cal
books, and "delighted in burning them in heaps as high as a coco-nut
tree." These losses it was sought to repair by an embassy to Siam, sent
by Kirti-Sri in A.D. 1753, when a copious supply was obtained of Burmese
versions of Pali sacred literature.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

During the same troublous times, schisms and heresy had combined to
undermine the national belief, and hence one of the first cares of
Prakrama Bahu was to weed out the perverted sects, and establish a
council for the settlement of the faith on debatable points.[1] Dagobas
and statues of Buddha were multiplied without end during his reign, and
temples of every form were erected both at Pollanarrua and throughout
the breadth of the island. Halls for the reading of bana, image rooms,
residences for the priesthood, ambulance halls and rest houses for their
accommodation when on journeys, were built in every district, and rocks
were hollowed into temples; one of which, at Pollanarrua, remains to the
present day with its images of Buddha; "one in a sitting and another in
a lying posture," almost as described in the _Mahawanso_.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. For a description of this temple
see the account of Pollanarrua in the present work, Vol. II. Pt. x. ch.
i.]

In conformity with the spirit of toleration, which is one of the
characteristics of Buddhism, the king "erected a house for the Brahmans
of the capital to afford the comforts of religion even to his Malabar
enemies." And mindful of the divine injunctions engraven on the rock by
King Asoca, "he forbade the animals in the whole of Lanka, both of the
earth and the water, to be killed,"[1] and planted gardens, "resembling
the paradise of the God-King Sakkraia, with trees of all sorts bearing
fruits and odorous flowers."

[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