each other's names, though when and how this curious transposition occurred is not known. It would be of course impossible to change them back again now, owing to the confusion that would result in identifying literary references, but any one really interested in these matters must remember that historical references to the one in the chronicles, in reality belong to the other. The mistake was for long suspected by Mr. H. C. P. Bell, Archæological Commissioner for five-and-twenty years. In his 1910-11 Report he says in a note:

"To the late Mr. H. Nevill, Ceylon Civil Service, belongs the real credit for first urging, more than twenty years ago, that the names of the Abhayagiri and Jetawanarama dagabas had been wrongly transposed in the course of centuries."

The two slabs near the stone canoes are of the date of Mahinda IV and refer to gifts and regulations made to the Abhayagiri vihara lying west of Abhayagiri dagaba. The great edifice known. as Ratana-maha-pasada (Pali) was built here by King Kanittha Tissa (A.D. 229-247)1 and later rebuilt with great magnificence by Mahinda II at a cost of 300,000 pieces of gold. This building, for various reasons which need not be gone into here, has been practically identified with that known now as the "Elephant Stables." The evidence already available on the subject of the identity of the dagabas was reinforced by the discovery by Mr. Bell of an inscription on a stone slab now forming one of the flag-stones of the 1 Date given by Mr. Wickremasinghe.

pavement at the south altar of Jetawanarama recording repairs and grants of King Malu Tissa (who has been identified with Kanittha Tissa) for the maintenance of the Abhayagiri vihara and its monks. As it is obviously unlikely that such a slab would have been laid at any dagaba but that to which it referred, this is very strong confirmatory evidence. A full account of these three slabs and their inscriptions can be found in Epigraphia Zeylanica, edited and translated by Don Martino de Z. Wickremasinghe (Vol. I, Part VI, 1912, Oxfd. Univ. Press).

The most interesting bit of translation is perhaps that from the second slab of Mahinda IV mentioned above:

"(The income of) the villages set apart for repairs (of buildings) shall not be devoted to (the provision of) food and raiment (to monks) but shall be utilised for repairs.

"When there are no villages set apart for repairs, the surplus (of the revenue) that remains after providing food and raiment according to ancient usage, shall be spent on repairs. The wardens who have not acted in this manner shall be sent away from residence" (Ibid.).

This interesting passage shows both the minuteness and strictness of the regulations governing the conduct of monks. But if any further evidence on the point is needed, we find it in the travels of the Chinese monk, Fa-Hien.'

He was a native of Wu-yang in Shansi, and undertook a journey to India in search of complete 1 Fa-Hien, by James Legge. 1886.

copies of the sacred book, the Vinaya pitaka, about A.D. 400.

He started from Changan, Shansi, west of Nanking, to which he eventually returned.

After wandering through Central Asia and losing his companions-one by death from exposure and others who turned back-he got over the Himalayas into India and visited all the scenes of Buddha's lifetime. Then he left the mouth of the Hugli and took a boat to Ceylon. He believed firmly in the legend of Buddha's visit to Ceylon.

"When Buddha came to this country, wishing to transform the wicked nagas, by his supernatural power, he planted one foot at the north of the royal city [Anuradhapura] and the other on the top of a mountain [Adam's Peak].

"Over the footprint at the north of the city the king built a large tope, 400 cubits high, grandly adorned with gold and silver. By the side of the tope he further built a monastery called the Abhayagiri, where there are now 5,000 monks. There is in it a hall of Buddha adorned with carved and inlaid work of gold and silver, and rich in the seven precious substances, in which there is an image (of Buddha) in green jade, more than 20 cubits in height and glittering all over and having an appearance of solemn dignity which words cannot express. In the palm of the right hand there is a priceless pearl."

As the so-called Abhayagiri dagaba is due east of the city and Jetawanarama due north, it is plain that the conjecture of experts is right, and that

at some time in the past confusion has arisen and the names have been transposed.

1

Mr. Parker surmises that the misnaming may date from the twelfth century, when the men sent by Parakrama the Great to restore the dagabas found them practically abandoned, "and because of the great heaps of bricks and clay and the thickets of the forest, no man was able to have access thereto" (Mahawansa).

The whole of Fa-Hien's book is worth reading; for though it is written in the third person with the exception of a few sentences at the end, it conveys throughout a sense of personal description which has kept it alive until the present time.

One rather pathetic touch is that one day when Fa-Hien, sitting by the image he describes, saw a merchant offering a fan of white silk which carried him back at a bound to his native land, "the tears of sorrow involuntarily filled his eyes and fell down." It was years since he had seen his country, all those who had started with him had died or left him, and he was overcome by a wave of home-sickness. He was away altogether fifteen years, and his journey was a miracle of fortitude and adaptability.

He gives in detail the ceremony by which the tooth of Buddha was brought forth and taken to Abhayagiriya for ninety days. Great coloured figures to the number of 500, showing Buddha in his 500 bodily forms, lined both sides of the road. These may have been the paintings, which some conjecture to have been hung on the pillars surrounding the dagabas.

1 Ancient Ceylon. (Luzac, 1909.)