WEST AND SOUTH COASTS OF CEYLOI»7. 447 



it not been fuggefted that fome chunam or lime water, 

 traced on the hollow charafters indented in the rock, 

 would render them legible on the dark ground of the 

 ftone ; by tracing them in this manner, I was enabled 

 to (ketch off the appearance of the whole with, I think, 

 tolerable exaclneis ; and the annexed drawing copied 

 exaftly from the the tracing taken on the fpot, repre- 

 fents this infcription *. Of the caufes of engraving it 

 here, or the hiftory of the place I could get no fatisfac- 

 tory account from the natives, except fome incoherent 

 traditions of its being formerly ftruck by lightning, 

 whence it is called Pelnucalhi or fplit ftone. The place 

 is alfo called Deo Qamme. 



NOTE. 



A FURTHER paper on the ifland of Ceylon, and the 

 "*■ ■*• worfhip of BooDH or Buddha, has been commu- 

 nicated to the Society by Lieut. Mahony, who was for 

 fome time refident on the ifland, and procured an extract 

 from the Maha Raja Wallieh, alfo called the Raja 

 WuLLY Putter, an hiftorical work, which traces back 

 the introdudion of the religion of Buddha to the Prince 

 Vijeerajah and his followers, who came to the ifland 

 in a fhip from the eaftward, in the fixth century before 

 the Chri/iian era; about which period it is alfo to have 

 been introduced in Siam. It is indeed the period at 

 which Goutama Buddha (the Buddha now wor- 

 fhipped) is fuppofed by the Singalefe to have made his 

 appearance on earth: the epoch of his difappearance, 

 which conftitutes their facred era, being five hundred 

 and forty-two years before the birth of Christ, cor- 

 refponding, within two years, to the fame era in Siam^ 

 as ftated in Mr. Marsden's tra6t on Hhidu chronology. 



• Plate, No. 2. 



Mr. 



