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JOURNAL, E.A.S. ( CEYLON ). [Vol, VIII. 



bore the name of Yatthalaka Tissa, and succeeded his 

 father in the sovereignty. I have already shown that 

 Mahanaga may have been born about 296 B.C. ; and if we 

 suppose him to have died at the age of 70, his son Tissa 

 would succeed to the throne about 226 B.C. This is pro- 

 bably not more than a few years wrong ; Mahanaga must 

 have been on the throne at least 14 or 15 years in order to 

 complete the great works which he undertook at Magama 

 and elsewhere— (the Dhatuvarhsa says that he erected 100 

 wiharas) ; and to allow time for the interpolation of his 

 son and grandson before Kakawarma Tissa, he cannot be 

 assigned a much longer life. Nothing is more likely or 

 natural than that the son of the constructor of the Maha- 

 rama (and perhaps the Sandagiri dagaba also), should 

 emulate his father in the erection of a large dagaba ; and 

 when we find one at Magama named after his birthplace, 

 it can be assigned to him with greater prospect of accuracy 

 than to any other monarch. As he bore his uncle's name, 

 Tissa, it can be understood that he might prefer to call this 

 dagaba after the place where he was born, rather than after 

 a name which might be confounded, in after years, with 

 that of his relative. It may be assumed, then, that the 

 Yatthala dagaba was built by Yatthalaka Tissa ; and in 

 that case the date of its construction must, until more is 

 known of early Sirhhalese chronology, be put down to the 

 period between 210 B.C. and 226 B.C.— say, about 220 

 B.C. 



So far as probabilities are a guide, therefore, this date, 

 220 B.C., is the date of the inscriptions found on the bricks 

 at the Yatthala dagaba ; and the forms of the letters them- 

 selves afford valuable confirmatory evidence that the writing 

 was done not .very long after that of the Asoka inscriptions. 

 I annex drawings of the letters met with, and if this report 

 should be published, I hope that it may be possible to re- 

 produce them accurately by lithography. This will be much 

 better than a lengthy comparison of the letters with those 

 of Asoka, and of the oldest inscriptions in Ceylon, at Toni- 

 gala and Gal-lena. (Ancient Inscriptions, Nos. 1 and 2.) 

 Attention may however be drawn to the fact that some of 

 these letters are now, I believe, for the first time found in 

 Ceylon in the most ancient character. These are i, E, O, 



