Chapter XI: From Kandy to Anuradhapura (1)

The Alu-Vihara—Dambulla Rock Temple—Sigiri—Murder of Dhatu Sena—
Rita-gala—Restoration of Kala-wewa and other tanks—Ancient system of
irrigation—Serfdom—Opening ceremonial—Vigita-pura—Colossal Buddha at
the Aukana Vihara.

Of course one of the objects most to be desired in visiting Ceylon is to accomplish an expedition to the ruins of the pre-Christian city of Anuradhapura, in the heart of the North-Central Province, and of the more recent, but almost equally ruined, city of Pollanaruwa, which lies inland on the eastern coast—both buried in the depths of the jungle.

Even now these are not easily accessible to ordinary mortals, and involve somewhat troublesome and expensive travelling, as it is necessary to arrange for hiring a carriage for the whole trip, unless one is content to travel part of the way by a wretched two-horse coach, and the rest by public bullock-cart, which proceeds at the rate of two-and a-half miles per hour, the bullocks being adorned with necklaces of jingling bells—a hateful addition to the creaking of wooden wheels and the clouds of hot dust. I was, therefore, fully conscious of singular good fortune when the Governor most kindly arranged that I should form one of his party to Anuradhapura in the month of June; while the Bishop, having occasion to visit many places on the east coast in the autumn, promised that I should then see Pollanaruwa.

Leaving Kandy at daybreak on June 6, we drove down the Ballacaduwa Pass to Matale—_i.e._, the _Maha-talawa_, or great plain, which lies 560 feet lower than Kandy. It is a lovely drive to a very pretty, long, straggling town, with rich foliage on all hands, and glimpses of a fine river, the Pinga-oya, and beautiful hills crowning all. (A railway is now open thus far, so that this first stage is made easy for travellers.)

I would advise any artist in search of characteristic scenery to ride from here to the summit of Vicarton Gorge, which is about 3,500 feet above the sea. It is a very steep eight miles uphill, through rocky coffee plantations—of course without a bit of shade—but on reaching the summit the view is rewarding. You look down between two mighty crags of chocolate-coloured rock, crowned with green forest, to a fertile valley far below, all laid out in thousands of small rice-fields, with here and there hillocks of rock and timber. These are not prosaic angular fields, like the familiar fields of Britain, but a multitude of small crescents terracing every undulation of the land, and at the season when I saw them each was a glittering lakelet. And the great valley itself winds like the course of a wide stream, vanishing in the distance amid interminable ranges of shapely blue hills.

About 100 B.C. Matale was one of the royal residences of King Walagam-bahu, who lived in stormy times, his country being invaded by great armies from Malabar. The king was driven from his throne, and, like our own Prince Charlie, he wandered about, finding concealment in rocky caves known only to the natives. When, after fifteen years, he was restored to the throne, he remembered the caves which had given him sanctuary, and elaborated many of them into rock temples, in one of which, by his command, a company of Buddhist priests and scribes assembled, and committed to writing on palm-leaves, and in the Pali language, the Scriptures, which till then had been preserved by tradition only.

The cave of so great literary interest is the Alu-Vihara, rather more than two miles from Matale. We visited it after breakfast, and found it, like nearly all the so-called cave-temples in Ceylon, to be by no means what we understand by a cave, but merely a series of recesses among huge fragments of fallen crag and gigantic weather-worn boulders of dark gneiss, some of which form overhanging canopies, so leaving partial caves. These are artificially walled up in front, and a thatched or tiled verandah is added in front, while the inside is furnished with divers images, and the rock-walls are frequently decorated with gaudy frescoes of mythological scenes. Some of these are wiharas, or temples, others pansalas, or priests’ cells.

We ascended by steep stairs, hewn in the rock, to visit some little relic-shrines; but the powerful smell of multitudes of small bats, which cluster among these rocks, was sickening. Their presence, however, is useful, as the dark-brown soil is greatly valued as manure, and the natives even obtain nitre with which to make gunpowder by boiling and filtering this dust.

Thence we drove on, up hill and down dale, passing various finely-shaped hills, especially Aran-galla, which formed a noble background for an interesting ruined Hindoo temple (Gedigé) near Nalande, where we spent the first night. There was the usual gathering of village head-men and other picturesque natives to receive the Governor; and the approach to the rest-house, which is very prettily situated among dark trees, was beautifully decorated with a most graceful pandal (the great honorific arch), and a long line of low arches, fringed with foliage. The house was all decorated with calico and flowers; while a group of _cadjan_— _i.e._, plaited palm-leaf huts—had been erected for the gentlemen. The wind, however, was so wild as effectually to murder sleep: so we were all rather tired for next morning’s early start _en route_ to Dambulla (hitherto called Dambool), where we spent the day and night, to allow time for seeing the most remarkable group of rock-caves in Ceylon.

The road was very beautiful, partly a steep descent between rocky mountains, and overshadowed by great trees. On our way we crossed the dry beds of several streams—the Mirisgoni-oya, the Dambulu-oya, the Malwatta-oya, and the Nalanda-oya, which are typical Ceylonese rivers. For nine months of the year they are at best feeble rills, trickling through an expanse of dry sand, but in the rain torrents of the N.E. monsoon in November and December the rivers are in flood, pouring down from the hills in raging torrents, and impassable for days together. Strange to say, the system adopted in opening up this country was to make excellent roads first, and leave the bridges to be constructed by the next generation; whereas it certainly seems as if the bridges were the primary necessity. These have now been supplied, and fine iron lattice bridges now allow of secure travel at all seasons.

