THE CITY OF THE SACRED BO-TREE.
(ANURADHAPURA.)
By James Ricalton, 1891.
(ANURADHAPURA.)
By James Ricalton, 1891.
 Bell-arch near Ruanweli Dagoba | RICE and kurakkan, yams, chilies, jakfruit, and plantains were the staple articles offered for sale in the dingy boutiques that lined the sides of a half deserted street. Here and there turbaned aborigines sought shelter from the heat of the sun under the projecting palm thatch, while they haggled with the patient boutique-keepers for a section of a jak-fruit, a bunch of betel-leaves, or a few cents worth of rice for their next meal. This street leads out into a grassy common, where a number of trees cast a grateful shade over a group of half-nude coolies squatted beneath. The opposite side of the common is bounded by a thoroughfare, designated by a modern signboard as the Sacred Road, and on which bands of dust-covered, weary pilgrims were wending their way. They were walking faster than is their custom on long pilgrimages, and already beginning to raise their hands over their heads, with palm to palm, and uttering their strange homage cry: Sadu! sadu! sadu! . It was evident they were nearing some extraordinary shrine. A few rods farther on they entered a walled enclosure, where all was dark with the shade of gigantic trees, and where crumbling walls, moss-covered statues, and dislodged blocks of granite indicated the flight of centuries since the shrine-builders had first been there. Then up a series of well-preserved steps (where dvarpal-door-guardians-guard the approach), whose balustrades terminate in the mouths of fabulous monsters that suggest a hybrid of the elephant and the crocodile. |
For a time I become a pilgrim myself, and join their number, that I may witness the object of their devotion as wonderful to me as it is worshipful to them. We reach the uppermost of three successive terraces of masonry, which is crowned by the multiple trunk of a venerable tree. The several divisions of this tree are feeble, gnarled, and bent; the leaves lack the fresh verdancy of a vigorous growth, and plainly show the yellowish pallor of decrepitude. The soil that nourishes its roots is wellnigh saturated with the oil of its anointment; yet, bent with age, this patriarch spreads its protecting arms over the jaded devotees, while they deposit beneath it and around it their offerings of coconut-oil, palm-blossom, champac flowers, and the bloom of the temple-tree (frangipani). Then their eager gaze is turned upward to the branches; they crave a single leaf, but none would dare pluck it from the tree; it must fall in full maturity to yield its maximum of merit. I had travelled nearly a hundred miles to look upon this wonderful tree, and was also anxious to carry away a specimen of its sacred leafage. A passing breeze sways the branches; the leaves rustle; the watchers gaze more expectantly; a withered member is separated from its branch and comes sailing down. There is no whoop of exultation, no trifling smile; but instead, a determined sally, a pious scramble, a collision of zealous hands and heads, and the solitary leaf is borne away in the happy bosom of the successful competitor. The prizes were few and the competitors were many, so I could only hope to secure one by remaining till the pilgrims, at nightfall, had turned their steps homeward, which I did; but even then robed monks remained to guard this holy of holies.
As if, however, to reward my patience, two leaves fell at my feet, whereupon, well satisfied, I turned away from a tree that is enshrined in the hearts of four hundred millions of the human family, and which is, in all probability, the oldest historical tree in the world; and when I tell the reader that it has been dropping its consecrated leaves into the outstretched hands of pilgrims for two thousand one hundred and thirty years, he will, I trust, pardon a desire on my part to carry away a memorial
The street to which I have made reference is the modern main street of a jungle-environed village in the interior of Lanka-that beautiful island of the Orient, which has been likened to a pearl-drop on the brow of India. This native village of to-day retains the name of an ancient city over whose ruins it is built-ANURADHAPURA.
More than a hundred years before Tsin-Shee Hwang-Tee had set his millions of laborers at work on the great wall of China, ancient Anuradhapura was a flourishing city and the capital of Lanka, as the island was called by the ancients. It was a youthful contemporary of Babylon and Nineveh, greater than either in territorial area, and was in its glory and amplitude when Rome and Carthage were young. A hundred and fifty years before Vespasian had begun the great amphitheatre at Rome, Walagambahu, a Lankan king, had completed the Abhayagiria Dagoba, a monumental structure fifty feet higher than St. Paul's Cathedral, and containing an amount of solid masonry sufficient to build eight thousand houses large enough to accommodate forty thousand people, or the inhabitants of a city about twice the size of Poughkeepsie. The vast. ruins of this city, with others at Pollonarua, Kalawewa, Mihintale, and Sigiri, have been pronounced, by those who have seen them, second only to those in Egypt, and yet to the average reader Anuradhapura is almost an urbs incognita.
