Chap. VII.] 



THE FIXE AKTS. 



479 



in detacliiug tlie blocks in the quarry, and tlie amount 

 of labour devoted to the preparation of those in Avhich 

 strength, irrespective of ornament, was essential, is 

 shown in the remains of the sixteen hundred undressed 

 piUars^ which supported the Brazen Palace at Anara- 

 japoora, and in the eighteen hundred stone steps, many 

 of them exceeding ten feet in length, which led from 

 the base of the mountain to the very summit of IMihin- 

 tala. A single piece of granite lies at Anarajapoora 

 hollowed into an " elephant trough," with ornamental 

 pilasters, which measures ten feet in length by six wide 

 and two deep ; and amongst the ruins of PoUanarrua 

 a still more remarkable slab, twenty-five feet in length 

 by six broad and two feet thick, bears an inscription of 

 the twelfth century, which records that it was brought 

 from a distance of more than tliuty miles. 



The majority of the columns at Anarajapoora are of 

 dressed stone, octangular and of extremely graceful 

 proportions. They were used in pro- 

 fusion to form circular colonnades 

 around the principal dagobas, and the 

 vast numbers which still remain up- 

 right, are one of the pecuhar charac- 

 teristics of the place, and justify the 

 expression of Knox, when, speaking of 

 similar groups elsewhere, he calls them 

 a " world of hewn stone piUars." ^ 



Allusions in the Mahawanso show 

 that extreme care was taken in the 

 preparation of bricks for the dagobas.^ 

 Major Skinnee, whose official duties as 

 engineer to the government have ren- 

 dered him famihar with all parts of 

 Ceylon, assures me that the bricks in 



' The Rajavali states that these 

 rough piUars were originally covered 

 with copper, p. 222. 



^ Kifox, Relation, vol. v. pt. iv. 

 eh. ii. p. 165. 



' Mahaivanso, ch. xxviii. p. 165 ; 

 ch. xxix. p. 109; &c. 



