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]

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 88]

[Footnote 2: The useful ambition of sign