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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Pulastipura, situated in lat. 7° 56′ N., long. 81° 3′ E., and rather more than 50 miles S.E. of Anurâdhapura, was the capital of Ceylon from the middle of the 8th century to the beginning of the 14th (A.D. 769–1314), and when at the height of its prosperity, during the long and glorious reign of Parâkrama Bâhu the Great, it must have been a city of great size and importance. It is pleasantly situated in the plain, on the shores of one of those numerous artificial lakes which the Si
halese kings loved to dot over the country; and from most of its ruins, as well as from the lake itself, are visible to the S.W. the mountain ranges of Mâtalê, ending in the Hunasgiriya Peak, and to the N.W. the haunted top of Riṭigala.
page 152 note 1 Ariṭṭha-pabbata, Mahâvasa, page 64, line 2. The history of this hill is curious: it seems in the older portion of Ceylon history to hare been a place of much importance. Here Pandukâbhaya entrenched himself for the seven years from B.C. 444 to B.C. 437; here Sura-tissa (B.C. 247–237) built a monastery, the Lankâ-vihâra, at the foot of the mountain; and here Lajji-tissa (B.C. 119–109) built a vihâra (Tumour's Mahâvasa, pp. 64, 127, 202). Since that early time it is not again mentioned; and in quite later times has been looked on as the abode of devils. The natives are afraid to ascend it, and I believe that I was the second Englishman who climbed it. My predecessor was a surveyor, who out his way up it in order to make some trigonometrical observations; and one of the men who had been with him was my guide. He, however, lost his way, and very fortunately so, for in making a new path I came upon extensive ruins in a fine forest halfway up the mountain; ruins which it is not unlikely may have suggested to some native the existence of devils: for they are far larger than any native thereabout could build, and if come upon suddenly or at dusk, could not fail to affect with awe any timid mind. From the ruins to the top I found an easy path, and at the very summit a solid retaining wall, supporting a terrace, on which a building of some kind, perhaps a watch tower, seems formerly to have stood. The river Malwattu Oya, the Kadamba of the Mahâvasa, on which Anurâdhapura stand, rises in this hill, and the old road from Pulastipura to Anurâdhapura must have passed close by its base.
page 152 note 2 Mâgama is curiously enough not the Mâgrammum of Ptolemy; for as he ‘calls it the metropolis, and places it beside the great river,’ Tennent (Ceylon, i. p. 536) thinks it must be the Mahiyangana of the Mahâvasa (pp. 4, 104, etc.), the modern Bintenne, where the people, with the help of the Ceylon Government, have lately repaired the very ancient sluice of a fine artificial lake. The Sihalese Mâgama, on the other hand, is at the extreme south of the island, a few miles from the sea-coast, and its site is easily ascertainable by the numerous ruins, especially those of Kâwan-tissa's Tissa-mahâ-vihâra, from which was derived the name of his Queen (Mahâvasa, p. 131). There are said to be inscriptions there, but the ruins have never been properly examined.
page 153 note 1 The Manihîra of the Mahâvasa, p. 237,11. 6, 10, situate behind the bund of a magnificent artificial lake, which still in its ruins is more than twenty miles round in wet weather. Just in front of the present bund can still be distinguished the ruins of the former, probably that which was built about 295 A.D., when the lake was first formed by Mahâ Sen. It is connected with Giritala Topare Ambawæwa, and other tanks, and formed part of that marvellous series of irrigation works called the Sea of Parâkrama,—works worthy of comparison, both in size and in usefulness, with some of the greatest engineering feats of modern times. For the last few generations Minnêri has been known as the residence of the chief headman of the district; once one of the most fertile in India, now abandoned and useless. The chief is also the priest of the little temple there, where the bow of Mahâ Sena, who died A.D. 301, is said to be still kept, but kept carefully secluded from the impious gaze of unbelievers. Among the forests on the embankment of the lake were lately a few mutilated statues, arranged in a semicircle, and forming a most weird sight in the dark shade of the dense jungle. The natives never dared to approach them, and refused altogether to clear the ground around them; but I found Tamil koolies less superstitious. Mr. Lawton, the photographer, has a fine photograph (No. 85) of this group, showing also a slab, which I cleared and excavated, only to find the long inscription on it quite illegible, from the decay of the stone on which it had been written. Messrs. Lawton have also some fine views of the lake itself (Nos. 83 and 84 of the collection in the Colonial Office, Downing Street).
