ted any tendency to
depart from the primitive simplicity so strongly enjoined by their
founder; and, down to the present time, the homes of the Buddhist
priesthood are modest and humble structures generally reared of mud and
thatch, with no pretension to external beauty and no attempt at internal
decoration.

[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]

To supply to the ascetics the means of seclusion and exercise, the early
kings commenced the erection of ambulance-halls; and gardens were set
apart for the use of the great temple communities. The _Mahawanso_
describes, with all the pomp of Oriental diction, the ceremony observed
by King Tissa on the occasion of setting apart a portion of ground as a
site for the first wihara at his capital; the monarch in person,
attended by standard bearers and guards with golden staves, having come
to mark out the boundary with a plough drawn by elephants.[1] A second
monastery was erected by him on the summit of Mihintala[2]; a third was
attached to the dagoba of the Thuparamaya, and others were rapidly
founded in every quarter of the island.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 99.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xx. p. 123.]

[Footnote 3: Five hundred were built by one king alone, the third in
succession from Devenipiatissa, B.C. 246 (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxi, p. 127).
About the same period the petty chiefs of Rohuna and Mahagam were
equally zealous in their devout labours, the one having erected
sixty-four wiharas in the east of the island, and the other sixty-eight
in the south.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxiv. p. 145, 148.]

It was in all probability owing to the growth of these institutions, and
the establishment of colleges in connection with them, that halls were
eventually appropriated for the reception of statues; and that
apartments so consecrated were devoted to the ceremonies and worship of
Buddha. Hence, at a very early period, the dwellings of the priests were
identified with the chaityas and sacred edifices, and the name of the
Wihara came to designate indifferently both the temple and the
monastery.

But the hall which contains the figures of Buddha, and which constitutes
the "temple" proper, is always detached from the domestic buildings, and
is frequently placed on an eminence from which the view is commanding.
The interior is painted in the style of Egyptian chambers, and is filled
with figures and illustrations of the legends of Gotama, whose statue,
with hand uplifted in the attitud