1 84 7 .] formerly th e capital of Ceylon . 219 



would also protect them from the gaze of the worshippers, and that it 

 would require only one line of pillars instead of four to support it. 



The Thupharamaya, we can easily believe, would follow the fortunes 

 of the city in which it stood. The unbelieving Malabars would show 

 it little respect, although they might consider the trouble too great of 

 levelling it with the ground, whilst the Singhalese monarchs would 

 restore it at intervals to its first condition, or leave it to its fate, as 

 piety or indifference had the ascendancy in their minds. 



The ruins which usually strike the eye of the traveller on first enter- 

 ing Anuradhapura from the southern side, are the remains of the nu- 

 merous pillars which formerly supported the Lowa Maha Paya, or brazen 

 place for the priests. This building, one of the largest that ever existed 

 in the east, was erected by Dutugaimono, a hundred and fifty years 

 before our era. One hundred and fifty years before that again, its 

 erection, Singhalese tradition assures us, had been prophesied by Ma- 

 hindo, the great priest of Buddhu, who arrived with the Bo-tree in the 

 time of Tisso. Dutugaimono, having heard of this prophecy, the 

 Mahawanso informs us, searched for a record of it said to have been 

 deposited in the palace. This record, with the assistance of the priests, 

 he at length found in a vase, inscribed on a golden plate. It mentioned 

 his own name we are told, and gave a brilliant account of the palace he 

 should build for the priests. The monarch, unsuspicious of deception, 

 was delighted at the heavenly warning, and assembling the priests in 

 his garden, many of whom were doubtless laughing in their sleeves at 

 him, informed them that if they could but find out what kind of a 

 palace the devas or heavenly spirits had, he would build them one like 

 it. Nothing was easier for the priests than this ; so sending off eight 

 of their number (" all sanctified characters," reverently observes the 

 Mahawanso) to the other world, they told them to bring back a draw- 

 ing of the palace of the devas. It would seem that trees grew in the other 

 world also, for the eight "sanctified characters" returned with a sketch 

 of the palace of the devas drawn on a leaf, with a vermilion pencil. 

 The monarch seems to have asked no impertinent questions as to the 

 road they took or the reception they met with, but at once proceeded 

 with the erection of the Lowa Maha Paya. It was one hundred cubits, 

 two hundred and twenty-five feet square, and the same in height, being 

 supported on sixteen hundred stone pillars, having forty on each side. 



