246

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

been constructed for, and used as, a dwelling place. The second cave is only some 30 or 40 yards off. The natives appeared to be unaware of its existence; they protested that there was only one cave, and I made on my first visit no parti cular search for a second. On referring to Col. Dalton's paper I found that he most distinctly mentioned two caves, containing each an in scription: accordingly Ireturned to the Hathpor on the following evening, and had the pleasure of introducing the two Baigas to the second cave, which they declared they had never seen or heard of before. It is at about the same elevation as the other

cave, but to reach it you have to scramble up a face of rock by means of some rudely cut steps. The interior shows little or no sign of artificial excavation, and the sole point of interest is that it contains an inscription in much bolder and larger character than the other (see No. 2). Having completed my examination of this

[SEPTEMBER, 1873.

second cave, the old Baiga, who had come spe

cially to show the cave which he supposed I wanted to see when I inquired about a second, led us through the tunnel, and out to the south east corner of the spur, where he pointed out, high up on a face of sandstone, the entrance to a cave which he called Lakshman's Bangalá. It is much less easily accessible than the others, and to get to it over the rocks one has to use

both hands and feet. It is simply a rectangular chamber cut in the rock.

The dimensions are

9 feet 4 inches by 8 feet 5 inches by 3 feet 5 inches.

A portion only of the side of the entrance remains standing. I saw no trace of any in scription near it. The local tradition regarding these caves is that they were the residence of Rāmachandra for fourteen years previous to the expedition to Lañkā, and that it was from this place that Sītā of Jänki was carried away. The surrounding jungle is called Iran Ban.

INSCRIPTIONS AT THE AUDIENCE HALL OF PARAKRAMA BáEIU, PULASTIPURA, CEYLON. BY T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, C.C.S.

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Pulastipura,” the capital of Ceylon from the middle of the 8th century to the beginning of the 14th (A.D. 769–1314), was at the height of its prosperity during the long and glorious reign of Parākrama Båhu the great, whose con quests extended over the whole of the Drávidian portion of South India, and are even said to have

present 2% millions inhabiting Ceylon, about two thirds of a million are pure Siñhalese;—in former times the population round the ruined cities must have been very great, but the Siñhalese were pro

extended to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The stream of Aryan invasion, having been

receding and advancing laid waste the fairest

stopped in South India, seems in the 6th century

from near the Jaffna Peninsula southwards to the

B.C. to have flowed over to Ceylon, for, accord ing to the well-known tradition, Wijaya in 543 B. c. came over from the Sarkars (Siâhapura, then the capital of Kalinga), and conquered, or

mountain fastnesses of Kandy, became an almost uninhabited and pathless jungle. And in this

bably even then greatly outnumbered by their Tamil foes: slowly but surely they were driven southward; and the wave of battle constantly provinces of the island, until the whole country,

jungle for some hundreds of years lay, forgotten and unknown, the ruins of what must have been

rather colonized, Ceylon. From that time to the present the history of Ceylon has been chiefly

the magnificent capital of Parākrama Båhu. The ruins, since their re-discovery in 1820,

the record of the struggle between the Tamils

have been often described, more especially by Sir E. Tennant in 1847 (Ceylon, vol. II. p. 583 et seq.), and have been well photographed by Lawton and Co. Kandy, in 1870, when they

advancing from South India, and the few Aryan Sinhalese driving back the Drăvidian hordes, and sometimes, as in Parākrama Bâhu's time,

carrying the war into the enemy's country. The census taken in 1871 shows that of the

.

were partially cleared by order of Government. They stretch for about five miles along the band

was used by .* Pulastipura, the ancient name of the its founders, and its inhabitants, and recorded in all the

stupas are. Sir E. Tennent calls the place Pollannarua, a

inscriptions: the modern name is Töpfl-wawa, or Töpäwe, which is simply stupa-wāpi, the lake where the (ruined)

applied to the place in the artificial language used in Elu books, but probably never used in living speech.

corruption of Polonnarua, a name of uncertain derivation