220 On the Ruins of Anuradhapura, [March, 



These with a few exceptions are all standing at present, but not in their 

 original condition, many of them having been split to forward the 

 schemes and lessen the trouble of future monarchs. In the centre they 

 are generally twice the thickness of those on the outside. They are in 

 general about twelve feet high and were evidently intended for being 

 built on — the spaces between them being too small to admit of being 

 separate apartments. As at first erected, the Lowa Maha Pay a was 

 nine stories in height and contained in each story one hundred apart- 

 ments. This number seems large, but it will be found on calculation 

 that one hundred apartments (supposing them all of the same size) 

 each twenty-two feet square, could be constructed in the space given, 

 and the cells usually occupied by the priests are much smaller. In 

 the centre of this palace there was a large and splendid ivory throne, on 

 one side of which stood a representation of the sun in gold, on the 

 other a similar emblem of the moon in silver, and above shone the stars 

 in pearl. The account of this building as given by the Chinese Bud- 

 dhists who visited Anuradhapura three hundred years afterwards, con- 

 firms the description of the Mahawanso. Such was the fruit of the visit of 

 these eight priests " all sanctified characters," to the deva-loka. When 

 stretched upon his death-bed, Dutugaimono, anxious for his future 

 welfare, asked the attendant priests respecting his hopes of happiness 

 in a future world, particularly reminding them of the palace which he 

 had built for them, and on the ground of this, and his other merito- 

 rious works he was promised an immediate entrance to the deva-loka, 

 where he was doubtless received into that palace, the architecture of 

 which he had copied on earth. The name of the "brazen palace" 

 arose from its having been roofed with sheets of metal, and not with 

 the ordinary tiles. 



Soon after its erection, or in the thirtieth year after the Christian 

 era, the Maha Paya required considerable repairs, but it was not till 

 Mahasen's reign in A. D. 286, that it met with any very serious dis- 

 aster. By that apostate monarch the entire of the nine stories were 

 swept away and nothing left but the pillars which had supported it in 

 the centre. To repair this destruction his son and successor Kitsiri 

 Mai wan in A. D. 302, was obliged to split many of the pillars in two 

 in order to complete the original number. The palace was subsequently 

 reduced to five stories, and gradually fell into neglect and decay until 



