ngdom, and their possessions were not only exempted from
taxation, but accompanied by a right to the compulsory labour of the
temple tenants.[2]

[Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. viii. p. 68.]

[Footnote 2: The _Rajaratnacari_ mentions an instance, A.D. 62, of eight
thousand rice fields bestowed in one grant; and similar munificence is
recorded in numerous instances prior, to A.D. 204.--_Rajaratnacari_, p.
57, 59, 64, 74, 113, &c. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 223, 224; ch. xxxvi.
p. 233.]

As the estates so made over to religious uses lay for the most part in
waste districts, the quantity of land which was thus brought under
cultivation necessarily involved large extensions of the means of
irrigation. To supply these, reservoirs were formed on such a scale as
to justify the term "consecrated lakes," by which they are described in
the Singhalese annals.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 37; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]

Where the circumstances of the ground permitted, their formation was
effected by drawing an embankment across the embouchure of a valley so
as to arrest and retain the waters by which it was traversed, and so
vast were the dimensions of some of these gigantic tanks that many yet
in existence still cover an area of from fifteen to twenty miles in
circumference. The ruins of that at Kalaweva, to the north-west of
Dambool, show that its original circuit could not have been less than
forty miles, its retaining bund being upwards of twelve miles long. The
spill-water of stone, which remains to the present time, is "perhaps one
of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour in the
island."[1]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR, _Mahawanso_, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was
formed by Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 257.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early
sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the
native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together
with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these
vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and
"out of compassion for living creatures;"[2] but so early as the first
century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming
tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they
enriched on the church. Wide districts, rendered fertile by the
interception of