sion of Buddhism, that the difficulty became practical of
maintaining them by personal gifts, and the alternative suggested itself
of setting apart lands for their support. This innovation was first
resorted to during an interregnum. The Singhalese king Walagam Bahu,
being expelled from his capital by a Malabar usurpation B.C. 104, was
unable to continue the accustomed regal bounty to the priesthood;
dedicated certain lands while in exile in Rohuna, for the support of a
fraternity "who had sheltered him there."[5] The precedent thus
established, was speedily seized upon and extended; lands were
everywhere set apart for the repair of the sacred edifices[6], and
eventually, about the beginning of the Christian era, the priesthood
acquired such an increase of influence as sufficed to convert their
precarious eleemosynary dependency into a permanent territorial
endowment; and the practice became universal of conveying estates in
mortmain on the construction of a wihara or the dedication of a
temple.[7]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xx. p. 123; xxii. p. 132,135.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 167.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196-7.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196 xxxvii. p. 244;
_Rajaratnacari_, p. 39, 41.]

[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxxiii. p. 203. Previous to this date a
king of Rohuna, during the usurpation of Elala, B.C. 205, had
appropriated lands near Kalany, for the repairs of the
dagoba.--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 6: In the reign of Batiya Tissa, B.C. 20. _Mahawanso_,, ch.
xxxiv. p. 212; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

The corporate character of the recipients served to neutralise the
obligations by which they were severally bound; the vow of poverty,
though compulsory on an individual priest, ceased to be binding on the
community of which he was a member; and whilst, on his own behalf, he
was constrained to abjure the possession of property, even to the extent
of one superfluous cloth, the wihara to which he was attached, in
addition to its ecclesiastical buildings, and its offerings in gems and
gold, was held competent to become the proprietor of broad and fertile
lands.[1] These were so bountifully bestowed by royal piety, by private
munificence, and by mortuary gifts, that ere many centuries had elapsed
the temples of Ceylon absorbed a large proportion of the landed property
of the ki