File:In old Ceylon (1908) (14596569318).jpg

Abayagiri Monastery in Anuradhapura, now commonly known as Biso Maligaya or the queen’s palace
Identifier: inoldceylon00farr (find matches)
Title: In old Ceylon
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Farrer, Reginald John, 1880-1920
Subjects: Sri Lanka -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : E. Arnold
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
heir places,a very forest of stone. But, stripped and bare, they lookmere beams of rock, stuck up on end. One has to coatthem in ones mind with every imaginable device ofmoulding, stucco, gold and paint, and then, upon them,raise, story by story, far into the sky, that solid cubeof magnificence, regular and awful, flashing with metals,brilliant with painting, latticed, domed, and beautified inevery way. And thus, in its time, was undoubtedly theBrazen Palace, most splendid building of the splendidMaha Vihara. Fallen, indeed, is the glory of Lanka, in aworldly sense, since the day when monks in their thousandsand abbots in rich vestments attended the services of theHoly Tree. Now the Abbot of Maha Vihara has but ascanty handful of followers, and a scanty tenement to theleft of the Trees precinct, whence at evening he comeswithout pomp, leaning on his pastoral staff of ivory andold lacquer, to preside over the ritual of the Tree. Thisis the hour when the deserted temenos awakes to life.
Text Appearing After Image:
MooN.>roNi-: of an old Ahuey (cali.kd • Tin-: (^)i-kf.ns IAi.AiF.t, ANURADHAPrRA. THE HOLY TREE 261 All through the day the precinct lies empty and silent ;perhaps some lonely monk is sweeping the leaves in theinmost enclosure of the Tree, or refreshing the flowers onthe altars. But for his presence, though, the shaded squareis silent and empty. Then evening falls, blue, profound,mysterious, and the boughs of the trees, sacred or pro-fane, all melt into the inscrutable profundity of night, andthe religious activity of Anuradhapura begins. The bellssummon to service at the eastern altar of RuanweliDagaba across the park, and the drums throb loud throughthe dusk at the gateway of the Holy Tree. Lamps quiverand glow in the blackness—lamps before the shrines,lamps at the porch, lamps by the stairway—great goldenstars in that velvety blue twilight, through which rhyth-mically sound the drums and the bells. By the mainentrance sit the flower-sellers, off^ering little baskets, tight

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