| The first authentic history of Lanka dates from the landing of one Vijaya, a scapegrace from the rule of his father, Sinhabahu, who lived in a district west of Bengal, in India. Vijaya's arrival in Lanka was about the year 477 B.C., and after a reign of forty years he died and left his realm to a nephew named Panduwassa. Panduwassa sought a consort from the land of his nativity. In due time his Indian queen arrived, accompanied by her six brothers, who founded principalities and built cities, one of which, in honor of its founder, prince Anuradha, was called Anuradhapura. The followers of Vijaya and their descendants took the name Sinhala-from the name of his father, Sinhabahu, and it is still applied to the dominant part of the population and to their language, which is a compound of Sanskrit and Pali. The Sinhala were never a literary people, and yet they possess genealogical chronicles such as belong to few nations. These are collectively called the Mahawanso, after its author Mahanamo, a Buddhist monk. The Mahawanso was written in A.D. 460, and covers a period extending from 543 B.C. to A.D. 301, but subsequently brought down to the British occupation of the island by different monastic historians. It is to the unquestioned authenticity and credibility of these chronicles that the world is indebted for so much trustworthy information of remote Lankan history. |
 A buddhist Monk of Lanka |
Anuradha and his sister, the queen Bhoda-Kachana, were the grandchildren of Amitodama, an uncle of the great Gautama Buddha. The city named in honor of the brother soon became the capital. It had been visited by the predecessors of Gautama, and in 307 B.C. it received his collar-bone, his begging-dish, and other sacred relics, among which was a branch of the bo-tree under which he sat when he first attained Nirvana, or perfect Buddhahood. This branch of the bo-tree, according to Sinhala annals, was brought from Patalipoora, in India, by a sister of Mahindo, who successfully established Buddhism in Lanka in the same year. The tree to which I have already referred as being the object of so much veneration is claimed to be the growth of the identical branch brought from India by the devoted priestess two thousand one hundred and thirty years ago; and with the written records in the possession of these devotees the antiquity of the tree and its claim to being the oldest historical specimen can scarcely be questioned. In all countries where the Buddhistic cult prevails, especially in Lanka, India, and Burma, the bo-tree (Ficus Religiosa) has become a consecrated object, and may be seen on the roadsides, about houses and temples, and in the towns, protected by walls of masonry, over and within which shrines are placed for homage-offerings.
I have shown how early the young capital was honored with the kindred of the great Gautama, and how, being sanctified by so many precious relics, it rapidly expanded into a great city, and became at that early period, as it continues to be at the present time, a Mecca of Buddhism. And while Anuradha is mentioned as its founder, important coadjutants in the building up of that peerless city were the sacred bo-tree and the collar-bone of the author of the new religion. But before I describe the sepulchre of the mighty city, I shall glance at it as seen in the faithful annals of the Mahawanso, when countless vihares rang with hosannas to great Lord Buddha.
From the days of the mound-builders down to the Eiffel Tower, man has shown himself to be a monument-erecting being; the Christians have their cathedrals, the Mohammedans have their mosques, and the Buddhists have their shrine-tombs, designated differently in different countries as pagoda, tope, and dagoba. The pagodas of China are entirely dissimilar to those of Burma, and the dagobas of Lanka are quite unlike those in either country; yet all serve the one purpose of relicsepulture. They are not altogether a thing of the past ; they are still erected near the temples; but those of modern construction are small and unimportant when compared with those that have withstood biennial monsoons for two thousand years; even their half-buried ruins are stupendous.
The general form of a dagoba is that of a dome surmounted by a spire, and although there is endless diversity of detail and modification of contour, the bell-shaped dome with spire is the distinguishing feature of these Buddhistic structures in most countries. Sometimes the spire rests upon a square pedestal, and the dome generally upon a quadrangular platform or plaza, which in turn is flanked by a circular fosse, giving a somewhat fantastic alternation of circle, quadrate, and hemisphere. The bulk of the material is brick and mortar, the entire structure being coated with a composition of lime, coconut-water, and a glutinous juice of a native fruit. This incrustation is snow - white, very durable, and, when dry, receives a polish like marble. A small cell in the centre contains the sacred objects to be preserved, including precious stones, images of Buddha, emblems, and offerings. No passage is left for entrance, and the precious, and often valuable, entombment is sealed forever from the curious and the avaricious. Because of their antiquity and magnitude, and because they constituted one of the most remarkable features of the olden city, as they do of its vast ruins at the present time, I have made special mention of these gigantic tombs, that tower above the jungle of Lanka as the Egyptian pyramids tower above the sand of the desert.
