No. 44.— 1893.] 



YAPAHUWA. 



97 



ANCIENT CITIES AND TEMPLES 

 IN THE KURUNEGALA DISTRICT: YAPAHUWA. 



By F. H. Modder. 



Prefatory Note. 



The Seven Korales, or Kurunegala District, has within 

 its territorial limits the site of many an ancient royal 

 city, as also temples of renown, which writers on Ceylon 

 have omitted all mention of, or, if referring to them, have 

 devoted to them so little space that it can hardly be said 

 that justice has been done to the subject. Where the space 

 given to a notice of these sites and temples is brief, it may 

 safely be assumed that very little was seen, if anything, by 

 those who undertake their description. For instance, not- 

 withstanding the fact that the ruins of Ydpahuwa are less 

 remote and more accessible than those of Polonnaruwa, they 

 find no place in the books of the principal writers on the 

 Island, not even in the scholarly review or the Ruined 

 Cities of Ceylon by Sir J. Emerson Tennent. If that eminent 

 writer had visited these ruins he would not in his chapter on 

 the Fine Arts among the ancient inhabitants, have passed 

 this hasty judgment : — 



Carving appears to have been practised at a very early period with 

 singular success ; but as in later times it became so deteriorated that 

 there is no difficulty at the present day in pronouncing on the 

 superiority of the specimens remaining at Anarajapoora over those 

 which are to be found among the ruins of the later capitals, Pollanarrua, 

 Yapahu, and Kornegalle.* 



* Ceylon, Vol. I., p. 483. Mr. H. Parker considers the stone work in some 

 of the ruins at Rajangana, near G-alkadavala and about 45 miles from 

 Kurunegala, of a character quite equal to that of the older buildings at 

 Anuradhapura, if not in some cases superior. I hope to devote a Paper to 

 the history of the " Palace Court Yard," — the name of the place trans- 

 lated — and to give an account of its interesting ruins. Prince Selaya or 

 Sala, son of king Dutugamunu, is said to have founded the city, in which 

 case it will be about 2,020 years old. At all events, the date of the oldest 

 buildings cannot be more than one or two hundred years after Christ. 



42—93 H 