The banks of some of these streams are suggestive of coarse basket-work, so close is the network of interlacing roots of great trees. One which is conspicuous is the kabuk tree, which is very large, and seems not to mind drought—in fact, the natives say it attracts a reservoir for its own use, and they can always find water near its roots. The red timber is prized as being very durable, so the tree is valuable in all its stages.

Though the road from Matale seems to wind as much up hill as down, we were steadily losing level, Dambulla being only 533 feet above the sea. Here from a level plain rises a solitary huge mass of bare dark-red gneiss rock, about 500 feet in height and 2,000 in length. It is certainly more curious than beautiful, and the sketch with which I beguiled the heat of the noontide was largely indebted to its foreground of luxuriant palmated cacti with yellow blossoms. The great tree-cactus, with arms like a gigantic candelabra, also flourishes in this hot district, a very weird-looking plant. I might have included a white ant’s castle, as these are numerous and conspicuous objects.

A few human beings, looking like moving mites on the summit, gave me a good idea of the great size of this smooth rounded mountain of rock, chief among many which tower like dark-reddish islands from the green levels of rice or jungle, forming a very remarkable geological feature of this part of Ceylon. One of just the same character and apparent height as this towers above Kurunegalla, and, in common with most of these, is crowned by a venerated temple and great relic-shrines: some, as at Dambulla, have caves in ledges near the summit, which have been fashioned into temples, and curious weather-worn pot-holes are supposed to have been the baths of sundry kings and saints.

In the afternoon we started by a jungle path to the base of the rock, and then passing the pansala, or monk’s cell, began the steep ascent by a path across the bare rock, which, however, gives a firm foothold, and at last landed us on the platform of arid rock in front of the temples, where, strange to say, a large bo-tree and a few cocoa-palms contrive to subsist. Of course some of the yellow-robed fraternity were waiting to do the honours, their colouring and gracefully worn drapery being specially harmonious with the surroundings of dark rock.

Though I had begun to realise that memories of India must really not be allowed to force themselves into comparison with scenes in Ceylon, the mention of famous rock temples insensibly suggested thoughts of Elephanta and Ellora, with the inevitable result of a feeling of disappointment at the roughness of detail, and general jar to one’s sense of artistic beauty. But once comparisons are dismissed, one realises how strange are the succession of pictures presented by these five caves, each full of idols, dimly seen by the subdued light.

The first cave is the Maha Dewa Dewale—_i.e._, ‘the Temple of the Great God,’ a name familiar in Hindoo cities as that of Siva, but which here is applied to Vishnu, whose wooden image is here present, and so greatly venerated that ordeal by oath is still practised in its presence. So was ordeal by boiling oil, which happily is now illegal. It stands facing a gigantic recumbent figure of Buddha in the sleep of Nirvana, lying on one side, with the head resting on the hand, and sacred lotus-blossoms engraven on the soles of the feet. At the feet stands a wooden statue of a disciple watching his master’s long sleep, and several small images of Buddha. The great one is forty-seven feet in length, and is said by the priests to be sawn from the solid rock, which in this case seems impossible, unless the whole cave were artificial, of which there is no trace.

The adornment of this cave is attributed to King Walagam Bahu, about 80 B.C., after he had conquered the Malabar invaders, so it is singular that such a devout Buddhist should have dedicated his work to Vishnu. The finely sculptured stone doorway is decorated with many figures, and two guardians canopied by the seven-headed cobra.

In the next cavern—the Maha-raja-Wihare, ‘the Temple of the Great King’— there is a large statue of the king himself. This cave is simply a gallery about 170 feet long by 70 feet wide, and 22 feet in height at the outer edge; but this curves backward, so that the back is barely four feet high. In this dark cool chamber are grouped about forty-eight images of Buddha, most of them larger than life: there is something rather impressive about this great company of idols dimly seen through the subdued light, and seated around a relic-shrine. Some are canopied by the seven-headed cobra. There are also images of the Hindoo gods Vishnu, Mata, and Saman, and the goddess Patiné (who has to be propitiated in times of smallpox).

Here, too, is a large wooden image of King Kirti Sri Nissanga, who about A.D. 1193 restored the temple, which had been sacrilegiously injured by Malabar invaders. He had all the statues re-guilded, and the walls gaudily painted with such a predominance of yellow, that the cave was then named Rangiri, the golden rock.

On the roof and sides of the rock are painted curious frescoes in the crudest colours, which are periodically renewed, in which all manner of subjects are oddly blended—Hindoo divinities, Buddha and his disciples represented as of divers nations and colours, and crowned with aureoles, that of Buddha himself having semicircles of sacred geese and other sacred emblems. A tiny image of Buddha is shown kneeling at the feet of his predecessor, praying that he may attain to Buddhahood.

There are also historical scenes, such as the famous duel, fought B.C. 164, between the Singhalese Prince Dutugemunu and the Malabar usurper Elala, a prince of Mysore, each mounted on a great elephant. They met in single contest in presence of their armies, outside the walls of Anuradhapura. After a desperate combat Elala was slain, and Dutugemunu was proclaimed king. As a pious Buddhist, he devoted the rest of his days to all possible acts of atonement for the blood he had shed in war. With chivalrous honour he erected a monument to Elala, and enacted that thenceforth, as processions passed the tomb, music must cease, and even kings must alight from their palanquins. So firmly was this custom rooted, that when, nineteen hundred years later, in 1816, the Kandyan leader of an unsuccessful insurrection was making his escape _viâ_ Anuradhapura, weary and worn, he caused his palanquin-bearers to halt that he might alight, and walk past the venerated monument. The story was told to us as we stood beside the earthen mound which marks the tomb of Elala.

