484 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL AETS. 



[PART IV. 



with obvious satisfaction on Ms descriptions of the 

 " stones covered with flowers and creeping plants." 1 

 Animals are constantly introduced in the designs exe- 

 cuted on stone, and a mythical creature, called tech- 

 nically makara-torana, is conspicuous, especially on door- 

 ways and balustrades, with the head of an elephant, the 

 teeth of a crocodile, the feet of a lion, and the tail of a 

 fish. 



At the entrance to the great wihara, at Anarajapoora, 

 there is now lying on the ground a semi-circular slab 

 of granite, the ornaments of which are designed in ex- 

 cellent taste, and executed with singular skill ; elephants, 

 lions, horses, and oxen, forming the outer border ; that 

 within consisting of a row of the " hanza," or sacred 

 goose. This bird is equally conspicuous on the vast 

 tablet, one of the wonders of Pollanarrua, before alluded 

 to. 2 



Taken in connection with the proverbial contempt for 

 the supposed stolidity of the goose, there is something 

 still unexplained in the extraordinary honours paid to 

 it by the ancients, and the veneration in which it is 

 held to the present day by some of the eastern nations. 

 The figure that occurs so frequently on Buddhist monu- 

 ments, is the Brahmanee goose (casarka rutila), which 

 is not a native of Ceylon ; but from time immemorial has 

 been an object of veneration there and in ah 1 parts of 

 India. Amongst the Buddhists especially, impressed as 

 they are with the solemn obligation of solitary retirement 

 for meditation, the hanza has attracted attention by its 

 periodical migrations, which are supposed to be directed 

 to the holy Lake of Manasa, in the mythical regions of 

 the Himalaya. The poet Kalidas, in his Cloud Mes- 

 senger, speaks of the hanza as " eager to set out for the 



1 Mahawanso, ch. Ixxii. p. 274, 

 UPHAM'S version. 

 * A sketch of this stone will be 



seen in the engraving of the Sat-mal- 

 prasada, in the account of Pollanarrua. 

 Part i. ch. i. vol. ii. 588. 



