No. 44.— 1893.] 



YAPAHTJWA. 



105 



and honour and maintain their parents. Accordingly the king gave 

 alms to 500 priests, 500 novices, and to the sick. 



These deeds being insufficient to entitle him to merit, the king, 

 after reigning eleven years, and looking to the cave of Res-seruwa, on 

 Thursday, under the asterism Pusa-neketta, departed to heaven ! 



Yapahuwa is a gigantic solitary boulder, the greater part 

 of one side of which is perfectly perpendicular, rising 

 abruptly from the plain, and commanding a glorious and 

 extensive view of the surrounding level country, whose 

 jungle-covered surface is picturesquely broken by numerous 

 isolated hills and rocks with which it is studded. A bund 

 runs right round it in front, enclosing a considerable area. 



At a point some 200 ft. above the plain, to which the 



ground slopes with a steep descent, was built the Palace. On 



one side of the Palace stands the Daladd Mdligdiva, below it 



lay the city, of which the only vestige remaining is an 



occasional embankment which tells of some pleasant tank 



that has been dry for ages. 



The absence of all remnant of the dwellings of the people, which is 

 the case with regard to all the ruined cities in Ceylon, is easily 

 accounted for by the fact, that under the native Government only 

 royal and religious buildings and those of the higher nobility were 

 built of stone ; the lower orders being only permitted to erect houses 

 of the most temporary description.* 



Knox, in his quaint description of the houses of his time, 



supports this theory; while the custom which prevailed among 



the native potentates was so tenaciously adhered to that even 



after the British occupation, when permission was granted 



to natives of certain rank to tile their dwellings, " the said 



privilege " was only extended to " persons who have or may 



receive commissions for office under the signature of the 



Governor of the Island."* 



The city was approached by water supplied from the adjacent 

 tank, a sufficient depth of water being maintained when necessary 

 by bunds raised outside the main or city bund, thus affording a 

 moat of considerable depth and width all round the city. These 

 bunds are in an excellent state of preservation.f 



* Once a Week, I. c, p. 226. 



| Mr. A. E. Williams (Sessional Paper LI., 1886, p. 1). 



