PoLONHAAUWi.— Operations were reaumed at Folou- 
Baruwa for the thira season in May last. Weeding 
the area already excavated in 1900 and 19111, mainly 
the rnina (Audience Hall, &c.,) situated within the 
promontory — oocnpied a fortnight or three weeks. 
Snbseqoently attention was given to continning ex- 
cavations around the Siva Devale near the 25th mile- 
post on the road from NHnneriya, This Devale was 
exposed last year. Forest trees and scrub jungle are 
so thick at Polonnaruwa that much felling and 
olearine; was necessary, and proved slow work. By 
the end of September, however, the entire group of 
ruins had been excavated aiui opened ut to view 
from the h'gh road. This gio"p con-iats of : — (a) 
liiva Devale (h) A Vishnu Devule. (c) A Kovil 
sacred to thu gO'ldess ^^^aZi. I" plan and chitectural 
detrtila these ihrines display little to diffsreutiale the 
one from the other. Ali alike have a vcsfibule 
and sanctum : the Siva Devnle alone posse'^aes an 
intermediate room. They were brick-bn It, with 
atone piilars to support the roof where required. 
Stone figures of Vishnu, Kail, and the bull l<!'^ndi 
were found near tiieir respective shiines. Beside 
these three fanes, this Hindu Temple claimed at least 
three other buildings; — (a) A plain,' narrow, -Uuc- 
ture crowning the summit of the rock hummock, on 
ine west slope of which occurs the long inscription 
of King Nissauka Mulla, (e) A pillared bnihiiug, 
oblong, wiihin its own enclosed premises. /) A bold, 
terraced, building, on massive pillars, immediately 
adjoining the bund of the old Topavewa tank. This 
bnilding was probably the principal residence of the 
eoclesiastios — first Buddhist monks, subsequently 
alien priests, after the conversion of the mouasteiy 
into an extensive temple devoted to Hinduism. At 
the foot of the entrance stairs were exhumed two 
handsomely carved moonstones adorned with hansas 
and other ornamentation. As in 1901, a large number 
of moor villagers from the Marakkala Pattuwa of 
Tamankaduwa, were engaged for a week in continu- 
ing to free the ancient city of the jungle in which it 
lies buried. The area dealt with in the past year 
extends for a width of 200 to 300 yards fiom the 
Rankot Vehera as far northwards as the Kiri Vehera. 
Council. — Two members of the Couocil of 1901 
viz: — Mr A Haly and the Hon Mr H H Cameron, 
have been deemed to have retired in accordance with 
Bale 16 ; the vacancies in the Council were filled by 
the appointments of Mr J C Willis and Mr H White, 
Mr M K Bamber was elected in place of Mr .T Fergu- 
son who was appointed as Vice-President. 
FiHANCKS. — The income for the year exclusive of 
the commencing balance, was Bl, 562-25; but there has 
been exceptional expenditure, especially in the latter 
half of the year, due chiefly to the issue of a number 
of the journal double the usual size. The re-binding 
of volumes in the Library, too has been exceptional 
and coutinuons throughout the year. In April the 
Treaanrer placed Rl,500 on fixed deposit for a year 
to secure 4 per cent interest; but the printing and 
binding expenditure being more than twice as large 
ai in 1901, the current account was overdiawn at the 
end of the year by R359-42. The interest on the 
fixed deposit will accrue in April next and there will 
be a net gain to the Society of nearly R50 ; but the 
balance sheet below discloses that the commencing 
halance of R2,20U'lO was reduced during the j-ear to 
Bl,140-58. 
Mr M Kelway Hamber, m r a c, m it a s, 
Eng., F C S, moved the adopticm of the report. 
Mr C BatuwantudaWA secondetl and it was 
carried unanimously. 
ELECTION OF OFFR'E-BtAREKS. 
Mr Paul Pliims— moved that the followinu; he 
elected otliot'-boarers f(ir the ye tr, Dr ( 'ii.\LMt;i!S 
hcconded anil it was ngiecd, viz; — 
President. — The Hon. Everard im Tlmrn, 
C B, CM a. 
