CHAP. III.] CONQUEST OF CEYLON BY WIJAYO. 341 



explain, how the king, who was limiting the elk, was B.C: 

 miraculously allured by the fleeing game to approach 307 - 

 the spot where Mahindo was seated l ; and . how the 

 latter forthwith propounded the Divine doctrine " to the 

 ruler of the land ; who, at the conclusion of his discourse, 

 together with his forty thousand followers, obtained the 

 salvation of the faith." 2 



Then follows the approach of Mahindo to the capital ; 

 the conversion of the queen and her attendants, and 

 the reception of Buddhism by the nation, under the 

 preaching of its great Apostle, who " thus became the 

 luminary that shed the light of religion over the 

 land." He and his sister Sanghamitta thenceforth de- 

 voted their lives to the organisation of Buddhist com- 

 munities throughout Ceylon, and died in the odour of 

 sanctity, in the reign of King Uttiya, B.C. 267. 



But the grand achievement that consummated the 

 establishment of the national faith, was the arrival B.C. 

 from Magadha of a branch of the sacred Bo-tree. Every 289 - 

 ancient race has had its sacred tree ; the Chaldeans, the 

 Hebrews 3 , the Greeks, the Romans and the Druids, had 

 each their groves, their elms and their oaks, under which 

 to worship. Like them, the Brahmans have their Kalpa 



1 The story, as related in the j the elk fled to the mountain. The 

 Mahaivanso, tears a resemblance to I king gave chase to the flying animal, 

 the legend of St. Hubert and the | and, on reaching the spot where the 

 stag, in the forest of Ardennes, and priests were, the thero Mahindo came 



to that of St. Eustace, who, when 

 hunting, was led by a deer of singular 

 beauty towards a rock, where it dis- 

 played to him the crucifix upon its 



within sight cf the monarch ; but the 

 metamorphosed deer vanished." 

 Mahawanso, c. xiv. The device of 

 the flying deer, is by no means an 



forehead ; whence an appeal was ad- j infrequent one in the poetry of the 



dressed which effected his conversion, j East : it occurs in the Hamai/ana ; 



" The king Dewananpiyatissa de- where Rama is allured to a distance 



parted for an elk hunt, taking with I by a demon under the form of a deer, 



him a retinue ; and in the course of j whilst Ravana approaches the dwell- 



the pursuit of the game on foot, he | ing of Sita and carries her off', 



came to the Missa mountain. A j * Mahawanso, ch. xiv. p. 80. 



certain devo, assuming the form of an ( 3 " They sacrifice upon the tops of 



elk, stationed himself there, grazing ; mountains, and burn incense under 



the sovereign descried him, and say- oaks, and poplars, and elms, because 



ing ' it is not fair to shoot him stand- the shadow thereof is good." Hosea, 



ing,' sounded his bowstring, on which iv. 18. 



z 3 