There are also quaint representations (with figures ludicrously out of proportion, and fish larger than the ships, popping up their heads from blue waves) of the first landing (B.C. 543) of the Indian Prince Wijeyo with his Singhalese followers, illustrating their conquest of the aborigines. But when our kinsman, Campbell of Islay, visited these caves, with a mind imbued with the quaint parallel myths he had traced in so many lands, he descried many mystic meanings, and found that the priest in charge knew some of them—as, for instance, when the little daughter of the Yakkas, _alias_ demons, _alias_ aborigines, stands pleading before the conquering king, who presently is shown holding up two fingers of his left hand to bless her, who has saved his seven hundred giants in the lotus swamp. Then comes a strange white steed prancing about with the king among a lot of headless black trunks, with heads rolling about all over the place.

‘She became a mare,’ said the priest, ‘and helped the king to kill the Yakshas, and he married her, and that was the first king of Ceylon.’ To which Mr. Campbell replied: ‘I know a Gaelic story in which a lady turns herself into a grey mare and helps a man to slay no end of people, and escape, and conquer a kingdom. And is not the story of the Master Maid, in Dasent’s translation of Norse tales, founded on the same set of incidents in which a “grey mare is the better horse”?... In Scotland it is the King of Norway and the Princess of Ireland. Here it is the king who comes from the sea and the princess of the demons on shore.... But in Barra, Japan, and Ceylon, at three ends of the world, the same myths are fathered on the fathers of the conquering people and on their little demon mothers.’[101]

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Footnote 101:

‘My Circular Notes,’ vol. ii. p. 155. By J. F. Campbell. Macmillan.

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Wijeyo married Kuweni, the princess who had helped him to conquer her own relations, but afterwards he sought to strengthen his position by marrying the daughter of an Indian king, and so dismissed her and her children. Mr. Campbell might in this story have found another connecting link between the myths of Scotland and of Ceylon. For, as every good Highlander knows, a red thread bound round any person or object is an effectual safeguard against witchcraft;[102] and here in Ceylon, no sooner had Wijeyo landed with his followers than he was met by a ‘devo,’ or god, who blessed them, and tied a thread round the arm of each as a protection against sorcery. Hence Wijeyo’s deliverance from the sorceries practised by his princess.

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Footnote 102:

‘In the Hebrides,’ pp. 197, 297. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by
Chatto & Windus.

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Pure water for the service of the temple is provided by a dripping well, whose cool crystal drops fall from a fissure in the roof with ceaseless splash into a small tank on the rock pavement.

The third cave, though only about half the size of the last, contains fifty-four images, including another wooden image of the Rajah Kirti Sri Nissanga, and one of Buddha reclining, thirty feet long.

The fourth and fifth are still smaller, but each contains a considerable assortment of worshipful images, and the last, which is quite modern, contains a Buddha thirty-five feet in length.

On various parts of the rock there are ancient inscriptions, one of which, I was told, records, how ‘the Sovereign Lord of Lanka, Prakrama-Bahu Chakkravarti [_i.e._, the Lord of the Umbrellas], of the dynasty of Kaalinga, the Heroic and Invincible Royal Warrior [who reigned from A.D. 1153 to 1186], enriched the inhabitants, who had become impoverished by inordinate taxes. To this end he relinquished his revenues for five years, bestowed on the people gifts of land, cattle, and slaves, together with an annual donation of five times his own weight in gold, silver, and precious stones. He restored roads which had fallen into disuse, rebuilt the temples at Anuradhapura and many other places, and caused seventy-two statues of Buddha[103] in the three postures [recumbent, sitting, and standing] to be placed within these rock temples. These images were gilded, and seven lacs of rupees [according to Maver’s edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, a lac is one hundred thousand] were expended on a magnificent festival to celebrate this event.’

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Footnote 103:

The erection of seventy-two images and the gilding of the temple is
generally ascribed to Kirti Nissanga, who succeeded to the throne A.D.
1192, and whose image is preserved in two of the caves, but on the
Galpota or Stone Book at Pollonarua there is a reference to his having
simply re-gilded the images.

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In the same inscription the king ordains that ‘when permanent grants of lands are made to requite meritorious service, such behests shall not be recorded on palm-leaves, which are liable to be destroyed by rats and white ants, but shall be engraven on plates of copper, so as to endure for ages.’

Three great dagobas at one time crowned the summit of this huge rock, but they have wholly disappeared. A point of interest, however, is a pool of water very near the summit, which is said never to fail, even when in seasons of drought every water-spring far and near is dried up. A few trees are dotted about the hill-top, affording a grateful shade, and there is a small slope of short sun-scorched grass.

The view from the summit is very fine, overlooking a vast expanse of country—fertile lands pertaining to this temple, a sea of green jungle dotted with bare dark rocks of the same character as Dambulla, great tanks, the gigantic reservoirs constructed in olden days, fine mountain-ranges, and sundry spots whose old historic interest appeals to those versed in the semi-mythical early history of the Isle, in the days of gods and heroes, and in its later wars.