The site of Anuradhapura is on a jungle-plain three hundred feet above the level of the sea, ninety miles north of Kandy, the present beautiful highland capital. The city at the time of its greatest expansion covered two hundred and fifty-six square miles, although this great area included extensive reservoirs and other unoccupied space. During the reign of Makalantisso, about 40 B.C., it was inclosed by a wall fifteen feet in height ; and a hundred years later Wasobho increased its height to forty feet. The great area of the city cannot, however, be regarded as a criterion of its populousness. The number of inhabitants is not recorded, if ever known, but an estimate based on a large allowance for topes, tanks, and other unpeopled spaces, places the population at two hundred and fifty thousand.
The following translation from a native source describes the city at a remote period:
 An Ancient Stone Canopy | The magnificent city of Anuradhapura is refulgent from the numerous temples and palaces whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky. The sides of its streets are strewed with black sand, and the middle is sprinkled with white sand; they are spanned by arches bearing flags of gold and silver on either side are vessels of the same precious metals, containing flowers and in niches are statues holding lamps of great value. In the streets are multitudes of people armed with bows and arrows; also men powerful as gods, who with their huge swords could cut in sunder a tusk-elephant at one blow. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people are constantly passing and repassing ; there are jugglers, dancers, and musicians of various nations, whose chanque-shells and other musical instruments are ornamented with gold. The distance from the principal gate to the south gate is four gaws (sixteen miles); and from the north gate to the south gate four gaws; the principal streets are Chandrawakka-widiya, Rajamaha widiya, Hinguruwakka-widiya, and Mahaweili-widiya. |
One of the most noteworthy buildings of the ``refulgent'' city was the Lowa-Maha-Paya, or the Brazen Palace, erected by King Dutugemnun in the year 142 B.C. It stood upon one thousand six hundred granite pillars, and vied with surrounding dagobas in height, rearing its ninth story two hundred and seventy feet skyward; it contained one thousand dormitories for monks; its roof was of brass, and, according to the Mahawanso, the walls gleamed with resplendent gems; the great hall was supported on golden pillars resting on lions, and in the centre was an ivory throne with a golden sun and a silver moon on either side. Several times the Brazen Palace was razed by iconoclastic invaders from India, and as often restored by the zealous adherents of the new faith, up to the latter part of the twelfth century, when the capital was removed to Pollonarua. From the upper stories of this magnificent pile the priestly occupants could view the far-extending city, and look upon six great dagobas, all within a radius of little more than a mile, and lifting their huge white domes as high as some of the loftiest cathedrals in Europe.
The Ruanweli Dagoba stood near the palace; and according to the native archives, rested on a platform 500 feet square, its glass pinnacle glittering in the sun 270 feet above the city, its base surrounded by marble statues, and its outer walls mounting elephants of masonry with real tusks. In the north, beyond splendid pavilions of king and queens, loomed the great Jetawanarama, Dagoba, with its twenty million cubic feet of masonry. The beholder at the palace had only to turn his gaze in the direction of the rising sun to look upon the greatest of the relic-tombs, the Abhayagiria Dagoba.
In another direction lay the sparkling waters of Basawakulam and Tissa wewa, artificial lakes of rare beauty. These were only a few of the prominent features of the great city that spread out in view of the yellow-robed monks of the Lowa-Maha-Paya.
There were other dagobas, and other palaces, countless temples, luxurious baths; there were elegant canopies, many-pillared preaching-halls and royal incineraries, a description of which occupies a great portion of the Mahawanso.
