510 SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. [PART IV. 



stance, the historian, who was the kinsman and intimate 

 friend of the king, by whose order the glass pinnacle 

 was raised in the fifth century, probably felt that 

 the stanza descriptive of the placing of the first of 

 those costly instruments in the reign of Sanghatissa, 

 required some elucidation, and therefore inserted a 

 passage in the " tika," by which his poem was accom- 

 panied, to explain that the motive of its erection was 

 " for the purpose of averting the dangers of lightning" 1 



The two passages, taken in conjunction, leave no 

 room for doubt that the object in placing the diamond 

 hoop on the dagoba, was to turn aside the stroke of the 

 thunderbolt. But the question still remains, whether, at 

 that very early period, the people of Ceylon had a con- 

 ception, (however crude and erroneous,) of the nature 

 of electricity, and the relative powers of conducting and 

 non-conducting bodies, such as would induce them to place 

 a mistaken reliance upon the contrivance described, as 

 being calculated to ensure their personal safety ; or whe- 

 ther, as religious devotees, they presented it as a costly 

 offering to propitiate the mysterious power that con- 

 trols the elements. The thing affixed was however so 

 insignificant in value, compared with the stupendous 

 edifice to be protected, that the latter supposition is 

 scarcely tenable : the dagoba itself was an offering, on 

 the construction of which the wealth of a kingdom had 

 been lavished ; besides which it enshrined the holiest of 

 all conceivable objects portions of the deified body of 

 Gotama Buddha himself ; , and if these were not already 



1 The explanatory sentence in the 

 "tika "is as follows: 



"Thupassa muddhani tatha naggha 

 wajira-chumbatanti tathewe maha 

 thupassa muddhani satasahasaggha 

 nikan maha manincha patitha petwa 

 tassahetta asani upaddawa widdhansa 

 natthan adhara walavamewa katwa 

 anaggha wajira-chumbatancha puje- 

 seti atho." 



follows, " In like manner having 

 placed a large gem, of a lac in value, 

 on the top of the great thupa, he 

 fixed below it, for the purpose of de- 

 stroying the dangers of I it/ ht unit/, an 

 invaluable diamond chumbatan, hav- 

 ing made it like a supporting ring or 

 circular rest." Words equivalent to 

 those in italics, Mr. TUKXOTJK em- 

 bodied in his translation, but placed 



Mr. DE SARAM and Mr. DE ALWIS I them between brackets to denote 

 concur in translating this passage as I that they were a quotation. 