Foremost amongst these is the wellnigh inaccessible rock fortress of Sigiri, clearly seen, although distant about fifteen miles, as it rises almost perpendicularly from the brink of a neglected tank encircled with forest-trees. The lake is beautified by the red and white blossoms of the lotus, but these are guarded by a legion of grim crocodiles. The rock itself is a huge square crag towering 400 feet above the plain, and is all bare except on the summit, which is crowned with stunted vegetation. It bulges and overhangs so as to have made it exceedingly difficult of access in the first instance.

It is supposed to have been originally fortified by the aborigines (whom the Singhalese always describe as ‘Yakku,’ or demons), but the fortifications and other traces of habitation date from about A.D. 478, and are a memorial of King Kaasyapa the parricide, who, having dethroned his father Dhatu Sena, stripped him naked, loaded him with chains, and caused him to be built up in a wall, which was plastered over with clay to hide all trace of this tomb of the living.

Kaasyapa then tried to murder his younger half-brother Mogallana, but failed in the attempt, the latter escaping to India, whence he eventually returned to avenge his father. Meanwhile the parricide, haunted by the remembrance of his crime, sought security by constructing a dwelling or palace on this lonely crag, round the base of which he erected a massive stone rampart, enclosing divers fortifications.

The ascent from the base to the summit is effected by a series of artificially constructed galleries, dependent for their support on a foundation of brickwork built into a groove which had previously been cut spirally round the rock, to a depth of about four inches. On this slender foundation, assisted by every available atom of natural support, was built a platform about six feet wide, edged with a wall about nine feet high, the whole coated with hard polished chunam, once white, but now red from the action of water tinged with iron. The galleries, which are haunted by innumerable bats and swallows, are now in a very ruinous condition, and are connected here and there by rickety bamboo ladders; and the further ascent to the summit by scarcely perceptible fissures on the face of almost perpendicular rock is a thing to try the nerves of the hardiest cragsman.

The summit is a level of about an acre in extent, and here Kaasyapa’s palace must have stood, but of this, little if any trace remains, a thick growth of jungle having taken possession of the ground. Water was supplied by two tanks one 90 feet square by about 15 feet deep, and the other 15 feet square by 6 feet deep. These were apparently constructed to catch rain-water, but there is also a natural spring near the summit, and the water-supply seems to have been good. Kaasyapa, however, did not stand a siege here. For eighteen years he lived as an ascetic lay devotee, striving to atone for his crimes by showing favour to the priests. Then Mogallana returned from India at the head of an army, and Kaasyapa came forth to give him battle, and was slain by the hand of his own brother.[104]

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Footnote 104:

Probably no other history more fully illustrates how

‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’

than does that of Ceylon; so very many of the kings reigned less than
one year ere they were murdered, or else were so weary of their own
crimes that they committed suicide. One was murdered on the very day
of his accession. One died of strong drink. _Several, who were deposed
by usurpers, had their eyes put out._

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The fortified palace, constructed with such incredible toil, was thenceforth abandoned to bears and leopards, owls and bats, the people deeming it accursed, and haunted by demons.

The origin of the name Sigiri is disputed, some maintaining that it should be Sikhari, a hill-fort; the general impression, however, being that it is a contraction of Singha-giri, ‘the Lion’s Rock’ (like Singa-pore, ‘the Lion’s City’). Forty years ago an adventurous traveller described the paintings of lions on the white chunam of the great gallery, as white as if it were only a month old, though constructed nearly 1,400 years ago. It seems probable, however, that that traveller drew on his imagination, as the chunam is now iron-stained, and the only frescoes to be seen are several large human figures, supposed to be of Buddha, in a hollow rock chamber 60 feet above the gallery, with a sheer drop of 160 feet to the base of the crag.

How the artist got there, and how he was supported in his perilous position, were insoluble mysteries till June 1889, when Mr. Alick Murray determined to solve the problem. This proved no easy matter. The local chiefs and people absolutely refused to help in any way, having been warned by the Buddhist priests that inevitable destruction awaited any one who should dare to intrude into the demon-guarded chamber.

Nothing daunted, Mr. Murray secured the services of some Tamil stone-cutters from Southern India, who bored holes in the rock-face, one above the other, and therein inserted iron jumpers, which were secured with cement, and to these wooden staging was lashed. The man of lightest weight was selected to make the necessary holes, but after a while even he declared that it was impossible for him to ascend any higher, but he added that, if he were allowed to devote three days to fasting and prayer to his gods, he thought he might succeed. This he accordingly did, and effectually overcame that difficulty.

But even when the rock chamber was reached, the slope of the floor was found to be so steep that no one could even sit on it, so there was no rest for the explorers till more iron stanchions were driven in, and a wooden staging prepared, on which was erected a platform, on which (notwithstanding a fierce wind which shook the woodwork in the most alarming manner) Mr. Murray spent the livelong day, lying on his back from sunrise till sunset, for a whole week, patiently tracing the frescoes, which are painted on the roof and round the summit of the cave.

He found that these really represent thirteen female figures (others have been obliterated by time and weather). These are mostly in couples, each showing a very high-caste lady loaded with jewels, but naked to the waist, and attended by a Tamil girl of darker colour, and wearing exactly the same jacket and jewels still worn by girls of the same race. These damsels are offering to their mistresses sacred lotus-blossoms on a tray. The fact of these ladies being nude above the waist points to their being natives of the Malabar coast, where one race (the Nairs, I think) have adopted this singular badge of nobility, and their high-caste women will on no account cover their shoulders. So it would appear that a Singhalese king married a few Nair princesses.