| Having glanced briefly at ancient Anuradhapura through the native annals, let the reader accompany me from Kandy, the present capital of the island, to the tomb of all her glory and greatness. A delightful railway ride of eighteen miles took me to Matale. The way is through magnificent mountain scenery, where uncultivated tracts blazed with many-colored lantana, and the long slopes and high summits were ruled into rectangular spaces by the intersecting rows of tea-bushes. Bands of coolie girls, with large baskets bound to their backs, nipped the latest flush of tender leaves. The mountains are high and the valleys are locked in thick, tangled foliage, shutting out the light; but above the matted tropical growth the palm towers and waves his tufted crown. The train swept along midway between height and depth, stopping at many small way-stations embowered in native creepers, and surrounded by well-kept parterres. It soon left tea-plantations and entered those of coffee and cocoa. On one side of the way the mountain is covered with coffee-trees in delicate white bloom, while on the opposite side a broad valley is filled with ranges of cocoa-trees, burdened with the weight of large crimson pods, gleaming among a profusion of massive, deep-green leaves. |  A Sinhala Girl |
In an hour the train reached Matale, the northern terminus of railway travel in Ceylon. Here I took a horse-coach for a ride of twenty-nine miles, necessitating four relays. The horses were untrained, half-crazy stallions, very difficult to start, and, as good fortune would have it for the sake of speed, equally difficult to stop. They galloped incessantly except during the necessary halts at relay stations. A bugler rode behind who blew shrill blasts. The stallions often plunged wildly and kicked high, but I had secured a seat with the driver and was quite out of reach of their loftiest efforts. I reached Dambulla, the end of this coach line, at six o'clock in the evening. The remainder of the distance, forty-two miles, was to be made during the night in a bullock-coach. After a hurried supper at the government rest-house I entered a two-wheeled coach, drawn by a pair of zeba bullocks, and wedged myself among five natives. This was the government mail express for Jaffna, at the extreme north of the island. We were soon off at a lively trot, and only the initiated know what a bullock trot in a two-wheeled coach implies. The night soon became very dark; a greater part of the distance lay through dense jungle. I was alone among natives who spoke no word of English, singlehanded, barring the companionship of my Winchester, and about to enter forty-two miles of gloomy jungle. Our zebu steeds never travelled slower than a trot, but were relayed every four miles. They were in all respects more tractable than the horses of the last stage. At the relay stations a cluster of palm-roofed huts nestled in the thick wood, and cocoanut-oil tapers twinkled around the bullock stables. Native babes crying in unmistakable English could be heard within the adobe homes (burrows). Stage after stage we made during the long night, the silence only broken at intervals by the howling of packs of hungry jackals. Sleep often overcame me as I leaned upon my rifle, my head nodding rhythmically to the short, quick step of the zebus, until a blast from the drivers bugle startled me into semi-consciousness. This note of the bugle warned the keepers of the next station to be in readiness with a relay of bullocks. When the station was reached, and while an exchange of mail was being made, fresh bullocks walked under the yoke, almost of their own accord, whereupon we were off again at the usual trot through more deep woods, where large glow-worms shone like emeralds on the tree-trunks under the dark foliage. Thus the long, dreary, weird night-ride continued, until, at the ninth station, the breaking of dawn slightly revived my energies; a little later, the ruddy east lifted the veil from the great dagobas, and the morning carol of birds welcomed me to the buried city.
My Lankan companions extricated themselves from the small bullock-coach when we reached the outskirts of the town, and I was driven to a government rest-house in a vacant field. The rest-house in Ceylon and the travellers bungalow in India combine the characteristics of the caravansary of the East and the English inn. They are a very convenient institution, much cheaper and much cleaner than the average village hotel in Europe or America. The native in charge was promptly on hand to relieve me of my hand-baggage, and to direct me to a room in the new, stucco-walled, tile-roofed rest-house. I was in a condition to testify that there was no misnomer about this new-fashioned hotel, and having sustained a forty-two mile bullock-trot, I was likewise ready to test its victualling capacity; so I ordered a meal and went to the veranda to make a first survey of the surroundings. I had scarcely seated myself when a strange bird darted from a tree near by into the yard before me. It was a bird of paradise. It reminded me of a tradition of the country, that Adam and his bird of paradise were exiled to Lanka after their expulsion from the garden of Eden; indeed, it is even claimed that our first parent left his footprint in solid rock on one of the highest peaks of the island, which, in commemoration thereof, is called Adams Peak at the present time.
In a few minutes the rest house keeper, at the door behind me,
announced breakfast, master.
``What is that hill covered with trees down there in the jungle ?''
I asked.
``Oh! that dagoba, master. That Abhayagiria Dagoba!'' replied Murugasui
``Where is Ruanweli?''
``Ah ! Ruanweli that way, master'', he responded, pointing toward the
west.
``Well I have breakfast; then I see Anuradhapura,'' I said,
syncopating my sentences after his own fashion that he might better
comprehend the English.
The rest-house at which I was quartered is centrally located with reference to the site of the ancient city. The modern town of two thousand inhabitants is scattered along the different roads in the vicinity; a few comfortable bungalows are occupied by agents of the government civil service. An inner and an outer circular road enable the visitor to reach the more important points of interest. The whole region is level and uninteresting; and the chief occupation of the inhabitants in early days, as at the present time, was the production of rice. A system of gigantic reservoirs, for purposes of irrigation, was adopted by the kings; and under the British rule many of these are being restored, as an abundant supply of water is indispensable to a rice-growing country. Mention has already been made of Tissawewa and Basawakulam, two lake-like tanks that afford an unlimited supply of water to the present population in the town and in the surrounding country, and which must have occupied a central position in the ancient metropolis.
With the exception of the small tract occupied by the present town or village, the two hundred and fifty-six square miles covered by ancient Anuradhapura is a thick jungle.
Under the stimulus of British enterprise the Buddhist monks and the government have done something already toward the restoration of some of the great dagobas, and excavations among the ruins; but a full restoration can scarcely be expected until a cosmopolitan interest has been awakened, and that is possible only when a railway, already under contemplation, is completed and the wonderful ruins made accessible to the world.
