ix. p. 222.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]

A dagoba (from _datu_, a relic, and _gabbhan_, a shrine[1]) is a
monument raised to preserve one of the relics of Gotama, which were
collected after the cremation of his body at Kusinara, and it is
candidly admitted in the _Mahawanso_ that the intention in erecting them
was to provide "objects to which offerings could be made."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Deha_, "the body," and _gopa_, "what preserves;" because
they enshrine hair, teeth, nails, &c. of Buddha.--WILSON'S _Asiat. Res._
vol. xvii. p. 605.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xvii. p. 104.]

[Illustration: A SMALL DAGOBA AT KANDY]

[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]

Ceylon contains but one class of these structures, and boasts no tall
monolithic pillars like the _lats_ of Delhi and Allahabad, and no
regularly built columns similar to the _minars_ of Cabul; but the
fragments of the bones of Gotama, and locks of his hair, are enclosed in
enormous masses of hemispherical masonry, modifications of which may be
traced in every Buddhist country of Asia, in the topes of Affghanistan
and the Punjaub, in the pagodas of Pegu, and in the Boro-Buddor of Java.
Those of Ceylon consist of a bell-shaped dome of brick-work surmounted
by a terminal or _tee_ (generally in the form of a cube supporting a
pointed spire), and resting on a square platform approached by flights
of stone steps. Those, the ruins of which have been explored in modern
times, have been found to be almost solid, enclosing a hollow vessel of
metal or stone which had once contained the relic, but of which the
ornament alone and a few gems or discoloured pearls set in gold, are
usually all that is now discoverable.

Their outline exhibits but little of ingenuity or of art, and their
construction is only remarkable for the vast amount of labour which must
necessarily have been expended upon them. But, independently of this,
the first dagoba erected at Anarajapoora, the Thuparamaya, which exists
to the present day, "as nearly as may be in the same form in which it
was originally designed, is possessed of a peculiar interest from the
fact that it is in all probability the oldest architectural monument now
extant in India."[1] It was raised by King Tissa, at the close of the
third century before Christ, over the collar-bone of Buddha, which
Mahindo had procured for the king.[2] In dimensions this monument is
inferior to those built at a later period by the successors of Tissa,
some of which