great assembly of performers, producing airs corresponding to the various tunes,--in the same way proceeded many hundreds and thousands of divine soldiers in attendance, habited in their uniforms, overtaking one another, simultaneously raising various loud sounds of the five kinds of musical instruments, as if they were giving a violent shock upon the whole terrestrial element,-in the same way proceeded many hundreds and thousands of goddesses and companies of gods in attendance, carrying articles for offerings, such as umbrellas, fans, banners, bundles of feathers, palm-leaved fans, spreading fans, gold and silver pitchers, pots full of scented water, nosegays, garlands, and silver torches and other things.

55. In the same way proceeded Sekkras, Brahmas, great Iswaras, Nágás, Yakshas, Rákshas, Siddhas, Widdhyadharas, and others, collecting themselves together and attended by their retinues constantly spreading like canopies in the hollow of the firmament nosegays of fragrant flowers, and young branches of asóka trees, tender leaves of the honey mango trees, iron-wood trees, banyan trees, and creepers of spotted betel, and throwing, like rain, gold and silver flowers, pearls, gems, and camphor, and scattering about for offerings an immense quantity of such precious articles as godlike ornaments, divine crowns, and their upper vestures; whirling round their heads numberless divine garments like swarms of white cranes moving about the summit of a golden rock, snapping their fingers, producing sounds by the clapping of their hands, giving shouts of acclamations of joy, and filling all the points of the compass with the noise of excessive singing, intoxicated by the sports of sadhu. Thus the bands of gods proceeded through the air, together with the company of the disciples, Buddha being at their head, as if the rocks of Meru and Yagundara had landed on the shore of the great ocean, and bent their course towards the peak of Samanala.

56. And in this way, while the sound adviser of all the sentient beings, the sovereign of the world, the lord of the biped races, had ascended the aerial path, and was proceeding, the orb of the sun made the clusters of his beams as soft as the light of the moon, and stood in the sky like a white umbrella held over his head for the purpose of preventing the heat, then gentle drops of rain began to fall slowly like a sprinkling of water upon an altar of flowers that had been elevated to the clouded sky. And gentle breezes mixed with perfumes began to blow from various directions, to cool the whole universe like one orb of odour.

57. Thus Buddha suffering the pomps of the immense offerings which the gods performed, by presenting various miracles in the whole firmament, filled the entire universe with the clusters of Buddha's dense beams of six colours, namely blue, yellow, scarlet, white, red and variegated, arrived at the summit of the peak Samantakúța, and stood with his face towards the west, attended by five hundred disciples, like the orb of the rising sun enveloped in a collection of the lustre of Buddha's beams which had come over the top of the eastern rock, and which had looked towards the way of the interval of the western ocean; and Buddha, at the prayer of the great Sumana, the noble king of the gods, clearly impressed upon the summit of the Samantakúța mountain, his soft and ruddy pink coloured left foot, with all its beauties, which in length is about three inches less than two carpenter's cubits,* endowed with a hundred and eight auspicious signs.

59. So he properly gratified the noble god Maha Sumana, together with innumerable sentient beings such as Brahmas and gods,

Two feet three inches is said to be the measure of a Sinhalese carpenter's cubit; but some assert that antiently the measure was two feet nine inches.

and set his glorious foot as a seal that is impressed, purporting that the Island of Lanka was his own treasury, full of the three gems. At that moment, at the festival of the noble peaked mountain Samanala, the rocks, trees, rivers, cataracts, pools, brooks, earth, sea, and sky, like an army attendant upon it, clothed themselves with the unfolded garments of various hues of the six coloured rays of Buddha's beams, anointed with the ointment of the pouring of flowers of divine fragrance, adorned themselves with the jewelry of the showers of divine gems, decorated themselves with garlands of flowers of fully expanded and unwonted blossoms, playing on the five kinds of musical instruments like the roaring of the sea, singing agreeably to the measurement of the hum of the bees, clapping their hands as with the clash of rain clouds, shouting with applause like the roaring of the earth; and in the continual sprinkling of unusual rains they disported themselves among the waters.

