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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIX. 



former lay very deeply buried under debris , piled up when the 

 quadrangle was freed of earth some years ago. 



These mandapa differ from those of the three great Dagabas 

 (Ruwanveli, Abhayagiriya, Jetawanarama) in admitting directly 

 on to the raised paved platform instead of merely into the pita- 

 vidiya, or outer procession path, of the quadrangle. 



Altogether, between seventy and eighty buildings have, from 

 first to last, been excavated round Mirisavetiya Dagaba. 



(6) Thupdrdma Area. — The ruins surrounding the Thuparama 

 Dagaba were finished in 1895-96. 



To the north-east of the Inner Circular road and immediately 

 to the north of the present Hospital premises (which were gradu- 

 ally encroaching upon them) a quadrangular arrangement of 

 pillar stumps showed aboveground, pointing either to a four- 

 sided set of monks' cells, or to a square " alms hall." 



The site was therefore excavated in 1906, and proved to be a 

 large quadrangle, once divided up into rooms or cells for monks 

 (such as those discovered already at Thuparama and Ruwanveli), 

 facing inwards towards a central, open, midula or compound. 



The building is of no architectural interest, and was obviously 

 of late erection as it overruns older walls. A small dagaba, or 

 asohona, jostles this quadrangle, and there are one or two minor 

 ruins close by. 



(c) Vessagiriya. — During the absence of the Archaeological 

 Commissioner at Polonnaruwa, a start was made in July by 

 his Assistant at this very ancient site — a tree sheltered outcrop of 

 gneiss rock and boulders adjoining the high road from Anu- 

 radhapura to Kurunegala, about a mile to the south of the Sacred 

 Bo Tree enclosure (Udamaluwa). 



Ruins of structural buildings and pokunu are traceable around 

 the cluster, evidently belonging to a large monastery. A score or 

 more of caves occur in two of the three groups of rock boulders 

 which stand, slightly separated, in line north and south. At an 

 earlier period the caves alone served for shelter to hermit monks, 

 as inscriptions above their brows testify.* If the Mahawansa 

 is to be relied on, the Vessagiriya Vihare, as well as the not far 

 distant Isurumuniya Vihare, were built by King Dewanampiya 

 Tisa in the third century B.C. 



The year's work at Vessagiriya was confined to the smallest 

 and most northerly group of these rocks. Excavation has 

 gradually disclosed it to be the site of an important rock-placed 

 pirivena of a Buddhist monastery, which existed at least as late 

 as the tenth century. 



There can be no question as to the period when the buildings 

 which once occupied this site were erected. Everything recalls 

 the citadel on Sigiri-gala constructed by the parricide Kasyapa 

 I. in the fifth century a.d. Steps, walls, mouldings all bear out the 

 comparison. The two inscriptions of Mahindu IV. (975-991 a.d.), 



* A dozen or so of these cave records have been published in the 

 Epigraphia Zeylanica, Vol. I., Part I. 



