NOTES ON ANCIENT SIMHALESE INSCRIPTIONS. 29 



" having." Later on we find it as a particle : wat— wat 

 " either — or." 



11) Siritjhi Locative of sirit (see IV. 23.) 



12) Se " as, according to" (see the derivation III. 20.) 



13) Dawaspatd "daily." In an inscription of the 9th 

 century I found *hawurudu hawurudu paid, whence I am 

 inclined to conclude that pat a is contracted from pawata 

 u having continued" ( Gerund of pawatinawa, v. neu. Vvrt) 

 and translate : "year year continued" i.e. " yearly." Later 

 the Substantive denoting the time was put only once, as 

 still commonly dawaspatd " daily," awurudupatd " yearly." 



14) Mahaweherae is Locative or Genitive, the termina- 

 tions of which two cases in neuters early began to coincide, 

 curtailed either from hu (Gen.) or hi (Loc.) — the locative, 

 in this period as will be observed, has still retained the older 

 termination besides, but the genitive only with animates. — 

 Makawehera here is the mahavihara at Anuradhapura. 



15) Mahaboyae, the same form of mahaboya, i. e. maha- 

 bodhi " the great Bodhi-tree" at Anuradhapura, now called 

 " (Jay a) Sri mahabodhin wahanse." 



16) Dit/, " water," from udaka, daka. This is the ancient 

 word for " water" which in modern times had to yield its 

 place to watura (but diya is still used in literature and in 

 some compounds.) I take the opportunity here of giving 

 the interesting history of watura. This is derived from Skt. 

 watula (or an older form vatura) " windy, inflated," This 

 first was used as a substantive for "rain cloud," as 

 proved by its Hindi equivalent bddala (see Beames, Compar. 

 Gr. II. 145) ; then it came to mean "a shower of rain" or 

 any violent flood, which is its signification in ancient and 

 still in literary Simhalese (see Namavaliya 82, where it is 

 given as a synonyme for ogha) ; at last, in very modern 

 times, it acquired the signification of " water" in general, 

 instead of diya. 



