being stopped up with masonry. It seems that it could only have been habited by snakes, and as I peered into one of the entrances, the very first object I saw was a cast snake skin, giving form to the vague idea. The outside staircase rose only to the first storey. The style is Kambodian, and it shows a marked resemblance to some of the temples of Kambodia. It has also been compared with the "seven-storeyed temples of Assyria."

1

The originator may have been one of the queens of Parakrama, spoken of as "Chandravati," who also built the Potgul vehera (see p. 242), as an inscription there relates.

Passing back again between the Wata-dagé and Ata-dagé, note beyond the latter the ruined building with a gracefully carved column still standing. This is a good example of a very popular design. A gana, or dwarf, supports a full round pot from which springs a creeper, flowing alternately to right and left to the limits of the stone, so as to form with its stalk great semi-circles enclosing foliage.

Then we see perhaps the finest of all the gems in this mysterious necklet of architecture which decorates the terrace. This is the Nissanka-latamandapaya, the Floral Altar or "Hall of the Flower-Trail." A space of some 34 feet by 28 feet is enclosed by an artistically designed post and rail fence of stone. But this is no sample of a "Buddhist" railing, for it lacks the essential points of that style. It runs round a stone platform

1 History of Indian Architecture, by J. Fergusson and J. Burgess. (Murray, 1910 edition.)

from which rise most curiously designed pillars. In the centre of the platform or altar slab is a small dagaba. The outer railing is entered by a porch with stone posts and roof-slab. Words fail altogether to give an idea of the daintiness and originality of the details which mark this architectural monument. The idea of the lotus flower runs through it all. The cone-shaped heads of the posts are the exact shape of those unopened buds, which, to this day, are offered for sale in piles outside every shrine. The head of each pillar standing on the inner platform originally showed carving representing an opening lotus. Some of these still remain. It may be remarked as strange that countries so widely different in climate and conditions as Ceylon and Egypt, the one so richly moist and the other so curiously dry, each relied so much on the same flower, the lotus, for their conventional ornament in architecture (see p. 224).

Here we may trace the lotus everywhere, in copings, on the heart of moonstones, on pillars and panels. In Egypt more than half the capitals of the mighty columns show symbolic representations of this flower.

It seems possible that the vainglorious Nissanka was really the originator of this famous altar with which his name is for ever associated, for inscriptions on the coping and pillar fragments definitely proclaim it to be so.

The resetting of the posts and pillars, the refitting of the broken fragments so as once again to reveal this flower-shrine as it was, has been a labour requiring infinite patience, but the result

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 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