48 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. X. 



the rest of his suite, implies the existence or the formation 

 of a road of considerable dimensions. Given the use of 

 wheeled vehicles, and the possession of large numbers of 

 elephants, it is not difficult to guess how and by what route 

 the monolith was dragged. 



But there is still another and stronger argument in favour 

 of the transport from Mihintale. The inscription on the 

 " Galpota " is evidently the crowning act of an inscription- 

 loving king. It contains by far the fullest account of his life 

 and doings, and required a material worthy of its contents. 

 It was quite unnecessary to go so far as Sigiriya simply to 

 find a large block of stone : that could very easily have been 

 procured from the home quarries which supplied the 

 materials for the great city buildings. There was every 

 reason, from a sentimental point of view, for not going to 

 Sigiriya : there was equally every reason for going to Segiriya. 



The latter was, in Buddhist estimation, the most sacred 

 spot in Ceylon. It was the Canterbury of Buddhism : the 

 place at which the first great missionary first appeared, whose 

 teaching was to direct the religious thought of the Island for 

 two thousand years : a visit to which was the ultimate object 

 and aspiration of every pious Buddhist. Sigiriya, so far from 

 having any reputation for sanctity, had precisely the reverse. 

 It was associated in the minds of the people with one of the 

 most revolting episodes in Sinhalese history ; it was the 

 last refuge of a parricide king, who tried in vain to expiate 

 his awful crime by the strictest attention to religious 

 observances : whose munificent endowments and elaborate 

 penances failed to win the approbation even of the monkish 

 chronicler of the " Mahawarjso." A stone from Sigiriya could 

 be nothing but a souvenir of Kasyapa the Parricide ; a pious 

 Buddhist like King Nissanka would have been about as likely 

 to claim such an origin for his great monolith as a Protestant 

 of Queen Elizabeth's day would have been to treasure, and 

 boast of, a relic of Bloody Mary. 



There is another interesting point connected with this 

 "Galpota" inscription. In it King Nissa^ka Malla gives 



