468 SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. [Part IV. 



It cannot but exalt our opinion of a people, to find 

 that, under disadvantages so signal, tliey were capable of 

 forinins such a work as the Kalaweva tank, between 

 Anarajapoora and Dambool, which Tuenour justly says, 

 is the greatest of the ancient works in Ceylon. This 

 enormous reservoir was forty miles in circumference, 

 with an embankment twelve miles in extent, and the 

 spill-water, ineffectual for the purpose designed, is " one 

 of the most stupendous monuments of misapphed human 

 labour." ^ 



When to such inlierent deficiencies were added the 

 alarms of frequent invasion and all the evils of almost 

 incessant occupation by a foreign enemy, it is only sur- 

 prising that the Singhalese preserved so long the degree 

 of expertness in engineering to which they had originally 

 attained. Ko people in any age or country had so 

 great practice and experience in the construction of 

 ^vorks for irrigation ; and so far had the renown of their 

 excellence in this branch reached, that in the eighth 

 centurj^ the king of Kashmir, Djaya-pida, '• sent to 

 Ceylon for engineers to form a lake." ^ But after the 

 reign of Prakrama I., the dechne was palpable and pro- 

 gressive. No great works, either of ornament or utihty, 

 no temples nor inland lakes, were constructed by his 

 successors ; and it is remarkable, that even during his 

 own reign, artificers were brought from the coast of 

 India to repair the monuments of Anarajapoora.^ The 

 last great work attempted for irrigation was probably 

 the Giant's Tank, north-east of Aripo ; but so much 



^ Tfrnour's 3Iahawanso, Index, 1 it was as an act of retribution that 

 p. xi. This stupendous work was Malahars, by wliom the monuments 



constructed a.d. 4ij9. Mahmvanso, 

 ch. xxxviii. p. 25G. 



^ A.D. 745. Rajatarhujini, b. iv. 

 si. 502, 505. 



^ MaluniHinso, Upham's transl., ch. 

 Ixxv. p. 294. This passage in the 

 Mahmvanso might seem to imply that 



had been injured, were compelled to 

 restore them. But in ch. Ixxvii. it 

 is stated that they were brought from 

 India for this purpose, because it 

 " had been found imj^racticable by 

 other kings to renew and repair 

 them."— P. .305. 