It was strange to be thus suddenly brought face to face with the work of an artist of fourteen hundred years ago, the colouring almost as fresh as when first laid on, and with a singular predominance of green, a colour now rarely used by native artists. Here and there pieces of plaster had fallen off, showing how the rock had been prepared by being chiselled to a smooth surface, and then coated with two layers of fine clay, the under layer being mixed with rice husk, the upper layer very smooth.

All the time Mr. Murray was at work, a number of most interested spectators, including a few village head-men and Buddhist priests, watched at the foot of the rock, expecting to witness some awful catastrophe, when the vengeful demons asserted themselves. On the third day curiosity overcame prudence, and a minor chief asked Mr. Murray whether he would protect him if he ventured to ascend to the demon-haunted chamber. He was so amazed and delighted with all he saw, that on his safe return to earth a young Buddhist monk found courage to follow, on Mr. Murray’s assuring him that it was really quite safe; and so, gathering up his yellow robes, he cautiously ascended the first bamboo ladder, when a shout of warning from friends below made him hesitate, and again appeal to Mr. Murray to know whether he might really venture to beard the demons in their cave. On a renewed assurance of safety from supernatural foes, he clambered up, his countenance betraying how sore had been his mental struggle. Then came the physical anguish of the descent: however, that likewise was accomplished in safety; and when the week was ended, and all the tracings successfully secured, the many prophets of evil were all compelled to admit that the demons must have taken flight.

A point of some interest connected with Dambulla is, that the last insurrection against British rule broke out at this place in 1848. It was a small affair, stirred up by a few Kandyan chiefs and Buddhist priests, and was chiefly remarkable as showing how very little influence the latter possessed over the people, when not supported by the ruling power. Though the insurgents numbered about four thousand, they were quickly quelled by the Ceylon Rifles and part of the 15th Regiment, who attacked them first at Matale and afterwards at Kurunegalla, in each case routing them effectually. A few necessary executions followed, including that of a Buddhist priest, who was shot in his robes, greatly to the disgust of some Europeans. His own brethren, however, acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and voluntarily declared that they did not consider the fact of his being shot in his robes as any indignity to their order. We saw one of the chiefs who had been concerned in this last struggle against foreign rule—a very fine old man.

About sunset we returned to the rest-house, whence in the evening we witnessed a pretty show of native fireworks, and the burning of orange and blue lights in cocoa-nut shells, both on the top of the rock and in the rest-house.

Early the next morning we drove ten miles to Ellagamuwa, where, as usual, crowds of people had come some way to meet the Governor, making the most appalling noise of tom-tom beating and other evidences of rejoicing. There were the usual temporary huts hung with calico, and very ornamental pandals (the arches of welcome). The view from here of the blue Rita-gala hills is very beautiful, though the foreground of dead-level paddy-fields laid out in small squares like a chess-board is not attractive.

Though I speak of blue hills, Rita-gala is in fact an isolated mountain-spur rising to a height of 2,506 feet, and specially interesting as having been the last refuge of the ‘Yakkos,’ or aboriginal inhabitants of the Isle, when invaded by the conquering Singhalese; consequently many legends attach to certain very ancient ruins on the mountain. It is further interesting as being the northernmost mountain of any importance in the Isle. Beyond its base commences the great level extending over the northern half of Ceylon. We were told that the view from the summit is very fine, and it is spoken of as a desirable situation as a sanitarium.

About five miles to the west of Ellagamuwa lies the Kala-balalu-wewa, or Kala-wewa, _alias_ Kala-wapi, which is the second largest of the great tanks, or rather artificial lakes, of Ceylon, being thirty-two miles in circumference, and formed by means of an embankment of earth and huge blocks of stone, the whole about 60 feet in height and 20 feet wide at the top. Tennant said this was twelve miles long, but more recent measurement says six miles, natural high ground doing the rest. The spill-water, all of hewn granite, measures 260 feet in length, 200 feet in width, and is about 40 feet high.

It was originally two distinct tanks, the Kala-wewa and the Balalu-wewa, fed by different streams, the Dambulla-oya, the Hawanweli-oya, and the Mirisgoni-oya. But the waters of the great twin lakes contrived to effect a meeting, and now the great united lake is known as the Kala-wewa, and the united waters of the three rivers flow on as the Kala-oya, which enters the sea near Puttalam.

These grand reservoirs, in which was stored water for the irrigation of the whole Province, were constructed about the year A.D. 460 by King Dhatu-Sena, who was so horribly murdered by his own son. On pretext of pointing out where his treasures were concealed, the captive monarch was permitted to revisit it, and was sent thither in a shabby cart with broken wheels, the driver of which, for very pity, shared his meal of parched rice with the king.

On reaching the tank, he bathed in the beautiful lake he had made for the good of his people, and having drunk of its waters, and having conversed with his friend, the priest Mahanamo, he declared that this friend and the great lake were the only treasures he possessed, and so was carried back to Anuradhapura to meet his awful doom. In recording this incident, Mahanamo, the priest, remarks that this living entombment of the king was the just retribution for his own impiety, in that while making the embankment of the great tank, he therein buried a priest who was so deeply absorbed in meditation that he could not be aroused; so the earth was heaped upon him, and he perished.