Vic&-Pre8idenis.—M.i- F M Mackwood, J p, 
PES, the Hon. Mr J Ferguson, F R C I. 
Council. — Dr. W G VanDort, M d, Me!=i3rs. 
W P Ranasinlia, S M Burrows, M A, C C S, C Drie- 
berg, BA, F H A 8, tiie Hon. Mr .S C Obeyesekera, 
Messrs. H. White, CCS, J C Willis, M A, F L .s, 
M Kphvay Baniber, F C S, C M Fernando, B A, 
LLB, P Freiidenbern;, Dr. A Willey, MA, DSC 
(L'lniloi;) F R S.. Mudaliyar A Al Guna^^eUera. 
Homi TreciHurcr. — Mr F CiDsbie lioles. 
R<jiii{. Secretaries —^essr^ H C P B-ll, C C S, J 
H irw iMi, M A, an. I Gerard A Josepl). 
OLA GUANMS OF THE 17th CENTURY. 
Mr Harw KD iti tlie absence <»i Mr T B 
P"ha; h KeliL-!|)aiiiiala, read his p;ipi;r e titled 
" Two Old Grams of the Seventeenth Ceatuiy 
Willi 'txt, translation and notes." 
MuuALiYAR Goo.vawaruana— on been called 
upon losjieak — said he hit not mucli tj say on tlie 
paper llo^v read. He. nufortauately, had not had the 
opportunity of seeing a copy of the original until thit 
day, and then only for a short time fhrough the 
kiui^n.ess of Mr H^rward at his offiee. The first 
of tliese santia;. boie the date as they would 
see of 1553. I'he translation date w-is "the ^evenih 
day on the waning m.jon of the laonl'i of Wesak." 
He believed rhere wa< a niL-^print there and that it 
should be, the 13th day ; for he found in the original, 
a word which meant "thirteenth day." He 
looked into Sir Charles Cunniagliam's table 
of dates and according to that the " 13th day " 
of the waning moon of the month of Wesak 
in the year of Saka 1553 fell not on a Sunday as 
given there, but on a Wednesday, so t!iat they 
would see there was a discrepancy between : he 
date of the month and the day of the v/eek. Tlie 
writing too, of whicli he sa.w a facsimile copy in 
llie hands of Mr. Harward, did not appear to 
him to be the writing of the Sinhalese of the 
seventeenth century. He did not, therefore, tiiink 
th9t this could be genuine. Perhaps, if he saw 
tli3 original, he might have reason lo change his 
opinion. _ But so far as he had seen the document 
he certainly did not think it was geiiU'ne. As to 
tlie secoiiii, he thought there was a uood deal to 
say on the side of the genuineness of th it document. 
In the lirst place the writing did look like the 
writing of the seventeentii century of the Christian 
era. In the second place the document seems 
to be not of a kind to be forged for any puipose 
because the deed seemed to grant ceitain exemp- 
tions to one Suruttan Kuttiya and he believed 
these privileges did not descend on his successors 
and, therefore, it was ditticult to see why at any 
subsequent date any person should have forged that 
document. There was tints a good deal to say on the 
side of the genuineness of this document, but there 
was still the same difficulty as with the last, with 
regard to dates. He verified ihe^e dates according 
to Sir Alexander Cunningham's table of dates 
and he found that ' the seventh day of the 
waxing -.iioon of tlie month Esaln, in t'le year 
of Saka 1567 ' f -ll not a.s staled in the docunient 
on a Tlinrsilay but oi\ a Sunday. That he thought 
v.'as very f ual to the geiiuineness on the docu- 
ine'it having b^en written on the day i"- bore on 
the fice oi it. It was a fact we I known that 
the Siiihale^e had their calendar of dates veiy 
, carefully prepared an 1 were nKviiys guidtd by that 
Cilendarm all the documents that p issed under 
their hands. So far. therefore, as tliat went the 
presumption was against the admission of the 
genuineness of the first document. Witli regard 
