482 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[Part IV. 



Simplicity and retirement were at all times the cha- 

 racteristics of these retreats, which rarely aspired to 

 architectural display ; and the only recorded instance of 

 extravagance in this particular was the " Brazen Palace " 

 at Anarajapoora, with its sixteen hundred columns ; an 

 echfice which, though nominally a dwelhng for the priest- 

 hood, appears to have been in reality a vast suite of halls 

 for theu- assembhes and festivals, and a sanctuary for the 

 safe custody of their jewels and treasure. ^ 



AUusions are occasionally made to other edifices more 

 or less fantastic in theu* design and structure, such as 

 " an apartment built on a single pillar," ^' a " house of 

 an octangular form," built in the 12th century^, and 

 another of an " oval, " shape ^, erected by Prakrama I. 



Palaces. — The royal residences as they were first 

 constructed, must have consisted of very few chambers, 

 since mention is made in the Maliawanso of the ear- 

 liest, which contained " many apartments, " having been 

 built by Pandukiibhaya, B.C. 437.^ But within two 

 centuries afterwards, Dutugaimunu conceived the mag- 

 nificent idea of the Loha Pasada, with its quadrangle 

 one hundred cubits square, and a thousand dormitories 

 with ornamental windows. ^ This palace was in its 

 turn surpassed by the castle of Prakrama I. at Polla- 

 narrua, which, according to the 3Iahawa?iso, " was seven 

 stories high, consisting of five thousand rooms, Hned 



^ Mahawanso, cli. xxvii. p. 1G3. 

 Like the " niiie-storied " pagodas of 

 China, the palace of " the Lowa Maya 

 Paya" was originally nine stories in 

 height, and Fergnsson, from the 

 analogy of Buddhist buildings in 

 other countries, supposes that these 

 diminished in succession as the build- 

 ing arose, till the outline of the whole 

 assumed the form of a pp-amid. 

 (Handbook of Arcliitecture, b. i. ch. 

 iii. p. 44.) In this he is undoubtedly 

 correct, and a building still existing, 

 though in ruins, at Pollauarrua^ and 



known as the Sat-inal-pasado, or the 

 " seven-storied palace" pro1:)ably built 

 by Prakrama, about the year 1170, 

 serves to support his conjecture. 

 See a description of it, part x. ch. i. 

 vol. ii. 



* B.C. 504, Mahaioanso, ch. ix. p. 

 5G ; ch. Ixxii. Upham's version, p. 

 274. 



3 Rajaratnacari, p. 105. 



^ Mahawanso, ch. Ixxii. Upham's 

 version, p. 274. 



'•> Ibid., ch. x. p. 60. 



° Ibid., ch. xxvii. p. 163. 



