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



till the time of Parakrama Balm II. that the Mahdwansa 

 mentions the princes of the Yanni who submitted to him. 

 The people of the Vanni were Tamils and Hindus in religion. 



It is curious to observe that whatever the religion of the 

 subjects might be, the royal family always kept up its 

 distinct origin. The parents of Parakrama Bahu I. kept 

 their household Brahmans. {Mahdwansa, chap. LXII.) 

 When he was of an age fit for his investiture with the thread, 

 the king (his father) made offerings for three days, and 

 concluded the ceremony with the help of Brahmans who 

 were versed in the social laws contained in the Yedas. 

 {Mahdwansa, chap. LXIV.) The Prince Vira Bahu, nephew 

 of Parakrama Bahu II., when he had defeated a band of Malay 

 invaders, went to Dondra " and worshipped the lily-coloured 

 god there, and made divers offerings unto him," that is 

 to Vishnu. (Mahdwansa, chap. LXXXIIL) It is probable 

 that the patronage of the royal family being a consideration 

 with the compilers of these histories, which otherwise exhibit 

 such a desire to exalt Buddhism, they were induced not to 

 omit these little circumstances which prove the private 

 court religion of the Sinhalese kings. If necessary, the 

 ruins of the Yishnuvite temple at Dondra and the Portu- 

 guese account of its destruction by them, and of its splendour, 

 show that Brahmanism was not a poor and unendowed 

 religion in the most glorious times of Buddhism. 



I saw, in 1892, on visiting the sacred Bo-tree at Anuradha- 

 pura, that even the colossal figure o f Buddha was by the sculptor 

 invested with the sacred thread from the left shoulder across 

 the chest and passing under the right breast. This thread 

 had, owing to the material operated on being the common 

 gneiss of the country, to be most carefully cut. The sculptor 

 claimed to retain the thread with which Buddha was invested 

 when he, like king Parakrama Bahu, came to the proper age, 

 and no objection appears to have been raised. Of course 

 the sculptor was of the religion of the Brahmans.* 



* What Mr. Nell took for " the sacred thread " is merely the upper 

 edge of the robe shallowly carved on the image. — B., Hon. Sec. 



