104 



and then only as a place of residence for priests ; nor is it at all 

 clear on what part of the mountain the abodes to which reference 

 is made were situated. Two centuries more elapse before we come 

 to an allusion to the Sri-pada, when Prakkrama the First (1153 — 

 1186) made (according to the Rajawalia) a pilgrimage to the 

 mountain, worshipped the priest of the Foot-print, and caused a 

 shrine to be built on the rock to Saman-Dewiyo ; so that the first 

 really historic notice of the actual existence of the Foot-print, is 

 about seventeen and a half centuries later than the time at which it 

 is alleged to have been made. 



Thus far, historic evidence of but one kind has been referred 

 to— that contained in the ancient writings or olas. But there is 

 another, — the rock and stone inscriptions of the country,— cut in 

 the Nagari or old Pali character, the testimony of which is 

 indisputable, and the value of which cannot be overrated. These 

 inscriptions, at Mihintelle, Anuradhapura, Pollonnaruwa, Dambul, 

 Matelle. and elsewhere, corroborate the statements in the olas re- 

 specting the origin of other holy places, especially those selected by 

 Mahinda, or bestowed upon him by king Devananpiyatissa, and to 

 which the arch-priest affixed the seal of sanctity by his affirmations 

 that they were sites formerly chosen by Buddha and his three 

 predecessors, and hallowed by their personal presence. Now of 

 this description of evidence there is not a tittle on Adam's Peak, 

 although inscriptions of a more modern date are to be found on 

 both the eastern and western sides of the summit of the Peak. 



History from b. c. 543, to about a. d. 1 160, being thus silent as 

 to the origin of the Sri-pada, we must fall back upon tradition ; and 

 here native help is not of much avail; for, although a local tradi- 

 tion ascribes its discovery to king Walagambahu, in the course of 

 his fourteen and a half years' fugitive wanderings (from 1D4 to 

 89 b. c.) through a revelation made to him by the god Sekraiya,* 



* For an account of this tradition, see 'Adam's Peak/ pp. 16, 17. 



