Palace runs the Sacred Road, for tens of hundreds of years trodden by the feet of pilgrims. Overshadowed by spreading "rain-trees," bordered by green spaces, this ancient road was one of the great thoroughfares of Anuradhapura the Royal. Down it have passed in procession the halt and şick, eager to be cured, believing that the sight of the blessed Bo-tree would restore health; the beggar making the most of his misery; the schemer; the braggart Pharisee; the humbleminded and devout; the woman aching for the joys and pains of motherhood; the young boy on the threshold of life, awed by its mystery. Surrounded by his courtiers, with flashing umbrellas and flags, and accompanied by the beat of drums came the despotic king, holding in his hand the lives of thousands of such as these, and maybe in his train followed the blood-thirsty prince, his near relative, scheming to dispossess him. They glide by, these shadows of the past, and then the vision falls away like a coloured veil-one sees the road, empty save for two Cingalese clerks, clad in European garments and with cropped heads, hastening to the Kachcheri, or government offices, to work under the direction of white men of whom these ancestors of theirs had never heard.

The next object that attracts attention, bulking huge across the space where cattle are peacefully feeding, is the great dagaba Ruanweli. Of all the ideas that entered the mind of man this surely was the most extraordinary-to erect huge piles of stones in the shape of an inverted bowl, solid except for a tiny passage to a secret chamber

which contained a relic! Closely akin in idea to the pagodas of Burma, these dagabas are yet quite different in style. Fergusson says in a note in his Indian Architecture:

Dâgaba is a Singalese word applied to a stupa, from the Sanskrit dhâtu,' a 'relic,' 'element' and 'garbha,' a 'womb,' 'receptacle,' or 'shrine.' Dhatugharba is thus the relicreceptacle or inner shrine, and is strictly applicable only to the dome of the stupa."

He mentions in another place the word Chaitya as applied to stupas, and it is as a Chetiyo, the same word, that Ruanweli is continually referred to in the Mahawansa, but there is no need in this book to multiply confusion in the multiplication of foreign words, and dagaba is usually employed.

Ruanweli was a real dagaba in the sense of being a relic store-house, while Abhayagiri and Jetawanarama were merely commemoration piles, but have been equally described as dagabas though lacking the intrinsic meaning of the word; these are the three largest known dagabas. It is necessary to imagine the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral sliced off and set on the ground in order to get some idea of these curious buildings without seeing one. The upper part of Ruanweli is to-day covered with green jungle scrub, while the lower is rendered hideous by a huge new binding wall. Ruanweli is one of the Eight Sacred Places at Anuradhapura held by the Buddhist community or Atamasthana, the others being the Bo-tree, Brazen Palace, Abhayagiri, Thuparama, Jeta

wanarama, Lankarama, and Mirisaveti dagabas. Consequently the archæological survey authorities are not responsible for its preservation. Some years ago a great slice of it fell down, burying in its débris three or four statues of a king (supposed to be Dutugemunu) and four Buddhas supposed to represent the four Buddhas of this kalpa, which formerly stood along the platform-for this huge bowl is surrounded by a platform of set granite blocks, and on the sides of the dagaba at the four cardinal points are four altars, or "screens," facing outwards. That facing south is decorated with elephants' heads in relief. Among the rubble and fallen bricks work plump little Tamil women, who chatter as they sort the still perfect bricks from the piles, and carry them over to the workmen who are building up the great new supporting wall. The scarp of the outer platform, which is square, is now buried to a great extent beneath the rubble mounds, but was once decorated with elephants' heads in relief, facing outwards, shoulder to shoulder, all round. These were made of brick, coated with chunam, and supplied with tusks of real ivory. In its freshness the gleaming ring must have looked magnificent. Only a few of the elephants, of worn brick, with vacant tusk sockets, can now be seen on the north side. It is very difficult to get a photograph of them, as they are always in deepest shade, and two exposures resulted in failure.

The upper platform of Ruanweli is now disfigured by hideous little gim-crack buildings like sugar toys, put up by the priests. In one of them, painted out of recognition, and with all