Of all the wonderful traces which remain in Ceylon of the work of the mighty Singhalese kings, none are more impressive than those of the great artificial lakes, and of the canals by which water was carried thence to innumerable village tanks, and distributed according to the need of each separate field. The perfection of the whole system of irrigation, designed and carried out by the hydraulic engineers of those ancient days, could scarcely be surpassed, and the ingenuity and skill whereby the heavy rainfall of certain seasons was secured, and the precious water treasured to save the thirsting land in times of drought. And water is doubly precious under a burning tropical sun, having apparently the same fertilising influence that the richest manures could have in colder lands.

In all parts of the Island, in wildest solitudes and most unhealthy jungles (where stagnant swamps and dense forests now cover the plains, once fertile and rich with waving rice-fields), these ruined tanks are found, of all sizes, from the small village tank to the great artificial lake. These last were formed by erecting a vast embankment of huge blocks of stone, strongly cemented, and covered with turf—a mighty barrier of solid masonry—perhaps 100 feet wide at the base, narrowing to 40 feet at the top, and furnished with mighty sluices to regulate the escape of the water.

And then, when one of these large-minded kings took to this sort of work, it was done in such a wholesale fashion, several of these great tanks being perhaps constructed simultaneously in remote districts. Thus King Maha-Sen, who about A.D. 275 constructed the beautiful artificial Lake of Minery, near Polonarua, which is twenty miles in circumference, also constructed sixteen large tanks, including Kanthalay, near Trincomalee.

The gigantic tank of Padivil in the Northern Province (which is marked on some maps as Vavuniya-vilan-kulam) has also been attributed to him; but an inscription on the sacred rock at Mehintale records that this great lake was temple property at an earlier date. It must have been by far the largest of all these ancient lakes, having an area of fifteen miles: its dam is eleven miles long, 200 feet wide at the bottom, 30 feet wide at the top, some parts being 70 feet high, and the whole is faced by steps of large squared stones, many of them 12 feet in length. Many great stone blocks are finely sculptured.[105]

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Footnote 105:

Sir James Emerson Tennant states (vol. ii. pp. 501-508) that although
it was the dry season when he visited the Padivil-kulam, the water
still covered an area of ten miles in diameter, and the stream issuing
from it by the great breach in the embankment was about 300 feet
broad, and so impetuous that the horses had difficulty in crossing it.

Sir James gives a most fascinating description of the many thousands
of water-birds which he, arriving long before dawn, saw nesting on
trees or among the swampy sedges of this utter solitude,—tall
flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and many more, as also a
vast colony of pelicans, who had built their heavy nests, each
containing three eggs, in the tops of tall trees. When the sun rose,
all the birds soared slowly away to the sea-shore, distant about
twenty miles, there to seek their breakfast. The lake was swarming
with crocodiles hungrily watching for the fall of young birds.

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Due west from Padivil, on the coast of Manaar, are the stupendous ruins of the Giant’s Tank, which (like Padivil) was designed on a magnificent scale for the irrigation of that vast district known as ‘The Wanny,’ now chiefly arid jungle, but capable of being so fertile were irrigation possible. At present such land as is cultivated only returns about one crop in three years. With full irrigation it would give two crops annually. The embankment of this ‘Giant’s Tank’ is 300 feet wide at the base, and can be traced for fifteen miles. A causeway of hewn granite, 15 feet high and 750 feet in length, was to have connected the river with the feeding canal. Enormous labour must have been expended on the whole, and the result should have been the formation of a lake as large as Geneva. But by some lamentable miscalculation of levels, the great canal by which the waters of the Malwatte river were to have been led into the lake carried them back to the channel of the river, and all the toil and expenditure were proved to have been in vain.

So the people returned to live as best they could on the arid land, and in A.D. 1791 the Dutch found no less than twenty-four villages in the area of what should have been the lake. Strange to say, the native records which so minutely detail all that was deemed creditable in the acts of the kings, make no mention whatever of this great abortive effort. Tradition ascribes it to a nameless king of the fourteenth century, who, with the best possible intentions, strove to emulate the good deeds of his predecessors. But in that short lapse of time the hydraulic engineers had lost their cunning, and so all alike reaped the meed of failure in mortification and oblivion.

About the centre of the Isle, and due east from Kala-wewa, lies Lake Minery, which was formed by diverting the waters of the Kara-ganga, or, as it is now called, the Amban-ganga, by means of a dam twenty-four miles in length, ranging in height from 40 to 90 feet, and averaging 80 feet for many miles. This dam was repaired about the year A.D. 1153 by King Prakrama Bahu I., who thus formed a series of lagoons navigable by boats, which are supposed to have been the celebrated ‘Seas of Prakrama,’ though that name may have been applied to the multitude of tanks which he created, and of canals by which rivers were diverted to these great reservoirs. He is said to have constructed 1,407 tanks, besides 100 for the exclusive use of the priests, and to have restored 1,395! That, of course, involves connecting canals and much other work.

Some of these must have been exceedingly ancient, the earliest of which we have any certain information being the Bassawa-kulam at Anuradhapura, which is supposed to have been constructed about B.C. 500 by King Panduwasa, and was restored in 1867. Probably next to this ranks the Tissawewa tank near Kattregam, in the Southern Province, a great lake covering an area of about 3,000 acres, made about B.C. 307 by King Deveni-pia-tissa, and restored in 1876.

The account of King Prakrama’s enormous energy in regard to these irrigation works, as also in the matter of building temples and palaces, would be quite bewildering but for the knowledge that these autocratic kings had the right and power to claim from all their subjects a very large amount of free labour, or, as it was called, Rajah-karia, ‘King’s service’—a system which, of course, was often very gravely abused, but which, when applied to work for the common weal, such as this storing and distributing of precious water, had certainly great advantages in a country where the cares of agriculture do not claim more than half a man’s working days.

