[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. lxxvii.  Among the religious edifices constructed by Prakrama Bahu in many parts of his kingdom, the Mahawanso, enumerates three temples at Pollanarrua, besides others at every two or three gows distance; 101 dagobas, 476 statues of Buddha, and 300 image rooms built, besides 6100 repaired.  He built for the reception of priests from a distance, “230 lodging apartments, 50 halls for preaching, and 9 for walking, 144 gates, and 192 rooms for the purpose of offering flowers.  He built 12 apartments and 230 halls for the use of strangers, and 31 rock temples, with tanks, baths, and gardens for the priesthood.”]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1155.]

For the people the king erected almonries at the four gates of the capital, and hospitals, with slave boys and maidens to wait upon the sick, superintending them in person, and bringing his medical knowledge to assist in their direction and management.

Even now the ruins of Pollanarrua, the most picturesque in Ceylon, attest the care which he lavished on his capital.  He surrounded it with ramparts, raised a fortress within them, and built a palace for his own residence, containing four thousand apartments.  He founded schools and libraries; built halls for music and dancing; formed tanks for public baths; opened streets, and surrounded the whole city with a wall which, if we are to credit the native chronicles, enclosed an area twelve miles broad by nearly thirty in length.

By his liberality, Rohuna and Pihiti were equally embellished; the buildings of Vigittapura and Sigiri were renewed; and the ancient edifices at Anarajapoora were restored, and its temples and palaces repaired, under the personal superintendence of his minister.  It is worthy of remark that so greatly had the constructive arts declined, even at that period, in Ceylon, that the king had to “bring Damilo artificers” from the opposite coast of India to repair the structures at his capital.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. lxxv. lxxvii.]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1155.]

The details preserved in the Singhalese chronicles as to the works for irrigation which he formed or restored, afford an idea of the prodigious encouragement bestowed upon agriculture in this reign, as well as of the extent to which the rule of the Malabars had retarded the progress and destroyed the earlier traces of civilisation.  Fourteen hundred and seventy tanks were constructed by the king in various parts of the island, three of them of such vast dimensions that they were known as the “Seas of Prakrama;"[1] and in addition to these, three hundred others were formed by him for the special benefit of the priests.  The “Great Lakes” which he repaired, as specified in the Mahawanso, amount to thirteen hundred and ninety-five, and the smaller ones which he restored or enlarged to nine hundred and sixty.  Besides these, he made five hundred and thirty-four watercourses and canals, by damming up the rivers, and repaired three thousand six hundred and twenty-one.[2]