No. 63. 1910.] AGE OF SBI PAR VKRAMA BAHU VI. 17 
wisdom of the Buddhist hierarchs who reaHzed the peril to 
the church in an attitude of avowed hostility to a faith 
which was favoured by the king, nobles, and even by the 
people. 
However, this catholicity did not make the king neglect 
his claims to the Buddhist church. The Mahdvai^sa records 
what he did for the national palladium. " For the Tooth- 
relic of the Sage, the king caused to be built a three-storied 
palace delightful and beautiful to behold, and made a golden 
casket finely set with the nine gems, and he encased it in 
another golden casket set with excellent gems, shining with 
vari-coloured rays, which he encased in another golden casket. 
Moreover, when he had made a great and excellent covering 
casket, gilt with the best and most resplendent gold, that king, 
who longed for happiness during the continuation of existence 
and even at extinction (nirvana), placed the Tooth-relic 
within the four caskets." ^ 
Parakrama also built presumably within the city a spacious 
monastery^ for the priests, which was early in the reign presided 
over by the hierarch Maha Sami Vanaratana, the Sangha-raja, 
the supreme pontiff. A great p6ya-ge,^ or "ordination 
hall," with the sacred boundary duly laid out, rose in the city 
in testimony of the king's devotion. Here under the direction 
of Parakrama numbers of novices were periodically received 
into the church amid great pubhc rejoicine. 
In memory of his mother, Sri Parakrama Bahu built a 
magnificent shrine and a college for priests at Pepiliyana, 
^ Mahdvansa, ch. 91, v. 17. 
2 Rdjdvaliya (Gunasekara), p. 68. 
C3l«>i q «S520 @\CD^ (fi® S)iC CD(3 £33 CB 
— ^doeao-^^csacB, 57 ts>. 
The temple which the glorious lord Sri Parakrama built for the pur- 
pose of frequently causing the rite of ordination to be performed, when 
assisted by the great body of the clergy he had erected and joined the 
sacred boundary. Friend, (that) behold and with heart and mind well 
pleased take your way. — Gird Sandesa, v. 57. 
c 36-10 
