File:In old Ceylon (1908) (14596694537).jpg

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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untedplace of splendour, and the raw line marks the gallery ofKasyapa the King by which he would go up to thetremendous citadel, where he took vain refuge from histerrors. Now the monk has come, and it is time to see thetemples. So we pass the portico and enter the sacredenclosure before their doors. Slowly, with effort andclanking of bolts, the first shrine is opened, and we passout of the sunset into the darkness that holds the heart ofthe cliff. The air is stiff and stale with dead flowers,incense, tallow. The blackness is intense after the day-light, and only after a pause can one accustom ones eyesto the test and begin to discern a vast something whichoccupies the gloom. Then the monk kindles a smallguttering taper, and instantly a huge rounded bulk leapsinto view, only a few yards visible at a time, as the lightmoves to and fro. Neither beginning nor end can we seeof the dim presence that looms along before us, filling allthe shallow stretch of the cave. Then, as the taper comes
Text Appearing After Image:
SiGiKi Rock. DAMBULLA 119 and goes, gigantic limb and arm evolve from the mass—we begin to realize what this is. At last the light reachesthe end of its journey. Far up in the darkness, smilingout over our heads, lies the face of the colossal recumbentstatue. And now we are able to understand the whole,and trace each curve of the reclining effigy from shoulderto feet, although it is so vast that, in the murk, the wholecan never be discerned at once. On His side lies OurLord Gautama Buddha, gazing out far, far, far acrossthe jungle beneath—gazing far and far indeed over all theShoreless Sea of Birth and Death. For this is the imao;eof the Perfect One in the moment of His Mahaparinibban,of the Great Entrance into Nirvana, when all trace ofmortality was left behind eternally, when the flawlessDivine entered on its perfect heritage of serenity ever-lasting. For Siddharttha Sakhyamuni must pass awayand disappear, but Gautama Buddha cannot pass away forever. Very calm, then, fixed in th

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