Soon I left the rest-house and approached Ruanweli Dagoba from the west; a tall, narrow bell-arch, supported on octagonal pillars of brick, stands at the right of a rude path before the murage, or guard-house. The upper portion of the dagoba has been disintegrated into partial deformity, and is overgrown with grass and shrubbery. The high perpendicular walls around the base show the progress of restorations, which are now being made by the contributions from pilgrims. Passing through the murage, and turning to the right, a curious stone bath, 60 feet in diameter and 25 feet deep, may be seen. It is circular in form and built of perfectly fitting segments of granite.
Turning to the left, near the wall of the dagoba, a number of mutilated marble statues are found, the largest of which is said to be that of Dutugemunu, the builder of the dagoba. Farther around this circle of statues is one facing the dagoba, supposed to be that of King Bhatiya Tissa, who reigned at the beginning of the Christian era, and who is said to have been the only layman ever permitted to enter the Ruanweli by an underground passage and look upon the sacred treasures within. Many fragments of broken statues and altars, showing indications of gaudy colors, are scattered over the plaza on which the massive structure is reared. The place of entrance to this underground passage is said to be marked by a small pit and mound on the south side., This famous shrine, which was originally 270 feet in height, is now, owing to the ravages of time and the vandalism of the invader, only 189 feet.
Leaving the Ruanweli on the opposite side to that of my approach, where the work of restoration also goes on, I passed into a green common where sacred cattle were grazing, and where there were groups of square granite pillars, some erect and some prostrate, but all with uniquely carved capitals, and as perfect as when they came from the workmans hands two thousand years ago. In all parts of this imperfectly cleared space might be seen clusters of these exquisite pillars, not large, often not over fourteen or fifteen inches square, but graceful in proportion and distinctive in architectural character. Many of these groups are supposed to mark the localities of preaching halls or the residences of monks connected with the adjacent dagobas.
Near by one of these groups of pillars I found the ruins of a bathing-tank, or pokuna, as it is called in the native language. Like other pokunas of the place it is quadrangular in form, and built of a series of granite blocks extending down to the water on every side in the form of steps. Earthquake shocks and time have displaced its symmetrical blocks. It was once for royal use ; now it is filled with pestilential water, and while I stood before it a crocodile lay basking on a stone at the waters edge.
 Thupurama Dagoba, erected 307 B.C. | Walking a half mile farther north I reached a small but important dagoba, which is older than any monument in India, and which is supposed to contain the right collar-bone of the great apostle of Buddhism. Although smaller than the other great dagobas of Lanka, it is considered more elegant in form and more sacred in what it contains than its more imposing neighbors. Four rows of beautiful columns, each row containing twenty-seven members, radiate from the dagoba as a centre ; these octagonal columns are 24 feet high, 14 inches thick, and are set in square bases and surmounted by circular capitals decorated with minute and delicate sculptures. The design of these slender columns, peculiar to Sinhala architecture, is believed by some to have been derived from the slender trunk of the graceful areca palm, some of which may be noticed in the illustration near the pillars around Thupurama. At the foot of each flight of steps leading to the murage before Thupurama may be seen a pair of dvarpal, or door guardians, cut in bass-relief on upright slabs of stone. This venerable shrine was erected 307 B.C. |
Having spent the hottest part of the day under a tropical sun, and having exhausted my stock in hand of photographic plates, I returned to the rest-house by the Basawakulam, whose bund, or artificial embankment, offered a pleasant walk. The jungle on the farther shore is a safe approach to the lake for wild animals; and elephants, in their nightly forages there, enter the lake and bathe.
After a night in the rest-house I again set forth, under the guidance of Murugasui, to visit other portions of the buried city. The Brazen Palace was not far away, or rather its site, for of the original nine stories I found only sixteen hundred monolithic granite pillars, on which it stood; these are mostly erect, and arranged in rows of forty each way, standing twelve feet above ground and measuring 2~feet in breadth and 1~foot in thickness. No trace remains of the original coating of chunam (plaster), or their covering of copper; but distinct marks of the wedges by which they have been split from the parent rock remain. Two thousand years ago story was piled upon story, and now the foundations support only the tender creepers that twine about their mossy faces.
Passing along a street that leads to Tissawewa, a tank three miles in circumference, and a feeder of Basawakulam, and which is itself fed by another and still larger one called Kalawewa, and whose area is 4,425 acres, I pass three small ponds, which are also fed from Tissawewa. One is for the exclusive use of the dhobies (washermen), and the pond is full of them, some waist-deep, engaged in the rinsing stage of their aquatic occupation, while others stand at the edge of the water thrashing the garments over large stones, after the destructive fashion of all dhobies in the East.
