[Footnote 1:  Mahawanso, ch, xxvii. p. 103.  Like the “nine-storied” pagodas of China, the palace of “the Lowa Maya Paya” was originally nine stories in height, and Fergusson, from the analogy of Buddhist buildings in other countries, supposes that these diminished in succession as the building arose, till the outline of the whole assumed the form of a pyramid. (Handbook of Architecture, b. i. ch. iii. p. 44.) In this he is undoubtedly correct, and a building still existing, though in ruins, at Pollanarrua, and known as the Sat-mal-pasado, or the "seven-storied palace,” probably built by Prakrama, about the year 1170, serves to support his conjecture.  See a description of it, part x. ch. i, vol. ii.]

Allusions are occasionally made to other edifices more or less fantastic in their design and structure, such as “an apartment built on a single pillar,"[1] a “house of an octangular form,” built in the 12th century[2], and another of an “oval,” shape[3], erected by Prakrama I.

[Footnote 1:  B.C. 504, Mahawanso, ch. ix, p. 56; ch. lxxii.  UPHAM’S version, p. 274.]

[Footnote 2:  Rajaratnacari, p. 105.]

[Footnote 3:  Mahawanso, ch. lxxii, UPHAM’S version, p. 274.]

Palaces.—­The royal residences as they were first constructed, must have consisted of very few chambers, since mention is made in the Mahawanso of the earliest, which contained “many apartments,” having been built by Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437.[1] But within two centuries afterwards, Dutugaimunu conceived the magnificent idea of the Loha Pasada, with its quadrangle one hundred cubits square, and a thousand dormitories with ornamental windows.[2] This palace was in its turn surpassed by the castle of Prakrama I. at Pollanarrua, which, according to the Mahawanso, “was seven stories high, consisting of five thousand rooms, lined with hundreds of stone columns, and outer halls of an oval shape, with large and small gates, staircases, and glittering walls."[3]

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., ch. x. p. 66.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., ch. xxvii, p. 163.]

[Footnote 3:  Mahawanso, ch. lxxii.  UPHAM’S version, p. 274.]

In what now remains of these buildings at Anarajapoora, there is no trace to be found of an arch, truly turned and secured by its keystone; but at Pollanarrua there are several examples of the false arch, produced by the progressive projection of the layers of brick.[1]

[Footnote 1:  FORBES’S Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. i. ch. xvii. p. 414.]

The finest specimens of ancient brickwork are to be seen amongst the ruins of the latter city, where the material is compact and smooth, and the edges sharp and unworn.  The mortar shows the remains of the pearl oyster-shells from which it was burnt, and the chunam with which the walls were coated, still clings to some of the towers, and retains its angularity and polish.[1]