f,18 THE RUINED CITIES. [Part X. 



its vicissitudes recorded in tlie sacred history of an 

 island the inhabitants of which considered themselves 

 blessed by the possession of so heavenly a treasure ; the 

 conjectiu-e (had it ever been hazarded) that the original 

 tree might have died and its place been supphed by one 

 secretly substituted, may fairly be regarded as an 

 hypotlietical impossibihty. Such an event as the death 

 of the great Bo-tree of Anarajapoora would have spread 

 consternation, not only throughout Ceylon, but over 

 Siam and China. It would have been regarded as a 

 visitation too portentous to be contemplated with equa- 

 nimity, and recorded mth a becomuig sense of the 

 calamity, in the annals of every Buddhist nation in 

 Asia. 



It is strange, too, that amidst the intestine con\i.dsions 

 which so often expelled the native Singhalese sovereigns 

 and seated the Malabar conquerors in their capital, 

 when dagobas and temples of Buddha-worship suffered 

 spohation, and the most precious rehcs were carried 

 away as warhke trophies, the Bo-tree was uniformly 

 spared by the conquerors and permitted to flourish 

 unmolested. Had it been otherwise, the Singhalese 

 chroniclers woidd not have failed to arouse the indigna- 

 tion of the faithfid by denouncing an insult offered by 

 Brahmanical rivals to the most sacred adjunct of the 

 Buddhist rehgion. But so far from this being the case 

 not a single uistance is on record of indignity offered to 

 the tree ; whilst the sacred historians recount with befit- 

 ting emotion the spoliation of wiliaras and tlie overthrow 

 of temples. 



At the present day the aspect of the tree suggests the 

 idea of extreme antiquity ; the branches, which have 

 rambled at their will far beyond the outline of its 

 enclosm^e, the rude piUars of masonry that have been 

 carried out to support them, the retaining walls which 

 shore up the parent stem, the time-worn steps by 

 which the place is approached, and the grotesque carv- 

 ings that decorate the stonework and friezes ; all impart 