The second pond is for bathing purposes, and is likewise full of blackskinned, all-but-naked natives, some floundering while others stand pouring chattifuls of water over their heads. The third pond is for drinking purposes, and is separated from the other by a slight embankment; the water it contains is almost bidden by a dense growth of lotus in richest efflorescence, and swaying heavily under the weight of its own massive bloom.
Not far from this flowering pond stands another dagoha, clad in thick perennial shrubbery; it is Miriswetiya, and its erection by King Dutugemunu is another of the many instances found in history of the great consequences of a royal whim. Burrows tells us that the pious rajah had on a certain occasion partaken of a dish called sambal (wetiya), which is in part composed of chillies (miris), without offering a portion to the monk. Desiring to atone for this mortal breach of royal etiquette, he built this great dagoba, and named it after the dish that had inadvertently escaped the priestly palate.
In the western side a chapel has been excavated which affords one a beautiful example of Sinhala architecture. Excavations on the other side have revealed many altars and other ruins, the most remarkable of which are sixty-two enormous pillars, thirty-seven of them being nearly intact.
Pursuing my way along the shady road, walled on either side with generous foliage and arched with depending vines, I reached a grassy bank, ascending which I found myself on the bund of Tissawewa, overlooking an expanse of water that seemed, indeed, a natural lake of no small extent. If the two great reservoirs in Central Park were combined, four such expanses of water could be placed within the area of Tissawewa, and twenty-six might be placed in the space occupied by its great feeder Kalawewa. Strange water-birds were feeding along its margin, and several cormorants were resting on driftwood far out in the tank; at the latter I fired many futile shots from my Winchester, the ricochet of the bullets telling me more accurately than vision the deceptive distance over the surface of this great body of water.
The heat was oppressive, and I returned to the rest-house hoping to get a wheeled conveyance for further exploration. Murugasui offered to provide me with the best the rest-house could furnish, or, indeed, the only procurable vehicle in modern Anuradhapura. So after tiffin I set forth to explore a part of the ruins lying several miles north, in the cabriolet of the wilderness, consisting of two wheels, surmounted by an enormous palm-leaf calash, and drawn by two lazy zebus. The vehicle was without seats, so I sat upon my camera-box, while Murugasui located himself conveniently close to the zebus that he might hurry them by twisting their tails.
| One of the "Stone Canoe" - 62 feet 9 inches long, by 4 feet 4 inches wide - built of granite slabs. | 
|
The first objects of interest were reached after a ride of about two miles in the jungle; they are called the Stone Canoes because of their rude resemblance to boats, but they are believed to have been used as receptacles of food for the monks. Two are monolithic the larger measuring 16 feet in length by 3 feet 7 inches in width. A third, built of massive slabs of granite and measuring 62 feet 9 inches by 4 feet 4 inches, is given in the illustration above. In all directions from the Canoes the extent of ruins is bewildering; there are indications of large buildings on every side.
 A Monolithic Statue of the Buddha, seven feet in height. | A monolithic Buddha, in sitting posture, seven feet high, rests
upon an extemporized pedestal, and, although somewhat mutilated and
weatherworn as shown on right, its features are in good
preservation. Not many rods distant there is a large number of
pillars, plainly denoting some important building; steps,
landingstones, door-guardians, and pillars are all unusually large;
near here also there is a continuation of large stones, which have led
to the belief that they mark the locality of the great East and West
street, described in the Mahawanso.
A short distance away are a number of large pillars, supposed to be remains of elephant stables ; they are 2 feet square and stand 16 feet above ground. Near these is also what has been called the Kings Palace, but which was more probably an elegant preaching hall or temple. It consists of an elevated platform of stone, beautifully cut and but slightly displaced in many parts, and with most of the pillars which originally supported the superstructure still standing. |
The steps are delicately carved, each bearing three grotesque figures; the semicircular landing-stone at the foot of the steps is called a moonstone, and is peculiar to Lanka. The uniform designs on this indigenous piece of architecture are the elephant, lion, bull, hanza (or sacred goose), and lotus, arranged in semicircles, the geese carrying in their mouths the leaf, bud, and blossom of the lotus. The moonstone exhumed at the Kings Palace is the most nearly perfect of any yet found; having been buried in the earth its most delicate lines are perfectly preserved.
