Anuradhapura seems to have become the capital of Ceylon about 400 years before Christ, or about a century and a half after the death of Buddha, and the fabled introduction of his religion into the island. It was not, however, till after the lapse of another 150 years that it became a sacred city, and one of the principal capitals of Buddhism in the East, which it continued to be till about the year 769, when, owing to the repeated and destructive invasions of the Malabars, the capital was removed to Pollonarua. That city reached its period of greatest prosperity and extension, apparently in the reign of Prakrama Bahu, 1153-1186, and then sank during a long and disastrous period into decay. The seat of government was afterwards moved hither and thither, till the country fell into the hands of the Portuguese and Dutch, and finally succumbed to our power. ANURADHAPURA. The city of Anuradhapura is now totally deserted in the midst of an almost uninhabited jungle. Its public buildings must have suffered severely from the circumstances under which it perished, exposed for centuries to the attacks of foreign enemies. Besides this, the rank vegetation of Ceylon has been at work for 1000 years, stripping off all traces of plaster ornaments, and splitting the masonry in many places. The very desolation, however, of its situation has preserved these ancient monuments from other and greater dangers. No bigoted Moslem has pulled them down to build mosques and monuments of his own faith; no indolent Hindu has allowed their materials to be used for private purposes or appropriated as private plunder; and no English magistrate has yet rendered them available for mending station roads and bridges. We may be sure, therefore, that these ruins deserve the greatest attention from the student of Buddhist architecture, and that a vast fund of information may be drawn from them when sufficiently explored and described. The peculiar fortune of Anuradhapura is that it continued the capital of Ceylon for ten centuries; and, alone of all Buddhist cities, it retains something like a complete series of the remains of its greatness during that period. We possess, moreover, in the ‘Mahawanso’ and other Ceylonese scriptures, a tolerably authentic account of the building of all these monuments, and of the purposes to which they were dedicated. Among the vestiges of its former grandeur still to be found, are the ruins of seven dome-shaped topes or dagobas, of one monastery, of a building erected to contain the sacred Bo-tree, and several other ruins and antiquities. Among these is the great mound called the tomb of the usurper Elaala, but more probably it is a tope erected by the king Duttagaimuni to commemorate the victory over that intruder which he gained on this spot about the year B.C. 161. As it is now a mere mound, without any distinguishable outline, it will not be again alluded to.