wihara

The utmost effort at excavation never appears to have advanced beyond the second stage attained in Bengal, -- a small cell with a few columns to support a verandah in front; and even of this but very few examples now exist in Ceylon, the most favourable being the Gal-wihara at

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

For the tillage of the lands with which the temples were so largely endowed in all quarters of the island, the sacred communities had assigned to them certain villages, a portion of whose labour was the property of the wihara [1]: slaves were also appropriated to them, and an instance is mentioned in the fifth century [2], of the inhabitants of a low-caste village having been bestowed on a monastery by the king

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

Desirous to enrich a wihara at Anarajapoora, he proposed to endow it with a village, but "the ministers of religion, regardful of the reproaches of the world, declined accepting gifts at the hands of a parricide.

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

Somewhat later, B.C. 262, the inscription on the rock at Mihintala ascribes to the Malabars the system of managing the water for the rice lands, and directs that "according to the supply of water in the lake, the same shall be distributed to the lands of the wihara _in the manner formerly regulated by the Tamils.

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

(Mihintala), "awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of water during the construction of a wihara," land within the circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple. "[

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

Fa Hian, in the fourth century, was assured by the people of Ceylon that at that period the priests numbered between fifty and sixty thousand, of whom two thousand were attached to one wihara at Anarajapoora, and three thousand to another. [

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

With the materials of the great wihara, he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of Buddha was to be worshipped according to the rites of the reformed religion. [

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

The _Mahawanso_ describes, with all the pomp of Oriental diction, the ceremony observed by King Tissa on the occasion of setting apart a portion of ground as a site for the first wihara at his capital; the monarch in person, attended by standard bearers and guards with golden staves, having come to mark out the boundary with a plough drawn by elephants. [

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

Wide districts, rendered fertile by the interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood [3]; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for the perpetual repairs of a dagoba [4], and the revenues of whole villages and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a single wihara. [

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836

[Footnote 1: To avoid the vanity of dress or the temptation to acquire property, no Buddhist priest is allowed to have more than one set of robes, consisting of three pieces, and if an extra one be bestowed on him it must be surrendered to the chapter of his wihara within ten days.

Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History, Antiquities and Productions, Volume 1 (of 2) James Emerson Tennent 1836