is well worth it. It is safe to say that even if all other of the Polonnaruwa monuments eventually fade from the memory of those who have seen them, the Floral Altar and Wata-dagé can never be forgotten.

CHAPTER XVI

SACRED SHRINES

To continue from the Thuparama group to the buildings lying further northward at Polonnaruwa involves a certain amount of walking. Before we pass outside the city limits there are various scattered objects worth seeing. The path made by the Survey authorities runs due north from the Sat-mahal-prasada, and from it on the right at intervals run several other small paths. One of these leads to a ruined dagaba-Pabulu Vehera, the third in size at Polonnaruwa. North-east of it another Hindu temple, Siva Devalé, No. 2, on the same model as No. 1. By good judges it is considered an even more more perfect specimen of the type. In 1909 the roofless vestibule was rebuilt and the dome reset. Few go out of their way to find it, and what chiefly impressed me was its air of utter solitude. A spider's web, like a cable, barred the entrance; the mud nest of a bird under the eaves was within reach even of a boy's hand; and the slough of a snake lay on the threshold.

The track leading back from it into the main path runs parallel with the city wall, through a gap in which-once the north gate-we pass.

In section here the thickness of the ancient wall, oft-times so hotly defended, can be seen.

After this there is a comparatively long interval devoid of important ruins, where the smaller growth of wood is still uncleared and huge creepers, like great hawsers, twisted and looped and coiled, link the trees together. In among them are grey pillars, leaning this way and that, the same colour as the trunks of the trees, and hardly to be distinguished from them. Monkeys abound, both the large grey-faced wanderoo and the pert little rilawa peering and peeping and vanishing like shadows at every step. Leopards are sometimes seen sitting for a second to view the intruder and then stealthily departing; porcupines abound, their quills can be picked up frequently, but being night feeders they are very rarely apparent. Snakes are not very frequent; the larger sorts, such as cobras and pythons, are met with in the outer jungle, but have withdrawn before the presence of man. Hares occasionally dash across the path, and deer may venture as near to the arch-enemy as this, but mostly they are not to be met with for some miles further on.

At last we break out into the open and see to the left the first of the two great dagabas of Polonnaruwa. This is Rankot dagaba, and it appears small after the larger specimens at Anuradhapura, though actually ranks not behind, but amongst them, being fourth in size of those that are known, coming after Abhayagiri, Jetawanarama, and Ruanweli, but before Mirisaweti. Another name for it was Ruanwelle-saye, the " Place of Golden Dust" (Tennent), which links it up as identical with

Ruanweli. It was built by Parakrama's second queen between 1154-86 (see p. 243). It is mentioned as "the great golden stupa " because it was topped by a golden " umbrella." The circumference at the base is 555 feet; the original height was 180 feet. In 1885 the first effort was made to clear out the trees which were tearing to pieces the brickwork, and in 1905-6 the effort was repeated and carried further. The work of eradication proved very heavy, and was attended with no little risk. Some of the roots were as thick as a man's thigh, while the high walls of brickwork outlining some of the shrines or chapels were too insecure to permit of strong blows with full-sized axes. The pinnacle on its square base at the top has been preserved, and shows up above the jungle from miles off, appearing from the far end of the great tank in surprising fashion. Vegetation has now once again clothed the dagaba, but will not be allowed to attain dangerous dimensions.

To the north lies an immense field or open space showing the former extent of the attached monastery, and at the end towers the imposing mass of the ruined temple of Jetawanarama. The principal ruin, Baddha-sima-prasada, the "House of the Elder," is a fine building with four stair-entrances furnished with moonstones, the design of which runs mainly on the same lines as that described at the Wata-dagé; but there is an exception, for on that at the southern entrance is an additional belt, representing lions, which appears within the line of geese, or hansas. This seems to be the only exception to the recognised fashion

in Polonnaruwa. The building itself rose from a basement of unusual size, and the outer walls were pierced by lancet-shaped windows. The pillars remaining are plain. The interior walls show signs of having been coloured in panels. At the north-east corner of the terrace were three splendid wells, or cisterns, affording a capital water storage.

"He [Parakrama Bahu] caused a stately house of three storeys to be built for the Elder there, with halls of exceeding great beauty and many rooms of great splendour, and adorned with a roof of pinnacles."

Even in its ruin it still retains the quality of stateliness. The imposing red mass of Jetawanarama overlooks this great space of ruins which suggests a battlefield. The temple is 170 feet long, and, seen from the east, where the whole length of the aisle, up to the stupendous headless figure of Buddha at the end, can be seen in a vista, it suggests one of the venerable roofless abbeys of England.

Jetawanarama seems to have been a generic name for monasteries, and it is odd that it should here and there, as in this case and at Anuradhapura, have become attached to one particular building. An inscription on a slab at the front entrance calls it "Lanka-tilaka," which brings to memory the lines in the Mahawansa : "He [Parakrama] made there the standing image of Buddha of the full size, which was delightsome to behold, and called it Lanka-tilaka."

The Mahawansa also records: "He built the great vihara called Jetavana as if he displayed before men's eyes the magnificence of Jetavana [Buddha's