reaching the quarter of the city in which it stands,” says the Mahawanso[1], “it has been the custom for the monarchs of Lanka to silence their music, whatsoever cession they may be heading;” and so uniformly was the homage continued down to the most recent period, that so lately as 1818, on the suppression of an attempted rebellion, when the defeated aspirant to the throne was making his escape by Anarajapoora, he alighted from his litter, on approaching the quarter in which the monument was known to exist, “and although weary and almost incapable of exertion, not knowing the precise spot, he continued on foot till assured that he had passed far beyond the ancient memorial."[2]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxi.]

[Footnote 2:  FORBES’ Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. i. p. 233.]

[Sidenote:  B.C. 161.]

Dutugaimunu, in the epics of Buddhism, enjoys a renown, second only to that of King Tissa, as the champion of the faith.  On the recovery of his kingdom he addressed himself with energy to remove the effects produced in the northern portions of the island by forty years of neglect and inaction under the sway of Elala.  During that monarch’s protracted usurpation the minor sovereignties, which had been formed in various parts of the island prior to his seizure of the crown, were little impeded in their social progress by the forty-four years’ residence of the Malabars at Anarajapoora.  Although the petty kings of Rohuna and Maya submitted to pay tribute to Elala, his personal rule did not extend south of the Mahawelli-ganga[1], and whilst the strangers in the north of the island were plundering the temples of Buddha, the feudal chiefs in the south and west were emulating the munificence of Tissa in the number of wiharas which they constructed.

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxii., Rajavali, p. 188, Rajaratnacari, p. 36.  The Mahawanso has a story of Dutugaimunu, when a boy, illustrative of his early impatience to rid the island of the Malabars.  His father seeing him lying on his bed, with his hands and feet gathered up, inquired, “My boy, why not stretch thyself at length on thy bed?” “Confined by the Damilos,” he replied, “beyond the river on the one side, and by the unyielding ocean on the other, how can I lie with outstretched limbs?”]

Eager to conciliate his subjects by a similar display of regard for religion, Dutugaimunu signalised his victory and restoration by commencing the erection of the Ruanwelle dagoba, the most stupendous as well as the most venerated of those at Anarajapoora, as it enclosed a more imposing assemblage of relics than were ever enshrined in any other in Ceylon.

The mass of the population was liable to render compulsory labour to the crown; but wisely reflecting that it was not only derogatory to the sacredness of the object, but impolitic to exact any avoidable sacrifices from a people so recently suffering from internal warfare, Dutugaimunu came to the resolution of employing hired workmen only, and according to the Mahawanso vast numbers of the Yakkhos became converts to Buddhism during the progress of the building[1], which the king did not live to complete.