on of the faith."[2]

[Footnote 1: The story, as related in the _Mahawanso_, bears a
resemblance to the legend of St. Hubert and the stag, in the forest of
Ardennes, and to that of St. Eustace, who, when hunting, was led by a
deer of singular beauty towards a rock, where it displayed to him the
crucifix upon its forehead; whence an appeal was addressed which
effected his conversion. "The king Dewananpiyatissa departed for an elk
hunt, taking with him a retinue; and in the course of the pursuit of the
game on foot, he came to the Missa mountain. A certain devo, assuming
the form of an elk, stationed himself there, grazing; the sovereign
descried him, and saying 'it is not fair to shoot him standing,' sounded
his bowstring, on which the elk fled to the mountain. The king gave
chase to the flying animal, and, on reaching the spot where the priests
were, the thero Mahindo came within sight of the monarch; but the
metamorphosed deer vanished."--_Mahawanso_, c. xiv.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80.]

Then follows the approach of Mahindo to the capital; the conversion of
the queen and her attendants, and the reception of Buddhism by the
nation, under the preaching of its great Apostle, who "thus became the
luminary which shed the light of religion over the land." He and his
sister Sanghamitta thenceforth devoted their lives to the organisation
of Buddhist communities throughout Ceylon, and died in the odour of
sanctity, in the reign of King Uttiya, B.C. 267.

[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]

But the grand achievement which consummated the establishment of the
national faith, was the arrival from Magadha of a branch of the sacred
Bo-tree. Every ancient race has had its sacred tree; the Chaldeans, the
Hebrews[1], the Greeks, the Romans and the Druids, had each their
groves, their elms and their oaks, under which to worship. Like them,
the Brahmans have their _Kalpa tree_ in Paradise, and the Banyan in the
vicinity of their temples; and the Buddhists, in conformity with
immemorial practice, selected as their sacred tree the Pippul, which is
closely allied to the Banyan, yet sufficiently distinguished from it, to
serve as the emblem of a new and peculiar worship.[2] It was whilst
reclining under the shade of this tree in Uruwela, that Gotama received
Buddhahood; hence its adoption as an object of reverence by his
followers, and in all probability its adoration preceded the use of
images and temples in Ceylon.[3]

[Footnote