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



Even if no others are to be found, we can still account for the 

 absence of pre-As6ka stonework. I personally know some ancient 

 sites in Ceylon which have been denuded of their stone work — 

 and the like — by overseers and contractors of the Public Works 

 Department, who happened at the time to be building culverts 

 and repairing roads in the neighbourhood. Why could not 

 such a thing happen in ancient times ? We know As6ka was a 

 great builder. His example might have been followed by other 

 Buddhist rajas and rich men of the time. These officers might 

 have demolished many of the non-Buddhistic buildings and made 

 use of the material for their own works. 



Turning now to documentary evidence, we find in the Buddhist 

 scriptures references to stone pillars, staircases, &c, although 

 not to palaces of stone, except in a fairy tale. 



Rhys Davids, in his most interesting work on Buddhist India, 

 makes special notice of another sort of stone buildings, namely, 

 the hot-air baths, which he says are described in full in the 

 Vinaya text of the Buddhist Canon. These baths, according to 

 the learned Professor, " were built on an elevated basement faced 

 with brick or stone , with stone stairs up to it and a railing round 

 the verandah. The roof and walls were of wood, covered first with 

 skins and then with plaster, the lower part only of the wall being 

 faced with bricks. There was an antechamber, and a hot room 

 and a pool to bathe in." In the Digha Nikdya there is a descrip- 

 tion of an open air bathing tank with a flight of steps leading down 

 to it, faced entirely of stone and ornamented with carvings. All 

 these existed before Alexander's invasion. 



Ruins of several bathing tanks of this kind of a later date are 

 still to be seen in Ceylon at Anuradhapura. 



Slide 49. This is an illustration of one of them. 



In the Ummaga Jdtaka we read an account of a tunnel con- 

 structed by Mahavishadha Pandit. Although no mention of stone 

 architecture is made therein, yet, as it is full of points of 

 interest, I venture to quote from it : — " The gate of the greater 

 tunnel was near the river. Six thousand powerful warriors 

 began digging at the greater tunnel. The gate of the lesser 

 tunnel was in the new town. About 700 giants were at work on 

 it ; they carried the earth in leathern bags to town, and heaped it 

 therein; the earth so brought they mixed with water to build 

 ramparts therewith, and also used it for plastering walls and the 

 like. The entrance to the greater tunnel was in the same city. 

 The tunnel was provided with a number of doors eighteen cubits 

 high, curiously contrived with machinery, by which one of the 

 nails of any door being pressed, all the doors were closed, and a 

 second nail being pressed, all the doors were opened. Either side 

 of the tunnel was worked with bricks and plastered with stucco. 

 The top of the tunnel was roofed in with planks and polished with 

 shells, and the whole place was made white with makul . 

 This greater tunnel contained eighty large doors and sixty-four 

 small ones. All of these were fitted with machinery. On either 

 side of the tunnel there were several hundreds and thousands of 

 lamp-houses. The locks of the doors of these, too, were contrived 



