[Sidenote:  B.C. 307.]

Upwards of two hundred years were spent in initiatory measures for the organisation of the new state.  Colonists from the continent of India were encouraged by the facilities held out to settlers, and carriage roads were formed in the vicinity of the towns.[1] Village communities were duly organised, gardens were planted, flowers and fruit-bearing trees introduced,[2] and the production of food secured by the construction of canals,[3] and public works for irrigation.  Moreover, the kings and petty princes attested the interest which they felt in the promotion of agriculture, by giving personal attention to the formation of tanks and to the labours of cultivation.[4]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xiv. xv. xvi.]

[Footnote 2:  Mahawanso, ch. xi. p. 60 (367 B.C.), ch. xxxiv. p. 211 (B.C. 20), ch. xxxv. p. 215 (A.D. 20). Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 29. Rajavali, p. 185, 227.]

[Footnote 3:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 210 (B.C. 42), ch. xxxv. p. 221, 222 (A.D. 275), ch. xxxvii. p. 238. Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 49, and Rajavali, p. 223, &c.]

[Footnote 4:  Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 61, xxii. p. 130, xxiv. p. 149. Rajavali, p. 185, 186.  The Buddhist kings of Burmah, at the present day, in imitation of the ancient sovereigns of Ceylon, rest their highest claims to renown on the number of works for irrigation which they have either formed or repaired.  See Yule’s Narrative of the British mission, to Ava in 1855, p. 106.]

[Sidenote:  B.C. 307.]

Meantime, the effects of Gotama’s early visits had been obliterated, and the sacred trees which he planted were dead; and although the bulk of the settlers had come from countries where Buddhism was the dominant faith, no measures appear to have been taken by the immigrants to revive or extend it throughout Ceylon.  Wijayo was, in all probability, a Brahman, but so indifferent to his own faith, that his first alliance in Ceylon was with a demon worshipper.[1] His immediate successors were so eager to encourage immigration, that they treated all religions with a perfect equality of royal favour.  Yakkho temples were not only respected, but “annual demon offerings were provided” for them; halls were built for the worshippers of Brahma, and residences were provided at the public cost, for “five hundred persons of various foreign religious faiths;"[2] but no mention is made in the Mahawanso of a single edifice having been then raised for the worshippers of Buddha, whether resident in the island, or arriving amongst the colonists from India.

[Footnote 1:  According to the Mahawanso, Vishnu, in order to protect Wijayo and his followers from the sorceries of the Yakkhos, met them on their landing in Ceylon, and “tied threads on their arms,” ch. vii.; and at a later period, when the king Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was afflicted with temporary insanity, as a punishment in his person of the crime of perjury, committed by his predecessor Wijayo, Iswara was supplicated to interpose, and by his mediation the king was restored to his right mind.—­Rajavali, p. 181.]