59. Then the Omniscient Buddha, attended by the train of the great priests, departed from that place, and rested during the heat of the day in the cave of Bhagawa-lene on the side of that peak of Samanala, making it also a páribhógika memorial, and proceeding from that place went to the district of Ruhuna, and entered with his train into the state of samápatti, on the site where the monument of Díghanakha was to be erected, and rested there for

a moment.

60. Having rested in this way for a moment's time in the state of samapatti, together with his five hundred attendant sanctified priests, at the site of Díghanakha, and having placed in that spot the deity Maháséna as guardian, and thence like a Gurulu-raja attended by a multitude of Garundas, ascended the aerial path and come to the city of Anuradhapura, he sat, by shaking the earth, on the site where the great glorious sacred bo-tree was to be placed

in the midst of the grove Maha Méghawana, and on the site where Ratnamáli monument was to be erected, and appointed there a deity of the name of Wísála as guardian, and he proceeded thence and rested, by shaking the earth as before, in the state of Niródha samápatti, at the site where the Thupáráma monument was to be built; and having appointed in that place, as guardian, a god of the name of Prathuwimála, he proceeded thence and rested for a moment in the state of samápatti at the site of Mirisaweti Vihára attended by five hundred sanctified priests, including the eighty dignified disciples; then he rose from the state of samápatti there, and preached his doctrines to an innumerable multitude of gods who had collected themselves together in that place, and led them into the four rewards of the four paths, and commanded the god Indra to guard that place, and thus awakened the minds of the people. 61. From that place he proceeded and rested a moment with his retinue at the site where Lówámahápáya was to be erected, at the site where the house of Lahabat was to be erected, at the site where the pool Dantádhara was to be constructed, and at the site where Ruwanwelipaya was to be built; and he preached his doctrines to the assembled gods in these places, and distributed the four rewards of the four supreme paths; from that place he proceeded and sat upon that most delightful spot of ground on the summit of the rock of Mihintala where Mahaselasaya was to be erected; and he brought to his subjection those Gods, Brahmas, Nagas, Garundas, Siddhas, Widdhyadharas, Rakshas, Gandharwas, and others who were gathered near him, and he made them drink of the ambrosia of his doctrines, and straightened the path of the duration of Sansára, and displayed to them the happy way which speedily leads to the city of Nirwana.

62. He went thence, together with five hundred sanctified

priests, and entered the state of samápatti at the place where the venerable dágoba of Kataragama was to be built, and in that place also he caused the earth to shake, and for the future protection of that place he located the noble god Ghósha, and departed thence and entered the state of Niródha samápatti as before, at the site where Tissa Maha Wihára was to be erected, and caused the earth to shake as before, and he placed there for guarding it a god called Manibharaka. He left that place and coming to Nága-Maha-Vihára, entered the state of samápatti as before, and caused the earth to shake, and he placed there for its protection a god named Mihinda, and proceeded thence and entered the state of Niródha samápatti with the five hundred sanctified priests at a very delightful spot of ground, near Séruwila on the southern bank of the river Mahaweli, and caused the great earth to shake, and rose from his seat. 63. Then when the Nágarája Sumana had plucked some flowers from the champac tree which he had in his hands, and had gone to that place and offered them to Buddha and stood by him, he ordered that Nagaraja Sumana should reside there as the guardian god of that place, and then he gave his own protecting influence to the glorious Island of Lanka, and returned to Jambudwipa.

64. This is the third visit of our Buddha to the Island of Lanka. Thus all the fourteen places, at which he spent some time in moving about, by way of standing, or sitting, and so forth, in the three visits which the exalted sovereign of the wholesome doctrines paid to the Island of Lanka, are páribhógika memorials.