14 



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



resources of the State could not have been concentrated upon 

 such larger undertakings as those of a later date. That the 

 first royal structures were of the same character as those 

 previously in use, is shown by the terms in which they are 

 recorded. The historians, in describing the achievements of 

 their heroes, were profuse in their ascriptions of praise, and 

 they enlarged in inflated terms on the grandeur of the works 

 accomplished by the kings. They described, not without 

 manifest exaggeration, the magnitude and splendour of the 

 edifices erected and the deeds performed by the rulers. 

 They would not therefore have passed over, with a bare 

 mention, a fact so important as the construction of a tank, if 

 it had been of a novel character, whether for the grandeur 

 of its dimensions or the novelty of its construction. It may 

 therefore be safely assumed that the tanks first mentioned in 

 the history, as made by the early kings, differed in no 

 respect, that was worthy of record, from those common 

 throughout the country. The fact that in a single reign, 

 and that not a long one, a dozen or more of these structures 

 are recorded, proves plainly that they were of the simple 

 type of those pre-existing ones by which the cultivation had 

 always been carried on. Nevertheless, though the irrigation 

 works were of that simple character, the extent to which 

 the national industry had been carried, and the vast number 

 of people who were engaged in it, are amply indicated by 

 the state of the country, the thousands of priests and people 

 that crowded the cities, the pleasure gardens, the royal 

 retinues, and the public buildings that were supported by its 

 means. 



These exponents of the surplus wealth of the Island, after 

 providing for the 'food and requirements of the labourers, 

 show that the national industry to which they all owed their 

 existence must have attained great development, and have 

 embodied the labour of a vast number of people. Yet up to 

 this time the whole system must have depended upon those 

 simple works which the people carried out themselves, each 

 village or small district by its own resources. 



