Part 86 (1/2)

[Footnote 3: Rock-inscription at Dambool, A.D. 1200. The _Rajavali_ mentions the _ridis_ as in circulation in Ceylon at the period of the arrival of the Portuguese, A.D. 1505.--P. 278.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOOK MONEY.]

In India they are called _larins_, and money in imitation of them, struck by the princes of Bij.a.pur and by Sivaji, the founder of the Mahrattas, was in circulation in the Dekkan as late as the seventeenth century.[1]

[Footnote 1: Prof. WILSON'S _Remarks on Fish-hook Money, Numism.

Chronic._ 1854, p. 181.]

CHAP. VI.

ENGINEERING.

It has already been shown[1] that the natives of Ceylon received their earliest instruction in engineering from the Brahmans, who attached themselves to the followers of Wijayo and his immediate successors.[2]

But whilst astonished at the vastness of conception observable in the works executed at this early period, we are equally struck by the extreme simplicity of the means employed by their designers for carrying their plans into execution; and the absence of all ingenious expedients for husbanding or effectively applying manual labour. The earth which forms their prodigious embankments was carried in baskets[3] by the labourers, in the same primitive fas.h.i.+on which prevails to the present day. Stones were detached in the quarry by the slow and laborious process of wedging, of which they still exhibit the traces; and those intended for prominent positions were carefully dressed with iron tools.

For moving them no mechanical contrivances were resorted to[4], and it can only have been by animal power, aided by ropes and rollers, that vast blocks like the great tablet at Pollanarrua were dragged to their required positions.[5]

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Part IV. chap. ii. p. 430.]

[Footnote 2: King Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437, ”built a residence for the Brahman Jotiyo, the chief engineer.”--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 66.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 144.]

[Footnote 4: The only instance of mechanism applied in aid of human labour is referred to in a pa.s.sage of the _Mahawanso_, which alludes to a decree for ”raising the water of the Abhaya tank by means of machinery,” in order to pour it over a dagoba during the solemnisation of a festival, B.C. 20.--_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xiv. p. 211; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 5: No doc.u.ment is better calculated to Impress the reader with a due appreciation of the indomitable perseverance of the Singhalese in works of engineering than the able report of Messrs. ADAMS, CHURCHILL, and BAILEY, on the great _Ca.n.a.l from Ellahara to Gantalawa_, appended to the Ceylon Calendar for 1857.]

_Fortifications_.--Of military engineering the Singhalese had a very slight knowledge. Walled towns and fortifications are frequently spoken of, but the ascertained difficulty of raising, squaring, or carrying stones, points to the inference which is justified by the expressions of the ancient chronicles, that the walls they allude to, must have been earthworks[1], and that the strength of their fortified places consisted in their inaccessibility. The first recorded attempt at fortification was made by the Malabars in the second century before Christ for the defence of Wijitta-poora, which is described as having been secured by walls, a fosse, and a gate.[2] Elala about the same period built ”thirty-two bulwarks” at Anaraj.a.poora[3]; and Dutugaimunu, in commencing to besiege him in the city, followed his example, by throwing up a ”fortification in an open plain,” at a spot well provided with wood and water.[4]

[Footnote 1: Makalantissa, who reigned B.C. 41, ”built a rampart seven cubits high, and dug a ditch round the capital.”--_Mahawanso_, ch.

x.x.xiv. p. 210.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 212; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 151.]

[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 187.]

[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 216; _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv. p. 152.]

At a later time, the Malabars, when in possession of the northern portion of the island, formed a chain of strong ”forts” from the eastern to the western coast, and the Singhalese, in imitation of them, occupied similar positions. The most striking example of mediaeval fortification which still survives, is the imperishable rock of Sigiri, north-east of Dambool, to which the infamous Ka.s.syapa retired with his treasures, after the a.s.sa.s.sination of his father, King Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459; when having cleared its vicinity, and surrounded it by a rampart, the figures of lions with which he decorated it, obtained for it the name of Sihagiri, the ”Lion-rock.” But the real defences of Sigiri were its precipitous cliffs, and its naturally scarped walls, which it was not necessary to strengthen by any artificial structures.

Their rocky hills, and the almost impenetrable forests which enveloped them, were in every age the chief security of the Singhalese; and so late as the 12th century, the inscription engraved on the rock at Dambool, in describing the strength of the national defences under the King Kirti Nissanga, enumerates them as ”strongholds in the midst of forests, and those upon steep hills, and the fastnesses surrounded by water.”[1]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome and Appendix_, p. 95.]

_Thorn-gates._--The device, retained down to the period of the capture of Kandy by the British, when the pa.s.ses into the hill country were defended by thick plantations of formidable th.o.r.n.y trees, appears to have prevailed in the earliest times. The protection of Mahelo, a town a.s.sailed by Dutugaimunu, B.C. 162, consisting in its being ”surrounded on all sides with the th.o.r.n.y _dadambo_ creeper, within which was a triple line of fortifications.”[1]