His immediate successors were so
eager to encourage immigration, that they treated all religions with a
perfect equality of royal favour. Yakkho temples were not only
respected, but "annual demon offerings were provided" for them; halls
were built for the worshippers of Brahma, and residences were provided
at the public cost, for "five hundred persons of various foreign
religious faiths;"[2] but no mention is made in the _Mahawanso_ of a
single edifice having been then raised for the worshippers of Buddha,
whether resident in the island, or arriving amongst the colonists from
India.

[Footnote 1: According to the _Mahawanso_, Vishnu, in order to protect
Wijayo and his followers from the sorceries of the Yakkhos, met them on
their landing in Ceylon, and "_tied threads on their arms_," ch. vii.;
and at a later period, when the king Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was afflicted
with temporary insanity, as a punishment in his person of the crime of
perjury, committed by his predecessor Wijayo, _Iswara_ was supplicated
to interpose, and by his mediation the king was restored to his right
mind.--_Rajavali_, p. 181.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 67; ch, xxxiii, p. 203.]

It was not till the year B.C. 307, in the reign of Tissa, that the
preacher Mahindo ventured to visit Ceylon, under the auspices of the
king, whom he succeeded in inducing to abstain from Brahmanical rites,
and to profess faith in the doctrines of Buddha. From the prominent part
thus taken by Tissa in establishing the national faith of Ceylon, the
sacred writers honour his name with the prefix of _Dewanan-pia_, or
"beloved of the saints."

[Sidenote: B.C. 307.]

The _Mahawanso_ exhausts the vocabulary of ecstacy in describing the
advent of Mahindo, a prince of Magadha, and a lineal descendant of
Chandragutto. It records the visions by which he was divinely directed
to "depart on his mission for the conversion of Lanka;" it describes his
aerial flight, and his descent on Ambatthalo, the loftiest peak of
Mihintala, the mountain which, rising suddenly from the plain, overlooks
the sacred city of Anarajapoora. The story proceeds to explain, how the
king, who was hunting the elk, was miraculously allured by the fleeing
game to approach the spot where Mahindo was seated[1]; and how the
latter forthwith propounded the Divine doctrine "to the ruler of the
land; who, at the conclusion of his discourse, together with his forty
thousand followers, obtained the salvati