The majority of the columns at Anarajapoora are of dressed stone, octangular and of extremely graceful proportions.  They were used in profusion to form circular colonnades around the principal dagobas, and the vast numbers which still remain upright, are one of the peculiar characteristics of the place, and justify the expression of Knox, when, speaking of similar groups elsewhere, he calls them a “world of hewn stone pillars."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Knox, Relation, vol. v. pt. iv. ch. ii. p. 165.]

[Illustration:  COLUMN AT ANARAJAPOORA.]

Allusions in the Mahawanso show that extreme care was taken in the preparation of bricks for the dagobas.[1] Major SKINNER, whose official duties as engineer to the government have rendered him familiar with all parts of Ceylon, assures me that the bricks in every ruin he has seen, including the dagobas at Anarajapoora, Bintenne, and Pollanarrua, have been fired with so much skill that exposure through successive centuries has but slightly affected their sharpness and consistency.

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxviii. p. 165; ch. xxix. p. 169, &c.]

The sand for mortar was “pounded, sifted, and ground on a grinding-stone;"[1] the “cloud-coloured stones,"[2] used to form the immediate receptacle in which a sacred relic was enclosed, were said to have been imported from India; and the “nawanita” clay, in which these were imbedded, was believed to have been brought from the mythical Anotattho lake in the Himalayas.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 175.]

[Footnote 2:  The “cloud-coloured stone” may possibly have been marble, but no traces of marble have been found in the ruins.  Diodorus, in describing some of the monuments of Egypt alludes to a “party-coloured” stone, [Greek:  lithon poikilon], which likewise remains without identification.—­Diodorus, l. i. c. lvii.]

[Footnote 3:  Mahawanso, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 179.]

Dagobas.—­The process of building the Ruanwelle dagoba is thus minutely described in the Mahawanso:  “That the structure might endure for ages, a foundation was excavated to the depth of one hundred cubits, and the round stones were trampled by enormous elephants, whose feet were protected by leather cases.  Over this the monarch spread the sacred clay, and on it laid the bricks, and over them a coating of astringent cement, above this a layer of sand-stones, and on all a plate of iron.  Over this was a large pholika (crystallised stone), then a plate of brass, eight inches thick, embedded in a cement made of the gum of the wood-apple tree, diluted in the water of the small red coco-nut."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 178.  The internal structure of the Sanchi tope at Bilsah in Central India presents the arrangement here described, the bricks being laid in mud, but externally it is faced with dressed stone.]