348 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[PART III. 



B.C. less," to mark their abandonment of social enjoyments. 1 

 Anticipating the probable necessity of their eventually 

 resorting to houses for accommodation, Buddha directed 

 that, if built for an individual, the internal measurement 

 of a cell should be twelve spans in length by seven in 

 breadth 2 ; and, if restricted to such dimensions, the asser- 

 tions of the Singhalese chronicles become intelligible as 

 to the prodigious number of such dwellings said to have 

 been raised by the early kings. 3 



But the multitudes who were thus attracted to a life 

 of indolent devotion became in a short time so excessive 

 that recourse was had to other devices for combining 

 economy with accommodation, and groups of such cells 

 were gradually formed into wiharas and monasteries, 

 the inmates of which have uniformly preserved their 

 organisation and order. Still the edifices thus con- 

 structed have never exhibited any tendency to depart 

 from the primitive simplicity so strongly enjoined by 

 their founder ; and, down to the present time, the homes 

 of the Buddhist priesthood are modest and humble struc- 

 tures generally reared of mud and thatch, with no pre- 

 tension to external beauty and no attempt at internal 

 decoration. 



To supply to the ascetics the means of seclusion and 

 exercise, the early kings commenced the erection of 

 ambulance-halls ; and gardens were set apart for the 

 use of the great temple communities. The Mahawanso 

 describes, with all the pomp of oriental diction, the 

 ceremony observed by King Tissa on the occasion 

 of setting apart a portion of ground as a site for the 

 first wihara at his capital ; the monarch in person, 

 attended by standard bearers and guards with golden 

 staves, having come to mark out the boundary with 



1 " Lea hommes hors de leur mai- 

 sons." FA HIAN, Foe-koue-ki, ch. 

 xxxix. This is the equivalent of 

 the Singhalese term for the same 

 class, affarii/an-piMajito, used in the 

 Pittakas. 



2 UAKDT'S Eastern Monachism, 

 ch. xiii. p. 122. 



3 The Rajaratnacari says that 

 Devenipiatissa caused eighty-four 

 thousand temples to be built during' 

 his reign, p. 36. 



