r)lG THE RUIXED CITIES. [Part X. 



silenced by the pious fraud of substituting the fohagc 

 of some other fig for that of the exalted Bo-tree. I ex- 

 pressed a wish to have a few leaves of the genuine plant, 

 and the native officer undertook to bring them to me at 

 night. The other bo-trees which are found in the vicinity 

 of every temple in Ceylon, are said to be all derived from 

 the parent tree at Anarajapoora, but they have been pro- 

 pagated by seeds ; the priesthood adhering in this respect 

 to the precedent recorded in the Mahaivanso, when Ma- 

 hindo himself, " taking up a fruit as it fell, gave it to the 

 king to plant." ^ 



Nor is this superstitious anxiety a feehng of recent 

 growth. It can be traced to the remotest periods of 

 Buddhism ; and the same homage which is paid to the 

 tree at the present day was wont to be manifested two 

 thousand years ago. Age after age the sacred aiuials 

 record the works which successive sovereigns erected 

 for the preservation of the Bo-tree : the walls which they 

 built around it, the car\dngs with which they adorned 

 them, and the stone steps wliich they constructed to lead 

 to the sacred enclosure. The latter were raised by a 

 king, A.D. 182^ ; and in 223, a stone ledge was added to 

 the enclosing wall.^ Century after century, repairs or 

 additions to the buildings are recorded in the Singhalese 

 annals. King Abhaya, A.D. 240, placed " a cornice on the 

 parapet, a porch at the southern entrance, four hexagonal 

 pillars of stone at the corners, and a statue of Buddlia at 

 each entrance."^ BQs successor, Mahassen, caused "two 

 statues of bronze to be cast and erected in the hall of the 

 great Bo-tree ;" ^ and mention is made in the sacred annals, 

 nearly two thousand years later, of the celebration of a 

 festival, which, " from the period when the supreme Bo- 

 tree was planted, the rulers of Lanka held qyqvj twelfth 

 year, for the purpose of watering it.''^ 



Mahawanso, ch. xix. 

 Ibid. ch. XXX VI. 

 ]l)irh ch. xxxvi. 



" Uml. ch. xxxvi. 

 * Ibid. ch. xxxvii. 

 '^ Ibid. ch. xxxviii. 



