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when in its complete state, according to the description supplied by the chroniclers. The winding line indicates the outline of the dagaba before its restoration, and follows the contour in a photograph taken more than thirty years ago by Messrs. Skeen and Co., of Colombo. The inner dotted semicircle shows the size of the dome built by Duṭṭha-Gāmiņi.

The restored dome is shown. as a half sphere, agreeing in this respect both with the other great dagabas of Anurădhapura and the account of it in the Mahavansa. The tee and base of the spire follow the proportions of those of the two other great dagabas which are described below. The height to the top of the lowest chatta is 240 feet, that is, 120 cubits at two feet per cubit, according to the scale adopted in a later part of this chapter.

The chattas follow the type of one carved in a crystal reliccase found at Tissa, and illustrated in Fig. No. 95. I have followed this unique example of an actual chatta in assuming that there was no pinnacle above the original one. There is also the authority of a later example in the Amaravati carvings at the British Museum (slab No. 34), of which I give a sketch (Fig. No. 81), as well as a beautiful stone flower-altar in the Ruwanwaeli enclosure which, as Mr. Bell has already pointed out, is of this form (Fig. No. 82). At the Mahānāga dagaba at Tissa, in the Southern Province, there is a much plainer flower-altar of this type.

I have represented, from a photograph for the loan of which I am indebted to Mrs. Waterfield of Malvern, the outline of the upper part of a highly decorated miniature stone dagaba with five chattas, which was dug up at a village thirty-six miles from Peshawar in India, by Mr. Stuart Waterfield of the Indian Civil Service, and which is now in the Calcutta Museum (Fig. No. 83). Although it is of much later date than the Ruwanwaeli dagaba, I have accepted the arrangement of the chattas on the upper part of the spire as a guide in drawing those of the latter work.

The total height to the top of the pinnacle thus becomes 305 feet; it may have been 25 feet lower if the spire passed through the first chatta.

The appearance of the great white dome covered with plaster and periodically white-washed, and of this high spire towering aloft in the blue sky, with its gilded upper chattas reflecting the bright rays of the tropical sun, must have been extremely effective and picturesque. It was a striking memorial of its great founder, and of the artistic genius of the Sinhalese But it was doubtless a far too prominent target for thunderstorms; and when Parākrama-Bāhu undertook the restoration of the structure he found it advisable to leave the summit of the spire at its original altitude of 120 cubits.

THE MIRISWAEȚI DĀGABA

Duṭṭha-Gāmiņi also constructed the Maricavati dāgaba, now called the Miriswaeți or Mirisawaeṭiya dagaba, at Anurădhapura, immediately after he gained the throne, completing it and the surrounding buildings in three years, that is, in 158 B.C. It was erected in order to enshrine the relic which had been his palladium through all his fighting with the South Indian invaders. It is related in the Mahāvansa (i, p. 96) that when about to undertake the re-conquest of northern Ceylon, and while still at Magama, he fixed a relic of Buddha in the head of his sceptre; and doubtless he would attribute to its magical power his constant series of victories over his enemies. The sceptre containing this relic is stated to be placed in the base of the dagaba.

The Miriswaeti dāgaba shared in the vicissitudes that befel the others at Anuradhapura.

King Vōhāraka-Tissa (215-237 A.D.) restored the chatta on the spire, which is not previously mentioned and thus appears to have been an original work of Duttha-Gāmiņi. Kassapa IV (912-929 A.D.) handed over the charge of the dāgaba to the nuns of the Mahā Wihāra.

It was included in the dāgabas which the Tamils ransacked in the eleventh century; and it was restored, with the other large works, by Parakrama-Bahu I. In the time of King Magha of Kalinga, though allusion is not specially made to it by the historians, it was evidently broken into again;

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LEGE

and like the other dagabas it was repaired for the last time during the reign of Parakrama-Bāhu II.

Although Anuradhapura was visited by one or two later kings, there is no record of any further restorations of the dāgabas there; and all alike were allowed to fall into ruin and become overgrown with jungle. When I first saw the Miriswaeți dāgaba in 1873 it was little more than a conical mound covered with large trees and bushes, all the upper part having slipped down in a talus round its base.

Bricks of three sizes were used in the outer work. The largest, and certainly the original ones, were 10.41 inches wide and 3 inches thick. The intermediate bricks measured 14.2 inches in length, 8.2 inches in width, and 2.34 inches in thickness, Bt. being 19.19, and the contents 272 cubic inches. These dimensions indicate a restoration in about the fourth century A.D., which the historians have not recorded. The smallest bricks were those of the restoration effected by Parakrama-Bahu I.

The shape of this dagaba seems to have been a hemisphere, resting on three short cylinders which formed three basal platforms or ledges round it, like those at the Ruwanwaeli dāgaba. On the top of the dome there would be the rectangular tee, ornamented as usual with posts and rails on each face in sunk relief, above which rose the spire. Apparently only one solid chatta surmounted the spire.

It had three high rectangular stone wāhalkaḍas (Fig. No. 84), 25 feet long, facing the north, south, and west cardinal points, each formed of a series of cornices or deep mouldings separated by bands of plain stone-work. Twenty-one elephants' heads project from the band above the lowest cornice; and on the uppermost band are carved in relief four processions of animals in one line, all marching to the left, and consisting of horses, humped bulls, lions, horned lions, and elephants. At the left of the six animals in each wing of the wahalkaḍa, a man or deity stands facing them, and holding up his left hand; and a similar figure stands facing each group of five animals in the central part.

The wāhalkaḍas are flanked at each end by two rectangular

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