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



[Vol. XX. 



give him a son, the greatest and most beautiful being that 

 could be ; and on commanding his astrologers to cast his 

 horoscope, they found that this child would be a saint, and 

 that he would contemn his father's kingdoms, and would make 

 himself a pilgrim (whom they call jogues) : on which the 

 father, filled with grief, determined to prevent all these things 

 by shutting up his son 1 so that he might see nothing. And so 

 when he was over five years of age he placed him in certain 

 palaces 2 , which he had ordered to be made for that purpose 3 , 

 locked and shut in, with large and verdant gardens inside, 

 where he commanded him to be brought up in company with 

 noble youths of his own age, with guards and watchers, in 

 order that beyond these no one else should speak to him, so 

 that he might not see or hear anything that might cause him 

 discontent, nor learn that there was anything else outside of 

 there, lest he should desire it. Here he was reared until the 

 age of eighteen, without knowing that there was sickness, 

 death, or any other human misery. 



On arriving at years of discretion, he did not fail to discover 

 that there were more things than those he saw ; wherefore 

 he sent to beg his father to allow him to leave there and go and 

 see the cities and towns of his kingdom. This the king granted 

 him, commanding him to be brought forth and conducted to 

 the city with great caution ; and in one street he encountered 

 a lame and infirm man, and on asking those who accom- 

 panied him what this was, they told him that these were 

 ordinary things in the world, where there were many lame, 

 blind, and with other defects. On another occasion when 

 they again took him forth, he saw a very decrepit old man 

 leaning on a stick, his whole body trembling. Astonished at 

 this sight, the prince inquired what it was, and they told 

 him that that proceeded from the many years that he had 

 lived, and that therefore men who reached that age became 

 very feeble 4 . Another day he encountered a dead man, whom 

 they were carrying to burial with great lamentation, and on 

 inquiring as to this, they told him ; whereupon the prince 

 asked : " What ! I and all of us have to die ? " and on their 

 telling him " Yes," he became melancholy and sad. 



While going along in this frame of mind, they say, there 

 appeared to him in a vision a saint in the form of a pilgrim, 

 who persuaded him to contemn the world and adopt a solitary 

 life ; and as he was already thus influenced, and had more 



1 Valentyn interpolates " in some gardens " (or " courts "). 



2 Valentyn has " walled gardens (and veranda^)." 



3 Valentyn omits these words. 



4 This last clause is omitted by Valentyn. 