| The ruins of the Queens Palace, not far away, are similar to those of the Kings Palace, the steps and moonstone being likewise in excellent preservation. What is popularly known as the Queens Palace may possibly have been the shrine of some relic. The records of the Mahawanso do not enable one to identify localities nor the different buildings. Exquisitely carved dvarpal and lions stand on either landing.stone at the top of the stairs, and on the platform twenty-four pillars remain erect. |  |
Farther along this road a square stone, perforated with nine square holes, may be seen. A number of such stones are found in different parts of the ruins, some containing twenty-five square holes. These stones were used by the monks to enable them to attain the highest degree of sacerdotal exaltation. The apertures were filled with different ingredients, such as sandalwood, sweet-oil, etc., whereupon the subject placed himself before the mystic stone and continued to gaze intently upon it until a spark of light appeared in its centre; continuing to gaze, the light became brighter and brighter until his illumined vision could penetrate all the mysterious depths of the infernal regions; then raising his eyes heavenward his spiritualized vision penetrated the abodes of the demigods, the various galleries of heaven, and finally the highest heaven of all, the Nirvana of the glorified Buddha.
It is evident that the hand of man, though repeated demolitions and restorations, has done more to bury and obliterate the great city than the ravages of time. But we soon arrive at another great dagoba, and while Murugasui sat beneath the hood of the jungle cart, and whipped the flies off the panting zebus, I caught a view of Jetawanarama. This prodigious structure is not so old as some of the other dagobas, having been built in the third century A.D., yet it shows its age more than those already mentioned. It is covered almost to the top with a dense growth of heavy timber, in which troops of wanderoo monkeys scamper and howl, and at its summit leopards find their safest retreat. Again we find the approach marked by the usual square pillars of the early murage, and dvarpals meet us at the steps. A number of stone chatties resting on massive pedestals flank both sides of the platform; then between this part of the ruin and the jungle-covered mountain of brick lies the broad moat that encompasses the whole. Jetawanarama is invisible because of its bosky mantle, excepting a turret-shaped mass at the top of the dome, which in turn is surmounted by a tottering truncated cone. Extensive excavations on the north side exhibit a chaos of nondescript ruins, including sections of large columns and vast quantities of marble.
From Jetawanarama, in every direction, the jungle is studded with pillars, and the ground is strewn with blocks of granite, making the way ofttimes impassable, and wherever the soil is upturned it is red with disintegrated brick.
The next place of special interest is the Kuttam Pokunas, or twin bathing tanks. Except the great dagobas, no part of the work of the old Sinhala artisans has so thoroughly resisted the levelling influence of time as the numerous pokunas. Diocletian and Caracalla built their baths to great heights, but the Lankan kings placed their beautiful pokunas below the level of the ground. These unique twin-baths are near the last-named dagoba, and it is quite probable that Maha Sen, who erected the dagoba, was also the builder of the Kuttam Pokunas, about the close of the third century A.D. The Roman baths of Caracalla were begun in A.D. 212, and those of Diocletian in A.D. 302. The Roman emperors built of brick, and the Anuradhapura kings built of granite. The Roman baths are mostly crumbling ruins, while the pokunas, with but slight expense and labor, could be rendered as perfect as they were when the mendicant monks doffed their yellow robes and descended their beautiful stairways. The pokunas were small in comparison to the Roman baths, but they were numerous-every important temple, palace, and pavilion having its own pokuna. The twin-tanks lie side by side, one a trifle larger than its mate; the larger is 152 feet long, 51 feet wide, and about 30 feet in depth. In places the elegantly hewn stones have been displaced, probably by earthquakes and tree-roots. Still these baths of Maha Sen are picturesque; the pilastered balustrades are exquisite; the dislodged blocks are sharp-edged and unchipped; venerable trees on their banks cast a deep shadow over them; turtles tumble from projecting limbs into their scummy waters, and luxuriant vines creep over the steps.
By this time I was temporarily wearied of dagobas, temples, palaces, and pokunas, and returned to the rest-house, where I could reinforce my energies with rice and curry. I was ready, after a nights rest, to renew my antiquarian researches. At night vespers were sung by an orchestra of insects; the whole surrounding country seemed alive with them, each with a different instrument. The morning had its matin of bird-song; the deep woods, where daylight had scarcely penetrated, and every thicket, bush, and tree-top, was full of bird-notes.
Starting out again on the Sacred Road in the direction of the celebrated bo-tree, I came to several recumbent stone bulls that have survived the levelling effects of time. The Sinhala women believe that by swinging one of these entirely around they will avert barrenness. The largest seems to have been made originally to revolve on a pivot, to facilitate the rite, but now it lies on the greensward at the roadside, and female pilgrims have to tug with might and main to revolve it. A small but very sacred dagoba stands a little east of the ``Via Sacra'', and north of the stone bulls, called Selachaittiya (stone temple), but which, according to some English scholars in Lanka, should be called Lajjikawihara, after its builder, Lajjitissa, who reigned 119 s.c., and who erected this dagoba to commemorate the spot where Buddha is said to have rested.
