464 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[Part IV. 



CHAP. VI. 



ENGINEERING. 



It has already been sliown ^ that the natives of Ceylon 

 received their earhest instruction in engineering from 

 the Brahmans, who attached themselves to the fol- 

 lowers of Wijayo and his immediate successors.^ But 

 whilst astonished at the vastness of conception obser- 

 vable in the works executed at this early period, we 

 are equally struck by the extreme simphcity of the 

 means employed by their designers for carrying their 

 plans into execution ; and the absence of all ingenious 

 expedients for husbanding or effectively applying 

 manual laboiu:. The earth which forms their prodi- 

 gious embankments was carried in baskets ^ by the 

 labourers, in the same primitive fashion wliich prevails 

 to the present day. Stones were detached in the 

 quarry by the slow and laborious process of wedging, 

 of which they still exhibit the traces ; and those intended 

 for prominent positions were carefully dressed with 

 iron tools. For moving them no mechanical con- 

 trivances were resorted to \ and it can only have been 

 by animal power, aided by ropes and rollers, that vast 



^ See Vol. I. Part iv. cliap. ii. p. 

 430. 



2 King Pandukabliaj^a, B.C. 437, 

 '' built a residence for the Brahman 

 Jotiyo, the chief engineer." — 3£aha- 

 locmso, ch. X. p. 66. 



3 Mahawanso, ch, xxiii. p. 144. 



* The only instance of mechanism 

 applied in aid of human labour is 



referred to in a passage of the 3Ia~ 

 hmoanso, which alludes to a decree 

 for '^ raising the water of the Abhaya 

 tank by means of machinery," in 

 order to poiu' it over a dagoba during 

 the solemnisation of a festival, B.C. 

 20. — 3Ia]imoanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 211 ; 

 Rajaratnacari, p. 51. 



