No. 23. — 1881. J VALENTYN ON ADAM'S PEAK. 55 



It would appear that the caves, or rock-hewn chambers, now 

 used as shrines in Ceylon are not of any great antiquity as 

 shrines from the following considerations : — 



(1) The principal figure is in all cases the Buddha in Nirwana. 



(2) The figure is of colossal size. 



(3) It is not of hewn stone, but of composition, and is painted 

 and plastered. 



(4) The erect or sitting figares where found are mere 

 accessories. 



(5) That the caves are immensely older than the figures in 

 them is evident from the figures not being hewn in situ, but built 

 up of chunam and brick, &c. 



(6) That the caves are of recent use as Buddhist shrines may 

 be inferred from the character of the facades by which they are 

 closed in. These are plain to meanness, devoid of all attempt 

 at decoration, being generally sun-dried brick laid in mud, 

 rubble stone dry or in lime, or even plain mud walls. 



But the writer is of opinion that these caves are of great 

 antiquity, and have been used in past ages as refuges from 

 floods and wild animals in the low-country, and from wild 

 animals and hostile tribes in the hill -country. By mere diffi- 

 culty of access as at Adam's Peak, Dambulla, Aluwihare and 

 Dunumadalakanda, &c, they are eminently fitted as places of 

 refuge; and from the commanding view which they in all cases 

 give of the country round by which the smoke of the fire of any 

 pursuing party by day, and the flame by night, could be readily 

 detected, they would serve as natural forts in a primitive age. 



At the caves of Aluwihare, near Matale, may be seen a stone 

 exactly similar to one discovered among some cave-dwellings 

 in the Rhone valley, and figured by Mons. Louis Figuier in 

 his "L'Homme Primitif " as a polishing stone used for polish 

 ing flint weapons. 



When by gradual civilization the forest aborigines learned 

 to make huts without the help of Nature, and to fortify their 



