The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility.  Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation.  Originally these vast undertakings were completed “for the benefit of the country,” and “out of compassion for living creatures;"[2] but so early as the first century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they enriched on the church.  Wide districts, rendered fertile by the interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood[3]; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for the perpetual repairs of a dagoba[4], and the revenues of whole villages and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a single wihara.[5]

[Footnote 1:  Rajaratnacari, p. 41, 45, 54, 55; King Saidaitissa B.C. 137, made “eighteen lakes” (Rajavali, p. 233).  King Wasabha, who ascended the throne A.D. 62, “caused sixteen large lakes to be enclosed” (Rajaratnacari, p. 57).  Detu Tissa, A.D. 253, excavated six (Rajavali, p. 237), and King Maha Sen, A.D. 275, seventeen (Mahawanso, ch, xxxviii. p. 236).]

[Footnote 2:  Mahawanso, ch, xxxvii. p. 242.]

[Footnote 3:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 210; xxxv. p. 221; xxxviii. p. 237, Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 57, 59, 64, 69, 74.]

[Footnote 4:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 215, 218, 223; ch. xxxvii. p. 234; Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 51.  TURNOUR’S Epitome, p. 21.]

[Footnote 5:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 218, 221; Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 51; Rajaviai, p. 241.]

So lavish were these endowments, that one king, who signalised his reign by such extravagances as laying a carpet seven miles in length, “in order that pilgrims might proceed with unsoiled feet all the way from the Kadambo river (the Malwatte oya) to the mountain Chetiyo (Mihintala),” awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of water during the construction of a wihara, “land within the circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv, p. 3.]

[Sidenote:  B.C. 104.]

It was in this manner that the beautiful tank at Mineri, one of the most lovely of these artificial lakes, was enclosed by Maha Sen, A.D. 275; and, together with the 80,000 amonams of ground which it waters, was conferred on the Jeytawana Wihara which the king had just erected at Anarajapoora.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 69.]

To identify the crown still more closely with the interests of agriculture, some of the kings superintended public works for irrigating the lands of the temples[1]; and one more enthusiastic than the rest toiled in the rice fields to enhance the merit of conferring their produce on the priesthood.[2]