572 Mauntyala. [No. 6. 



tread more confidently the mazes of eternity. How can we reconcile 

 it with our conscience, with our principles, with our feelings, to drag 

 their dust forth rudely from the tomb, or to mutilate and deface 

 those sacred monuments which were hallowed to their hearts by 

 association with the Author of all good ? Do we rob them because 

 they have none to act as champions for them, because there is none 

 to call us to account ? to sue us at law ? If so, it is a cowardly and 

 an unmanly plea. 



The number of these mutilated monuments I reckoned to be 

 eight or nine, but there may be others which I did not observe. 

 Several of these have been regular topes, though now for the most 

 part despoiled of their squared stone : a fate from which the main 

 tope has been saved, only by the cumbrous weight of its materials. 



There are also a large number of wells in this neighbourhood, 

 frequently of oblong figure and lined with squared stones. Each of 

 these wells may have belonged to some shrine, or have been dug as a 

 votive offering to the religion of the spot. 



We have now no means of ascertaining the traditions of Maun- 

 kyala. "We know not whether the supposed sanctity of the spot led 

 to the erection of the main tope, or whether it was the consequence 

 of the existence there, of so considerable a shrine. But whatever 

 the cause, it has led to the erection of many such shrines or sepul- 

 chres, and to the excavation of many wells. 



The Boodhists evidently delighted in water. As their religion 

 seems to have emanated from the worship of Eire : so water, as one 

 of the elements, seems to have been necessary to their ritual, and is 

 found in either tank or well at all of their shrines. Many of those 

 at Maunkyala may have been gifts to the main shrine ; others belong 

 to separate shrines of which the vestiges remain : and others may 

 have been the work of votaries, to whom in consequence of the 

 scarcity of water at that spot, the work had been enjoined by the 

 priests. My small camp, of less than forty persons, daily exhausted 

 the principal well. A few of these wells may have been designed 

 for irrigation. 



Erom a careful examination of the spot, I cannot see any evidence 

 of the existence here of a city. The area occupied by submerged 

 ruins would not have comprised a very considerable village : whilst 



