chief residence]." The temple was thoroughly restored by Wijaya Bahu IV (A.D. 1275). It is supposed to have been built originally on the model of that designed by Buddha himself at Kapilavastu, hence the reference above. The main entrance is reached by broad sets of steps, of three each, separated from each other by an intervening space. Each set has its own guardian stones. The risers of the steps are carved with ganas, but the guard-stones themselves show warders with only seven hoods, which seem to have been the height of fashion here, while at Anuradhapura nothing short of a nine-hooded guardian would be considered dignified in so important a position. Peculiarly interesting are the outer faces of the balustrades, with the huge form of the grotesque lion and the figure of a guard beside him (see p. 224).

When this important ruin was first tackled by the Survey authorities it was in a terrible state, and the interior was filled almost to the tops of the walls with the rubbish which had fallen and the vegetation which had sprung from it. Small wonder that the harassed commissioner in his diary records "the débris seems illimitable"!

The mighty statue of Buddha which occupies the west wall of the shrine, including its pedestal, once reached 44 feet 10 inches, being thereby the tallest statue in Ceylon. It is now headless, but the illustrations in Major Forbes's book (1828) and Sir E. J. Tennent's Ceylon (1860) show a head and face. The feet and ankles were also broken, but have been repaired. The tall octagonal towers which flank the entrance are imposing

even in their ruin. On the southern one is still to be seen a vivacious figure in relief, considerably larger than life.

Of the three similar temples at Polonnaruwa, Thuparama, and Demala, this is the largest.

Just opposite the entrance is a particularly attractive little pavilion, or Mandapaya, in the shape of a raised platform adorned with many pillars. "It stands for one of the most perfect pieces of open lithic structure, extant in Ceylon, so far as regards moulded stereobate and surfacecarved columns."

North of Jetawanarama and close to it is Kiri dagaba, the sister dagaba to Rankot, though much smaller, indeed about half the size in circumference. Kiri means milk-white and the name was given because at one time the whole surface was covered with chunam, which gleamed like marble. Kiri dagaba follows the same lines as Rankot, having altars at the four cardinal points and being surmounted by the same kind of superstructure, though in this case the pinnacle is truncated, being broken at the top. A A path trending north and a little west from Kiri dagaba leads to one of the most remarkable sights in Polonnaruwa. This is the Gal-vihara, with its rock-cut statues, famous throughout the Buddhist world.

"This rock-hewn shrine, strictly, Kalugal Vihara or the Black Rock (granite) temple, stands unrivalled as in its special features the most impressive antiquity par excellence to be seen in the island of Ceylon, and possibly not rivalled throughout the continent of India." (1907 Report.)

We come suddenly out in full face of these dark silent figures, so still and yet so strong in their forceful impression, that they tend to startle by the repressed vitality they contain. A gently sloping bulge or outcrop of rock, similar to that from which they are hewn, rises opposite to them; mounting this we have an extended view. There is the colossal figure of Buddha himself, lying prone, the smaller but upright figure of Ananda his disciple at his head, and further to the left, beneath the overhanging roof of its rockcut shrine, the seated figure of Buddha on a pedestal or throne. It is the two first that compel attention and impress no less by their solemnity than their size. The prostrate Buddha measures over 44 feet. This is large for Ceylon, but a mere nothing compared with the gigantic figures of Burma, the largest of which attain to over 100 feet. The wonder is rather why the Cingalese should have so rarely made a statue of Buddha in this attitude, and have contented themselves within such narrow limits. Possibly questions of cost had something to do with it.

Sir George Scott says:1

"The popular division of the gautamas is into the classes of standing, sitting and lying. This is somewhat crude, but it is perpetuated by a curious notion that though a man may present all three kinds of images, he must do so in a special order; the standing first, then the sitting and last the lying down."

His remarks of course refer to the custom in

1 The Burman: His Life and Notions, by Shway Yoe. (Macmillan, 1896.)

Burma, but the Buddhism of Ceylon is the Buddhism of Burma with small local differences. Like all the prone statues, this one represents Buddha when he had attained Nirvana, and it follows the conventional rules for such work. Buddha lies on his right side, and his head is raised on a cushion, and rests on the right hand. The left arm is extended full length along the top of the body. The countenance is calm but inexpressive.

The Nirvana of the Buddhists can be expressed in words with difficulty; it seems to have been nothing else but a final loss of individuality, which, as has been already stated, was, in Gautama's vision, the origin and source of pain. He himself had actually attained "Nirvana " when he received the vision, but preferred to remain on earth to pass on the revelation to those who would hear. The favourite simile of this state is the slipping back of the drop of water into the ocean from which it came, for though Buddhists deny a soul, Nirvana is not death. Their belief is so much mingled with other creeds, and contained even from its foundation so much which belonged originally to Hinduism, that it need scarcely surprise us to find that with this grand, if somewhat cold, view of the final goal, most Buddhists cherish also ideas of heaven and hell, and countless Buddhist boys and girls stand pierced with a kind of delightful horror beneath the extraordinarily gruesome and materialistic paintings of "tortures of the damned" in the verandah at Kandy temple. We have seen too that the Buddhist cosmogony allows for heavens and hells in any number that might be wanted (see p. 121).

Yet standing here in front of this calm, still figure these notions slip away and the pure idea of a dreamless sleep is perforce predominant in the mind of the gazer. We recall Ananda's anguished cry: "The Lord is dead!" and the reassurance of another disciple standing by: "He is not dead, he has reached the stage of complete unconsciousness."

Separated from the Buddha by only a few feet, reared against the rock from which he was hewn, is the beloved disciple Ananda, who was to the master what St. John was to our Saviour. In the seventy-eighth chapter of the Mahawansa we read that Parakrama "caused cunning workmen to make three caves in the rock-namely, the cave of the spirits of knowledge, the cave of the sitting image, and the cave of the sleeping image," but no mention is made of the upright statue, which was, when first rediscovered, supposed to be that of Buddha himself. The lying Buddha is certainly not in a "cave," but the pillars still standing show that he and Ananda were both once enclosed in shrines, and they were covered with gaudy paint in the same manner as other cave-images. Greatly do they gain by having had the meaningless partition which once separated them broken down, and by being exposed to the free canopy of heaven, and still more by being left in all the dignity of the bare stone. The massive figures explain themselves. Ananda, who stands twenty-three feet high, is in an attitude of profound sorrow. His woebegone face, stained and streaked as it is by the monsoon rains, expresses this as clearly as cunning craftsmanship can do it; the