Note 1 — CHAP. IX.
Reading edition
: Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 215.
2: Ibid., ch. xxxvi. p. 229.
3: Ibid., ch. xxxvi. p. 229. This belief in the power of averting lightning by mechanical means, prevailed on the continent of India as well as in Ceylon, and one of the early Bengalese histories of the temple of Juggernauth, written between the years A.D. 470 and A.D. 520, says that when the building was completed, "a neclchukro was placed at the top of the temple to prevent the falling of thunderbolts." In an account of the modern temple which replaced this ancient structure, it is stated that "it bore a loadstone at the top, which, as it drew vessels to land, was seized and carried off two centuries ago by sailors."—Asiat. Res. vol. xv. p. 327.