About a quarter of a mile south of the bo-tree one may see the tomb of Elala, a Tamil usurper from India, who led an invasion against Lanka about two hundred years s.c., overthrew the Sinhala sovereign, and placed himself upon the throne. After Elala had ruled forty-four years, Dutugemunu, a brave young prince and worthy representative of the Sinhala line, determined to depose him and re-establish the rightful dynasty. After a bloody but indecisive battle, which was fought just outside the walls of the city, it was decided that a termination should be reached by a single combat between the contending aspirants, the Sinhala and the Tamil. Mounted on their war-elephants they advanced to mortal combat; Elala hurled his lance at his youthful foe, who averted it by a dexterous movement; then the elephants rushed together; Elalas fell and crushed its rider beneath it; whereupon the victorious prince entered the city in triumph, and re-established, in his own person, the sovereignty of his race. King Dutugemunu displayed great magnanimity toward his fallen enemy, and caused his body to be incinerated, with high honors, on the spot where he fell, and erected over his ashes a huge mound of earth, which, after two thousand years, clearly identifies his tomb; while the final resting-place of his commemorator is a matter of conjecture.
I left Elalas tomb to inspect the greatest dagoba of Anuradhapura, the Cheops of Lanka, and, indeed, of its kind the greatest monument in the world, Abhayagiria.
I have already mentioned this huge structure as it must have appeared to the priestly beholder from the upper stories of the magnificent Brazen Palace, its white chunam dome rising heavenward, and from its spire the pennant of Gautama floating four hundred and five feet above the plain. But long ages have subtracted one hundred and twenty-four feet from its altitude and despoiled its beauty; twice two thousand monsoons have swept away its spire, while perennial summer has buried it beneath repeated growths of tree and shrub. It presents a picture of unutterable sadness; jungle-fowls utter their weird cry on its farther slopes, and wild animals burrow among the debris. It was Walagambahus proud masterpiece, now it is the lair of wild beasts; but in recent years devoted monks have begun the work of reclamation, and the larger trees have been cleared away, leaving only stumps and shrubbery to stud its swelling dome.
The ruins of several chapels surround its base, in one of which a monstrous seven-headed cobra, male and female figures, and flower-pieces are exquisitely carved. The basilary square, covering eight acres, and flagged with stone, is overgrown with grass and shrubbery; the eleven acres within its precincts are covered with the debris of many buildings, large and small, this dagoba having had a college of monks proportionate to its magnitude. A winding pathway leads to the platform above the dome, within which a circular stone staircase connects with the summit; thither I went for a parting look over the far-reaching landscape and at the buried city beneath. Bulankulam, Basawakulam, and Tissawewa sparkle in the sunlight; the Yoda Ela zigzags its course through thick forest toward Tissawewa.
In an opposite direction, but running parallel with the Yoda Ela, the classical Malwatte oya (river) winds to the northward, sometimes hiding in darkgreen jungle and then revealing itself in silvery curves as it recedes toward the meeting-place of earth and sky, where hazy mountain contours rise and fall like billows. A landscape boundless as the ocean lies before us; here and there green rice-fields break the continuity of silent forest, and an occasional palm-roofed hut tells us that a few human beings still exist on the once populous plain. The limitless forests were once luxuriant rice-fields; now leopards prowl under the shade of their aged trees; the water-buffalo wallows in the turbid pools, and herds of wild elephants disport where once they were the slaves of man.
But the saddest picture is immediately around us, where thousands upon thousands of human habitations have left no trace save in the discoloration of the soil. Time mocks monuments and laughs at kings; and now the silent jungle waves over the entombed city.
| Title: | The City of the Sacred Bo-Tree - Anuradhapura, |
| Author: | James Ricalton |
| Journal: | Scribner's magazine. |
| Print: | Vol. X, No. 3, 1891 September, pp. 319-335 |
| Publisher: | Charles Scribner's Sons, New York |
Editors Note:
Text and Scans posted are from an Original cutout copy of Article
purchased on Ebay in 2002 May. The beautiful steel engraving on the
original can't however be reproduced on these compressed images
scanned at 150 dpi.
Text Proof read by Kavan although more OCR and reformating errors,
probably still remain. I moved the illustrations to be close to
discussion in text. I left most of the English spelling which is bit
of a surprise in this American publication (maybe it predates American
Spelling). I have modernized some words to PC English, such as
changing Ceylon into Lanka.
Please also see notes on other interesting articles like this that have been put online in the Digital Library Collections of MoA at Cornell.Edu and UMich.Edu, and as well as Panhinda project of LAcNet.