Its necessity was proven by the fact that so soon as the strong controlling hand was removed, these great works, which were for the good of all, were grievously neglected. Probably the mischief began long ago, when, owing to wars and other political causes, the seat of Government was so frequently moved from place to place; and though the villagers must have remained to profit by the blessed waters, attention to keeping the tanks in repair was doubtless relaxed, and so ‘little leaks’ were established, and sluices got out of order, and general efficiency was impaired.

But it is certain that the reign of ruin set in in earnest when the disorganising presence of Europeans became permanent, and the finishing stroke was given in 1832, when (too hastily and without fully understanding the character of the people, and the need of exercising a certain amount of control for their own good) the British Government proclaimed absolute freedom, and the total abolition of Rajah-karia.

In this proclamation of freedom exception was made for the very large[106] lands belonging to Buddhist and Hindoo temples, where the people continued in absolute serfdom to the priests, holding their lands on the condition of cultivating those of the temples, and of rendering all manner of other service, which included taking part in idolatrous ceremonies, in some cases against the bidding of an awakening conscience. Better would it have been for the people had this exemption been reversed, and the only compulsory work retained in some modified form been that for the upkeep of roads and irrigation.

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Footnote 106:

In Mr. Mitford’s report for Sir Hercules Robinson, on the existing
state of serfdom on temple lands in 1868, he says:—

‘The Order in Council by which in 1832 compulsory labour was abolished
in Crown villages, _by excepting royal temple and private villages
from its advantages, is now the strongest ground on which the existing
state of servitude is built_. Here is a great wrong legalised. We
found the despotic principles in existence, and superadded British
forms, and THUS RIVETED THE CHAINS OF THIS GALLING TYRANNY ON
ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION.

‘Under this system men are bought and sold with the land, agriculture
and industry are checked, oppression is legalised, and Christianity
prohibited. The exaction of services is arbitrary. I have known
instances of men working for three months in the year, and others even
for six months, during which time their own lands were lying waste.
Besides agricultural and menial tasks, each landholder’s family was
allotted a portion of the temple service, such as repairing the
temples and idols, carrying the images at festivals, furnishing
musicians, devil-dancers, &c. If a temple serf should become a
Christian, he could not, of course, perform any of these services in a
heathen temple, consequently he would lose his land.

‘_I maintain that we have no right to hold any British subject in a
position compelling him to perform idolatrous ceremonies, with the
alternative of ruin.... I have often felt a blush of shame when
obliged to decide cases against temple serfs, in violation of the
rights of humanity and the first principles of justice._’

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I have already shown (p. 65) that in 1870 an Act was passed to enable temple serfs (in other words, the tenants of temple lands) to pay an equivalent in money in lieu of rendering these services—an Act which, however, from various causes, has not yet wrought the expected deliverance. For one thing, the exemption of these lands from paying grain-tax renders them peculiarly desirable holdings, so that most tenants fear to take any step which would risk the loss of their tenure.

As regards the roads, it was after a while found necessary for their maintenance to require every man between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five to work thereon for six consecutive days annually, or, as an equivalent, to pay a sum of about two rupees.

Then, when the salvation of the country was found to depend on the restoration of the ancient irrigation works, it was found positively necessary so far to revive the old system that the men of each village have been obliged to help in the reconstruction of their own particular tank, and are bound to take their annual share in its repair, in proportion to the number of acres for which each requires irrigation. Moreover, though paid labour was employed for the restoration of the great Kala-wewa and its canal, the landowners who profit thereby are now each required to give about fourteen days’ work annually to keeping the whole in repair. Of course, the re-imposition of even this shadow of the old law, which had been so rashly abolished, has called forth a certain amount of grumbling from the men whose very lives and those of their families have thereby been saved.

The immediate result of the abolition of compulsory ‘service for the king’ was the destruction at one blow of the whole machinery by which great national works were kept up by the native rulers, for when every man suddenly found himself absolutely free from all necessity of taking any share in keeping up public works, although a few individuals might do their part, the necessary combination became impracticable, and tanks and watercourses very soon fell into ruin, the perpetually recurring monsoon floods soon converting small fissures into extensive breaches: thus the precious waters all ran to waste. There was no reserve for seasons of drought, and the cultivation of rice was impossible. The tanks themselves and the adjacent lands became unhealthy swamps, breeding poisonous miasma; and the ever-increasing unhealthiness of the districts under these conditions compelled the villagers to disperse, and to make a scanty living by the cultivation of such unwholesome grain as can be grown on very dry soil—chiefly millet (_Panicum miliacæum_) and Kurukkan (_Eleusine indica_). The latter bears a seed something like clover, and the meal prepared from it makes tolerable porridge; but the natives use it chiefly in the form of most indigestible cakes, as tough as leather. Pulse and kollu are also grains which grow on dry soil, as also does gingelly, an oil-giving grain—which, however, flourishes only on newly cleared forest-land, and speedily exhausts the soil.

