By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



173 



some of the largest of them have been proved to be sepulchral. 

 We have the authority of Sir James Tennent for asserting that they 

 are scarcely exceeded in altitude and diameter by the Dome of St. 

 Peter's. 1 Those of Anooradhapoora, which out-top all others, were 

 originally no less than 400 feet high : some of their ruins even now 

 are 220 feet in perpendicular height, and the outer wall exceeds 1 J 

 mile in length. Thus, the Dagoba of Bintenne is still 100 feet 

 high, although now much decayed : 2 that of Rankot, nearly 200 

 feet high : 3 that of the Golden Dust, one of the most celebrated in 

 Ceylon, erected B.C. 160, still 150 feet high : 4 the stupendous one 

 called Abhayagiri, originally 405 feet high, and still (after the 

 lapse of above 2000 years) more than 240 feet in height : 5 another 

 described as 249 feet high, and 360 in diameter, so that its contents 

 exceed twenty millions of cubical feet. G Such are the gigantic 

 Dagobas of Anooradhapoora, 7 " structures whose stupendous dimen- 

 sions, and the waste and misapplication of labour lavished on them, 

 are hardly outdone even in the instance of the pyramids of Egypt : 

 and in the infanc}' of art, the origin of these ' high places ' seems 

 to have been the ambition to expand the earthen mound which 

 covered the ashes of the dead into the dimensions of the eternal 



So far for the larger tumuli of Asia : the remaining quarters of 

 the globe will not detain us long, but as we approach Africa, we can- 

 not pass by the pyramids of Egypt, to which the brick Dagobas of 

 Ceylon very easily conduct us ; and which are none other than 

 artificial tumuli, in advance of the more primitive sepulchral 

 mounds of earth, the ruder work of less civilized nations. Grand 

 from their colossal size, and noble from their strength, solidity, 

 and simple form, they stand out to mock the perishing monuments 



p. 345,) or from deha the body and gopa that which preserves, (Wilson's Asiatic 

 Researches) either derivation pointing to the sepulchral character of the tumulus, 

 with which we are chiefly concerned ; each Dagobah professing to enshrine por- 

 tions of the deified body of Gotama Buddha himself. 



7 Idem, vol. ii., p. 624. See Lost Solar System of the Ancients discovered, 

 ii., 110—111. 



hills. 



1 Ceylon, vol. i.,-p. 346. 

 3 Idem, vol. ii., p, 590. 

 5 Idem, vol. ii., p. 621. 



2 Idem, vol. ii., p. 421. 

 4 Idem, vol. ii., p. 620. 

 6 Idem, vol. ii., p. 623. 



