urmah are
still accustomed to boast, almost in the terms of the _Mahawanso_, of
the distinction which they have earned, by the multitudes of tanks they
have constructed or restored. See YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission to
Ava in 1855_, p. 106.]

These broad possessions, the church, under all vicissitudes and
revolutions, has succeeded in retaining to the present day. Their
territories, it is true, have been diminished in extent by national
decay; the destruction of works for irrigation has converted into
wilderness and jungle plains once teeming with fertility; and the mild
policy of the British government, by abolishing _raja-kariya_[1], has
emancipated the peasantry, who are no longer the serfs either of the
temples or the chiefs. But in every district of the island the priests
are in the enjoyment of the most fertile lands, over which the crown
exercises no right of taxation; and such is the extent of their
possessions that, although their precise limits have not been
ascertained by the local government, they have been conjectured with
probability to be equal to one-third of the cultivated land of the
island.

[Footnote 1: Compulsory labour.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

One peculiarity in the Buddhist ceremonial served at all times to give a
singular impulse to the progress of horticulture. Flowers and garlands
are introduced in its religious rites to the utmost excess. The
atmosphere of the wiharas and temples is rendered oppressive with the
perfume of champac and jessamine, and the shrine of the deity, the
pedestals of his image, and the steps leading to the temple are strewn
thickly with blossoms of the nagaha and the lotus. At an earlier period
the profusion in which these beautiful emblems were employed in sacred
decorations appears almost incredible; the _Mahawanso_ relates that the
Ruanwelle dagoba, which was 270 feet in height, was on one occasion
"festooned with garlands from pedestal to pinnacle till it resembled one
uniform bouquet;" and at another time, it and the lofty dagoba at
Mihintala were buried under heaps of jessamine from the ground to the
summit.[1] Fa Hian, in describing his visit to Anarajapoora in the
fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and
flowers lavished on their worship by the Singhalese[2]; and the native
historians constantly allude as familiar incidents to the profusion in
which they were employed on ordinary occasions, and to the formation by
successive