page 154 note 1 A copper coin of Wijaya-bâhu is still extant, though it is very rare, and not among the collections of either the India or British Museums. It is given in Prinsep's plate, referred to below (p. 5), and assigned to this king, but it really belongs, I think, to Wijaya-bâhu the Second, A.D. 1186.
page 156 note 1 Two of these coins are to be found in the collections at the British Museum; where there are, besides, two copies of the farthing of Râja Lîlâvatî, Parâkrama Bâhu's queen.
page 157 note 1 Now in the possession of the Ceylon Government.
page 160 note 1 After this word is drawn a fish, as a sign equivalent to our full stop: a similar full stop is used ou Parâkrama's Lion seat at the Audience Hall. See facsimile in the Indian Antiquary, Sept. 1873.
page 160 note 2 The numbers show where each line of the inscription, as given in the facsimile, begins. They are omitted, as unnecessary, in the transliteration of the Saskrit stanzas.
page 161 note 1 gim niwu, literally “who quenched the fire.”
page 166 note 1 See my note about this curiouş, custom on a similar passage of the long Dambulla Inscription in the forthcoming Journal R.A.S. Ceylon Branch.
page 167 note 1 The Dâgaba is now called Rankot, or golden-tipped, a name certainly very ancient, as there has been no golden tip for several centuries, and the word appears in old Sihalese books: it is, however, evident from this inscription, that the builder of it named it Ruwanwæli (golden sand), after the celebrated Dâgaba of the same name at Anurâdbapura, whose building by Dushṭa Gamini, B.C. 158, is described at such length in the Mahâvasa, ch. 27–31, pp. 165–193. I take this opportunity of correcting an error (as it seems to me) in Turnour's edition of the Mahâvasa. The older Dâgaba (i.e. Dhâtugarbha; see Mahâv, . pp. 179, 211Google Scholar, and Childers' Dict.) is called throughout the description referred to simply Mahâthûpa, but it is now called Ruwanwæli, the name which it probably bore in Sihalese even from the first: to this the corresponding Pâli form would be Hemavâli, which actually occurs at Mahâv, . p. 97Google Scholar, line 1; Hemamâlika, , p. 108Google Scholar, line 7, and Hemamâli, , p. 202Google Scholar, line 8, are therefore probably misprints, or rather mistakes, for the m occurs also in the English translation.
page 167 note 2 In Prof. Wilson's Historical Sketch of Pâṇḍya, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 201, the name of Parâkrama Bâhu is the 65th in the list of kings.
page 168 note 1 Descriptive Catalogue, p. 33.
page 168 note 2 Ibid. p. 33; but in his Introd. to Sidat Sangarâwa, p. clxxxv., Mr. Alwis assigns it to Durandura, and at p. 34 of the Cat. dates it 1301 A.D.
page 168 note 3 Sidat Sangarâwa (Colombo, 1852), p. clxxv.
page 168 note 4 See Turnour, 's “Account of the Tooth Relie of Ceylon,” Journal of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, 1837, vol. vi. pp. 2, 856.Google Scholar
page 168 note 5 Introduction to Sidat Sangarâwa, pp. clxxv., clxxxiii. A new edition of this valuable ‘Introduction,’ our only authority on Sihalese literature, is much required.
page 168 note 6 Mahâvasa, p. 241, note.
page 169 note 1 Forbes, Ceylon, vol. ii. p. 210.
page 169 note 2 Attanagaluvasa, Introd., pp. x. xxv. Descr. Cat. pp. 118–168. Turnour, Journal Bengal Asiatic Society, vol. viii. p. 922. Weber, , “Neueste Forschungen,” p. 61Google Scholar. Westergaard, , “Ueber Buddha's Todesjahr.,” p. 98Google Scholar (of Prof. Steuzler's German edition). St. Hilaire, Journal des Savans, Fev. 1866, p. 102.
page 169 note 3 See Mahâvasa, Introduction, p. ii.
page 170 note 1 St. Hilaire, Journal des Savans, Janv. 1866, pp. 55, 56.
page 170 note 2 In his Ceylon, vol. ii. pp. 611, 632.
page 170 note 3 See Mahâvasa, Introduction, p. ii.
page 170 note 4 Ibid. p. ii.
page 171 note 1 See Vinayârtha-samuccaya, as quoted by Alwis, Introduction to Sidat Sangarâwa, p. clxiv. This work is one of those recently re-discovered, vide Louis de Zoysa, as quoted in the Descriptive Catalogue, p. xi.
page 171 note 2 Abidh. Edit. Subbûti (Colombo, 1865), p. 182.