468 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL AETS. 



[PART IV. 



that, under disadvantages so signal, they were capable of 

 forming such a work as the Kalaweva tank, between 

 Anarajapoora and Dambool, which TUENOUE justly says, 

 is the greatest of the ancient works in Ceylon. This 

 enormous reservoir was forty miles in circumference, 

 with an embankment twelve miles in extent, and the 

 spill-water, ineffectual for the purpose designed, is " one 

 of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human 

 labour." l 



When to such difficulties of construction were added the 

 alarms of frequent invasion and all the evils of almost 

 incessant occupation by a foreign enemy, it is only sur- 

 prising that the Singhalese preserved so long the degree 

 of expertness in engineering to which they had originally 

 attained. No people in any age or country had so 

 great practice and experience in the construction of 

 works for irrigation ; and so far had the renown of their 

 excellence in this branch reached, that in the eighth 

 century, the king of Kashmir, Djaya-pida, " sent to 

 Ceylon for engineers to form a lake." 2 But after the 

 reign of Prakraina L, the decline was palpable and pro- 

 gressive. No great works, either of ornament or utility, 

 no temples nor inland lakes, were constructed by his 

 successors ; and it is remarkable, that even during his 

 own reign, artificers were brought from the coast of 

 India to repair the monuments of Anarajapoora. 3 The 

 last great work attempted for irrigation was probably 

 the Giant's Tank, north-east of Aripo ; but so much 

 had practical science declined, that after an enormous 



1 TTTBNOTO'S Mahawanso, Index, 

 p. xi. This stupendous work was 

 constructed A.D. 469. Mahawanso, 

 ch. xxxviii. p. 256. 



2 A.D. 745. Rajataringini, b. iv. 

 si. 502, 505. 



s Mahawmtso, UPHAM'S transl., ch. 

 Ixxv. p. 294. This passage in the 

 MaJtawanso might seem to imply that 



it was as an act of retribution that 

 Malabars, by whom the monuments 

 had been injured, were compelled to 

 restore them. But in ch. Ixxvii. it 

 is stated that they were brought from 

 India for this purpose, because it 

 "had been found impracticable by 

 other kings to renew and repair 

 them." P. 305. 