As to water, which is the only drink in the interior of the Isle where cocoa-palms do not grow, the people were (and are still in some districts) occasionally reduced to drinking mud from little pools in which the buffaloes have wallowed. Sir John Douglas mentions that, having to halt at one of these villages in the hottest season, he asked for a bath, and the people laughed at the very idea. They told him he could get some water if he sent six miles to fetch it. This he did, and longed for the return of his water-carriers; but when at last they arrived the water they brought was so foul, and smelt so bad, that, after filtering it six times through towels, he could not bring himself to wash in it, and so sacrificed three bottles of soda-water, and therein luxuriated, only wishing there were more of it!

Unfortunately, poor Singhalese villagers cannot indulge in soda-water baths, and their consequent state of unavoidable filth (in these jungle villages in the dry season), combined with bad air to breathe, bad water to drink, and unwholesome and insufficient food, produces a condition of utter debility, resulting too often in the frightful disease of parangi, resembling leprosy—loathsome to behold, and most terrible to the sufferer. In some districts the population has been literally decimated by the scourge.

In the almost abandoned tank districts, luxuriant jungle rapidly overspread the rich rice-fields, while the shallow waters became the favourite haunt of all manner of wild-fowl. Here troops of elephants and great herds of wild buffaloes, deer, pigs, and other animals, came to drink in the cool of the day. Grim crocodiles lay basking on the shore; monkeys of all sizes chattered and screamed among the branches, and the jackals lent their music to the chorus. Peacocks and golden orioles flashed in the sunlight; great pelicans, tall white cranes, and pink flamingoes stalked along among the sedgy shallows. In short, these ruined tanks were each centres of attraction to sportsmen and naturalists.

I rejoice to speak of all this in the past tense, because, although very much remains to be done, so much has been effected, in the way of restoration, in the last fifteen years. About thirty years ago Sir Henry Ward strongly urged the British Government to take the matter in hand, and a commencement was made by restoring some tanks in the Batticaloa country, in the heart of a settled population, by whom their inestimable value was at once recognised.

Sir Hercules Robinson carried on the good work, and secured an enactment for the annual expenditure of £20,000 by Government on irrigation work, to be repaid by the cultivators by payment of a water-rate. Kanthalai, near Trincomalee, and Tissa-Maharama, in the Southern Province—capable respectively of irrigating 10,000 and 15,000 acres—were next restored. These, till recently, were deemed failures, because the disheartened villagers could not shake off their apathy and return to the cultivation of abandoned lands. So those who grumbled at what seemed unremunerative outlay deemed their prophecies of ill omen all fulfilled. Happily these proved to be only deferred successes, for each of these great tanks now irrigates a vast tract of luxuriant rice-land.

In 1867 Government called for a return of all the tanks in Ceylon, and obtained a list of 4,903, many of which, of course, were small village tanks, and the majority quite out of repair. The report for the North Central Province in 1871 stated that out of 1,600 village tanks not a single one had sluices, or was capable of containing water to any extent. This was on the vast plain of Nuwara-Kalawiya, around Anuradhapura, once so fertile as to have been known as the granary of Ceylon, but where at that time rice (which to the Singhalese is the equivalent of beef, mutton, and potatoes) was simply not to be obtained.

When in the following year Sir William Gregory first visited this once luxuriant district, and saw for himself the pitiful condition of the people, few in number, dirty, diseased, and apathetic from semi-starvation, having apparently lost all heart and hope, with characteristic energy he resolved that their case must be taken up in real earnest. At that time the North Central Province was little visited by Europeans, the roads being mere tracks, and all the streams unbridged. It was sixteen years since any Governor had made his way thither.

To secure a larger share of attention and care, Sir William separated this great district from the Northern Province, and formed it into the new North Central Province. (In like manner, a few years later, Sir Arthur Gordon divided the Southern Province, creating the new provinces of Sabaragamua and Uva, that those neglected regions might receive a due share of recognition.)

In commencing work on Nuwara-Kalawiya, it was evident to Sir William that the first necessity was to reconstruct the village tanks, and this could only be done by the work of the villagers themselves, every man on the earthworks of his own village tank. By the agency of the village councils this was effected, each man being required to work without remuneration for thirty days per annum, until the particular tank with which he is connected is completed, Government undertaking to provide and construct free of cost to the village the ironwork and masonry required for the sluice and waste-weir. By the close of 1882 Mr. Fisher reported that, as the result of nine years of the villagers’ earthwork, 199 tanks had been restored, and that Government had supplied 206 sluices. In May 1884 Sir William Gregory was able to state at the Royal Colonial Institute in London that, out of the total of 1,600 tanks, 1,200 were either repaired or in process of being so, a large number being already in such thorough working order that when Sir William returned to revisit Ceylon, he had the joy of beholding near every village a wide tract of well-cultivated and luxuriant crops, and of knowing that the people had home-grown rice in such abundance as to be far beyond their own powers of consumption; paddy—_i.e._, rice in the husk—actually selling at 5_d._ per bushel, whereas in Colombo, where the cost of freight has to be added, its price ranges from 1_s._ 8_d._ to 2_s._ per bushel. But the most surprising and delightful change was that of the people themselves. All the hopelessness had vanished, the skinny half-starved children were fat and healthy, the horrible parangi had almost disappeared, and the population was increased by the return of many, anxious to share the blessings of abundant cheap food and comparatively good water.

But all these village tanks were dependent for their supply on the rains, consequently in times of prolonged drought they must inevitably fail. It was, therefore, a matter of the gravest importance to secure a supply as nearly permanent as it is possible for any such to be in the tropics; and when Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon succeeded to the office of Governor, he was deeply impressed with the absolute necessity of yet more extended and systematic action in restoring the full irrigation system of the old rulers.