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JOUKNAL, K.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. VIII. 



made of hard wood. On two or three stamped bricks there 

 is the impress of part of the edge of the die, the size of 

 which almost proves that it was made of this material. The 

 written letters vary in length from about three inches to 

 five and a-half inches, but the stamped ones are usually 

 somewhat smaller. The written ones are made in a free, 

 bold manner, which only men who were well accustomed to 

 writing could acquire. One or two letters appear to be 

 purposely wrongly made, the curve in the ca, for instance, 

 being on several bricks traced on the wrong side of the 

 vertical line ; and I have met with one of this shape 

 impressed by a well-cut stamp. A man with this initial 

 may have adopted this mode of distinguishing his signature 

 from that of another person having the initial. Only four 

 kinds of marks, which are not letters, have been discovered ; 

 these consist of one, two, four, and five dots or punctures, 

 the idea being evidently taken from the three dots of the 

 letter /. This appears to show that nearly all the brick- 

 makers could write, or more of these marks would have 

 been found. 



If the hypothesis that these letters are the initials of the 

 brickmakers is correct, and if it is further allowable to sepa- 

 rate stamped from written letters as the initials of different 

 persons, the specimens obtained must be the work of about 

 80 different men. How many more different initials might 

 be procured, were the whole of the bricks used in the 

 dagaba to be carefully examined, cannot be guessed ; but 

 the number might certainly be much increased. The bricks 

 which I have been able to examine were merely a fe w of the 

 bricks forming the upper half of the dome or cupola. 



That any such letters should have been written on the bricks 

 forming the body of the Yatthala dagaba and the Maharama., 

 affords conclusive proof that the art of writing was intro- 

 duced into Ceylon not later than the time of Asoka ; but 

 when we find that nearly all these brickmakers were capa- 

 ble of writing their initials (or any kind of letters) on 

 bricks, it must be also admitted that the knowledge of 

 writing had by that period spread generally throughout the 

 country. . As I previously remarked, if men of low caste 

 knew how to write, the higher castes must certainly have 

 been aware of it. When we thus find the people generally, 



