the road. Everywhere on the way offerings are presented to it, and
thus it arrives at the hall of Buddha in the Abhayagiri-vihara. There
monks and laics are collected in crowds. They burn incense, light
lamps, and perform all the prescribed services, day and night without
ceasing, till ninety days have been completed, when (the tooth) is
returned to the vihara within the city. On fast-days the door of that
vihara is opened, and the forms of ceremonial reverence are observed
according to the rules.

Forty le to the east of the Abhayagiri-vihara there is a hill, with a
vihara on it, called the Chaitya,(17) where there may be 2000 monks.
Among them there is a Sramana of great virtue, named Dharma-gupta,(18)
honoured and looked up to by all the kingdom. He has lived for more
than forty years in an apartment of stone, constantly showing such
gentleness of heart, that he has brought snakes and rats to stop
together in the same room, without doing one another any harm.

NOTES

(1) It is desirable to translate {.} {.}, for which "inhabitants"
or "people" is elsewhere sufficient, here by "human inhabitants."
According to other accounts Singhala was originally occupied by
Rakshasas or Rakshas, "demons who devour men," and "beings to be
feared," monstrous cannibals or anthropophagi, the terror of the
shipwrecked mariner. Our author's "spirits" {.} {.} were of a gentler
type. His dragons or nagas have come before us again and again.

(2) That Sakyamuni ever visited Ceylon is to me more than doubtful.
Hardy, in M. B., pp. 207-213, has brought together the legends
of three visits,--in the first, fifth, and eighth years of his
Buddhaship. It is plain, however, from Fa-Hsien's narrative, that in
the beginning of our fifth century, Buddhism prevailed throughout
the island. Davids in the last chapter of his "Buddhism" ascribes its
introduction to one of Asoka's missions, after the Council of Patna,
under his son Mahinda, when Tissa, "the delight of the gods," was king
(B.C. 250-230).

(3) This would be what is known as "Adam's peak," having, according
to Hardy (pp. 211, 212, notes), the three names of Selesumano,
Samastakuta, and Samanila. "There is an indentation on the top of it,"
a superficial hollow, 5 feet 3 3_4 inches long, and about 2 1_2 feet
wide. The Hindus regard it as the footprint of Siva; the Mohameddans,
as that of Adam; and the Buddhists, as in the