392 



THE SINGHALESE CHKOXICLES. 



[PART III. 



A.D. monasteries for his priests, but conscious of the enor- 



477 - mity of his crimes, these endowments were conferred in 



the names of his minister and his children. Failing to 



FORTIFIED ROCK. OF SIGIRI. 



" derive merit " from such acts, stung with remorse, 

 and anxious to test public feeling, he enlarged his 

 deeds of charity ; he formed gardens at the capital, 

 and planted groves of mangoes throughout the island. 

 Desirous to enrich a wihara at Anarajapoora, he pro- 

 posed to endow it with a village, but " the ministers of 

 religion, regardful of the reproaches of the world, de- 

 clined accepting gifts at the hands of a parricide. Kasyapa, 

 bent on befriending them, dedicated the village to Buddha, 

 after which they consented, on the ground that it was then 

 the property of the divine teacher." Impelled, says the 

 Mahawanso, by the irrepressible dread of a future exist- 

 ence, he strictly performed his " aposaka " l vows, prac- 

 tised the virtue of non-procrastination, acquired the " da- 

 thanga," 2 and caused books to be written, and image 

 and alms-edifices to be formed. 



Meanwhile, after an interval of eighteen years, Mo- 

 gallana, having in his exile collected a sufficient force, 



1 A lay devotee who takes on him- j which the cleaving to existence is de- 

 self the obligation of asceticism with- stroycd, involving piety, abstinence, 



out putting on the yellow robe. 



The dathanga* or "teles-dat- 

 hanga " are the thirteen ordinances by 



and self - mortification. HARDY'S 

 Eastern Monachism, ch. ii. p. 9. 



