HISTORICAL SKETCH.

97

across the Upper Indus probably 3,000 vears before Christ.
The traditional date of the landing of the Sinhalese in Ceylon
under Wijaya is 543 B.C. Their religion is Buddhism, of
which the founder was born in India 623 B.C., and it was
introduced into Ceylon from the neighbouring continent in
the third century B.c. Ceylon, of all known Buddhist
sountries, contains a complete series of Buddhist monuments
sxtending from 250 B.C. to the present day, and in its great
chronicle the Mahawansa and other Sinhalese scriptures it
possesses a tolerably authentic acconnt of the building of

RUINS OF THE DEMALA MAHA SEYA AT POLONNARUWA

these monuments and of the purposes to which they were
dedicated. The ancient capital Anuradhapura continued to
be the capital of Ceylon for ten centuries, and, alone of all
Buddhist cities, retains nearly a completeseries of the remains
of its ancient grandeur, among which are its stupendous
lagobas, of which the origin is well said to have been “the
umbition to expand the earthen mound which covered the
ashes of the dead into the dimensions of the eternal hills,
the earliest altars for adoration and sacrifice.”