissanga, whose mumficence in its 

 restoration and embeUishment after its destruction by 

 the Malabars in the twelfth centmy^, is recorded in 

 an inscription on the rock in the court-yard of the 

 temple.^ From the splendour which it then attained, 

 •the temple was afterwards known as Sivania-giri- 

 guhaaya, " the Cave of the Golden Rock," a name from 

 which we may infer that a cave among the Buddhists 

 in Ceylon, as among their co-rehgionists in Ava, was 

 not only the protot}^3e of a temple, but also the model, 

 the aspect and gloom of which it was the aim of such 

 buildings in after times to emulate. Li Burmah many 

 of the pagodas are hollowed out in imitation of caverns, 

 and are described by the word koo, which signifies " a 

 cave."* 



• Hajaratnacari, p. 43. \dt\i plates of silver, and roofed the 



"^ The Rajavali says that Kirti buildings with tiles of gold." 



Nissanga placed 72,000 statues of 

 Buddha in this temple, p. 255. But 

 this is an oriental pleonasm as the 

 Mahau'cmso, ch. Ixxix., reduces the 

 number to seventy -three, and the 

 Ha/arafnacari to thirty-three, p. 02. 

 The Mahavnnso, to t^-pify the mimi- 

 fieence of Kirti Nissanga, says he 

 "covered the walls of the temple 



This remarkable inscription is 

 translated at length in the Appendix 

 to TuRXOTm's Epitome, 8fc., p. 95. 



* " Amongst the Buddhist temples 

 at I'agan, on the Irawaddi, there are 

 several so named, such as Shice-koo, 

 " the golden cave," Sembyo-koo, " the 

 elephant cave," &c. Yfle's Ava, 

 p. 3(1 



