B.C. 119. B.C. multitudes who were tempted to withdraw from the world and its pursuits, in order to devote themselves to meditation and the diffusion of Buddhism, that the difficulty became practical of maintaining them by personal gifts, and the alternative suggested itself of setting apart lands for their support. This innovation was first resorted to during an interregnum. The Singhalese king Waalagambahu, being expelled from his capital by a Malabar usurpation B. C. 104, was unable to continue the accustomed regal bounty to the priesthood; 104. and dedicated certain lands while in exile in Rohana, for the support of a fraternity "who had sheltered him there."i The precedent thus established, was speedily seized on and extended; lands were everywhere set apart for the repair of the sacred edifices2, and eventually, about the beginning of the Christian era, the priesthood acquired such an increase of influence as sufficed to convert their precarious eleemosynary dependency into a permanent territorial endowment; and the practice became universal of conveying estates in mortmain on the construction of a wihara or the dedication of a temple. The corporate character of the recipients served to neutralise the obligations by which they were severally bound; the vow of poverty, though compulsory on an individual priest, ceased to be binding on the community of which he was a member; and whilst, in his own behalf, he was constrained to abjure the possession of property, even to the extent of one superfluous cloth, the wihara to which he was attached, in addition to its ecclesiastical buildings, and its offerings in gems and gold, was held competent to become the proprietor of broad and fertile lands. These were so bountifully 1 Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii. p. 203. Previous to this date a king of Rohuna, during the usurpation of Elala, B.C. 205, had appropriated lands near Kalany, for the repairs of the dagoba.-Rajaratnacari, p. 37. 2 In the reign of Bhatiya Raja, 3 Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 214. B.C. bestowed by royal piety, by private munificence, and 104. by mortuary gifts, that ere many centuries had elapsed the temples of Ceylon absorbed a large proportion of the landed property of the kingdom, and their possessions were not only exempted from taxation, but accompanied by a right to the compulsory labour of the temple tenants.1 As the estates so made over to religious uses lay for the most part in waste districts, the quantity of land which was thus brought under cultivation necessarily involved large extensions of the means of irrigation. To supply these, reservoirs were formed on such a scale as to justify the term "consecrated lakes," by which they are described in the Singhalese annals.2 Where the circumstances of the ground permitted, their formation was effected by drawing an embankment across the embouchure of a valley so as to arrest and retain the waters by which it was traversed, and so vast were the dimensions of some of these gigantic tanks that many yet in existence still cover an area of from fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. The ruins of that at Kalaweva, to the north-west of Dambool, show that its original circuit could not have been less than forty miles, its retaining bund being upwards of twelve miles long. The spill-water of stone, which remains to the present time, is "perhaps one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour in the island."3 The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, 1 The Rajaratnacari mentions an instance, A. D. 62, of eight thousand rice fields bestowed in one grant, and similar munificence is recorded in numerous instances prior to A.D. 204. -Rajaratnacari, p. 57. 59. 64.74.113. &c. Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 223. 224, c. xxxvi. p 233. 2 Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 37, Rajuvali, p. 237. 3 TURNOUR, Mahawanso, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was formed by Dhaatu Sena A.D. 459.—Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 257. 104. each of whom made from fifteen to thirty1, together B.C. with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for living creatures;" but so early as the first century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they enriched on the church. Wide districts, rendered fertile by the interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood3; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for the perpetual repairs of a dagoba1, and the revenues of whole villages and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a single wihara.5 So lavish were these endowments that one king, who signalised his reign by such extravagances as laying a carpet seven miles in length, "in order that pilgrims might proceed with unsoiled feet all the way from the Kadambo river (the Malwatye oya) to the mountain Chetiyo (Mihintala), awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of water during the construction of a wihara, "land within the circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple."6 It was in this manner that the beautiful tank at Mineri, one of the most lovely of these artificial lakes, was enclosed by Mahasen, A.D. 275; and, together with the 80,000 amonams of ground which it waters, was 1 Rajaratnacari, p. 41. 45. 54. 55; King Saidatissa B. C. 137, made "eighteen lakes" (Rajavali, p. 233). King Wahsabha, who ascended the throne A. D. 62, "caused sixteen large lakes to be enclosed" (Rajaratnacari, p. 57). Detoo Tissa, A. D. 253, excavated six, (Rajavali, 237), and King Mahasen, A. D. 275, seventeen, Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 236. 2 Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 242. B.C. 104. conferred on the Jeytawana Wihara which the king had just erected at Anarajapoora.1 To identify the crown still more closely with the interests of agriculture, some of the kings superintended public works for irrigating the lands of the temples2; and one more enthusiastic than the rest toiled in the rice fields to enhance the merit of conferring their produce on the priesthood.3 These broad possessions, the church, under all vicissitudes and revolutions, has succeeded in retaining to the present day. Their territories, it is true, have been diminished in extent by national decay; the destruction of works for irrigation has converted into wilderness and jungle plains once teeming with fertility; and the mild policy of the British government, by abolishing raja-kariya, has emancipated the peasantry, who are no longer the serfs either of the temples or the chiefs. But in every district of the island the priests are in the enjoyment of the most fertile lands, over which the crown exercises no right of taxation; and such is the extent of their possessions that, although their precise limits have not been ascertained by the local government, they have been conjectured with probability to be equal to one-third of the cultivated land of the island. One peculiarity in the Buddhist ceremonial served at all times to give a singular impulse to the progress of horticulture. Flowers and garlands are introduced in its religious rites to the utmost excess. The atmosphere of the wiharas and temples is rendered oppressive with the perfume of champac and jessamine, and the shrine of the deity, the pedestals of his image, and the steps leading to the temple are strewn thickly with blos 1 Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 69. tinction which they have earned, by the multitudes of tanks they have constructed or restored. See YULE'S Narrative of the Mission to Ava, in 1855, p. 106. 4 + Compulsory labour. 104. soms of the nagaha and the lotus. At an earlier period B.C. the profusion in which these beautiful emblems were employed in sacred decorations appears almost incredible; the Mahawanso relates that the Ruanwelli dagoba, which was 270 feet in height, was on one occasion "festooned with garlands from pedestal to pinnacle till it resembled one uniform bouquet;" and at another time, it and the lofty dagoba at Mihintala were buried under heaps of jessamine from the ground to the summit. Fa Hian, in describing his visit to Anarajapoora in the fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and flowers lavished on their worship by the Singhalese2; and the native historians constantly allude as familiar incidents to the profusion in which they were employed on ordinary occasions, and to the formation by successive kings of innumerable gardens for the floral requirements of the temples. The capital was surrounded on all sides3 by flower gardens, and these were multiplied so extensively that, according to the Rajaratnacari, one was to be found within a distance of four leagues in any part of Ceylon. Amongst the regulations of the temple built at Dambedinya, in the thirteenth century, was every day an offering of 100,000 flowers, and each day a different flower."5 66 Another advantage conferred by Buddhism on the country was the planting of fruit trees and vegetables for the gratuitous use of travellers in all the frequented . parts of the island. The historical evidences of this are singularly corroborative of the genuineness of the 1 Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv; Rajaratnacari, p. 52. 53. 2 FA HIAN. Foě Kouě Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 335. 3 Rajavali, p. 227; Mahawanso, ch. xi. p. 67. there, a secretary, a treasurer, a 5 Rajaratnacari, p. 103. The same 4 Rajaratnacari, p. 29,49. Amongst the officers attached to the great establishments of the priests in Mihintala, A. D. 246, there are enumerated-Ib. p. 136. in an inscription engraven on a rock |