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Updated: June 25, 2025
We haven't seen the half of Anuradhapura yet, and there are numbers of other ancient cities in Ceylon to explore, to say nothing of rock-temples with strange paintings and carvings; but we mustn't be here too long or we shan't get through India and Burma before the hot weather comes, which no European can endure. The white coating of this dagoba is a stuff called chunam, a kind of lime.
This is now changed so that enterprising travelers can with but little trouble enjoy a view of some of the most extraordinary monuments to be found in the East, and which are of much more than ordinary archæologic and artistic interest. In this neighborhood, at Vigitapora, are the ruins of a city, once a royal residence, which is more ancient than Anuradhapura.
The scriptures published by the Pali Text Society represent the canon of the ancient sect called Vibhajjavâdins and the particular recension of it used at the monastery in Anuradhapura called Mahâvihâra.
The very interesting and in many respects unique ruins of Anuradhapura, like those pertaining to the city of Pollonarua, with its curious and enormous mass of crumbling brick-work in the shape of a dagoba surmounted by a temple, are supposed to have been thus mouldering in the dust for more than six centuries.
The other tree is situated among the ruins of Anuradhapura, planted, as its record declares, two hundred and forty years before the Christian era. It is somewhat surprising how universally the extreme age which is claimed for this tree is credited even by the English residents of the island who are familiar with Buddhist chronicles.
It stands on a low terrace behind the temple, the whole lying in a hollow, below the level of the surrounding modern buildings, and still attracts many pilgrims from all Buddhist lands though perhaps not so many as the tree at Anuradhapura in Ceylon, which is said to be sprung from one of its branches transplanted thither.
See Rhys Davids' note, Manual, p. 39, where he says that a branch of one of these trees was taken from Buddha Gaya to Anuradhapura in Ceylon in the middle of the third century B.C, and is still growing there, the oldest historical tree in the world. See chap. xiii, note 11. I have not met with the account of this presentation. See the long account of Prajapati in M. B., pp. 306-315.
The wealth of the then known world was in the possession of a very few individuals, and the poor were all the poorer in comparison; despotism was rampant, and royalty commanded at will the unpaid services of the million. Near the site of the Brazen Palace of Anuradhapura are several dagobas, partially hidden by rank tropical verdure.
Anuradhapura was the largest city in the island, and is confidently asserted to have contained, in its prime, three million people, over four hundred thousand of whom were fighting-men. But there were others, considerable in size and importance, which existed during the period of its prosperity.
On festive occasions, barbers and dressers were stationed at each entrance to the capital for the convenience of strangers who visited the city. Public officials vied with each other in their patriotic deeds designed for the public good. In one corner of the widespread ruins of Anuradhapura there is now a small village, with a Christian mission and school for the native children.
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