482 



SCIENCES AXD SOCIAL AKTS. 



[PABT 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 

 edifice which, though nominally a dwelling for the priest- 

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

 for their assemblies and festivals, and a sanctuary for the 

 safe custody of their jewels and treasure. l 



Allusions are occasionally made to other edifices more 

 or less fantastic in their design and structure, such as 

 " an apartment built on a single pillar," 2 a " house of 

 an octangular form," built in the 12th century 3 , and 

 another of an " oval, " shape 4 , 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 Mahawanso of the ear- 

 liest, which contained " many apartments," having been 

 built by Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437. 5 But within two 

 centuries afterwards, Dutugaimunu conceived the mag- 

 nificent idea of the Lowa Pasada, with its quadrangle 

 one hundred cubits square, and a thousand dormitories 

 with ornamental windows. 6 This palace was in its 

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

 narrua, which, according to the Mahawanso, " was seven 

 stories high, consisting of five thousand rooms, lined 



1 Mahawanso, ch. xxvii. p. 163. 

 Like the " nine-storied " pagodas of 

 China, the palace of " the Lowa Maya 

 Pay a " was originally nine stories in 

 height, and Fergusson, 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 pyramid. 

 (Handbook of Architectttre, b. i. ch. 

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

 correct, and a building still existing, 

 though in ruins, at Pollanarrua, and 



known as the Sat-mal-pasado, or the 

 (l seven-storied palace '," probably built 

 by Prakrama, about the year 1170, 

 serves to support his conjecture. 

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

 vol. ii. 588. 



2 B.C. 504, Mahawanso, ch. ix. p. 

 56 : ch. Ixxii. UPHAM'S version, p. 

 274. 



3 Rajaratnacari, p. 105. 



4 Mahawanno, ch. Ixxii. UPH.VM'S 

 version, p. 274. 



5 Ibid., ch. x. p. GO. 



e Ibid., ch. xxvii. p. 163. 



