588 



THE euini:d cities. 



[Pakt X. 



" seven stories high, and contained four thousand rooms, 

 with hundi'eds of stone cohunns." ^ 



The present edifice was probably constructed at the 

 close of the tliirteenth centiu-y, when the city, after its 

 destruction by the Malabars, was restored by Wijayo 

 Bahu IV.^, and the remains of the original palace 

 are to be sought further north, in the direction of 

 the Jayta-wana-rama, where groups of stone pillars 

 and mounds of brickwork and debris serve to indicate 

 its site. This is rendered the more hkely by the 

 presence on the spot of the Sat-mahal-prasada, whose 

 name perpetuates the memory of " the seven-storied 

 house." 



:.rr"#^ff 



THE SAT MAHAL-PRASADA, 



In front of this extraordinaiy building lies an 

 enormous carved slab, called the Gal-jyota, or " Stone- 

 book," from its resemblance to a Singhalese volume of 

 olas. It is a monohth twenty-six feet in length by 

 more than four broad, and two feet tliick, bearing 

 an inscription, one passage of which records that 



' Mahairanso, ch. Ixxii. 



^ Mahanansu, ch. Ixxxvi. Ixxx-s-iii. 



