Note 1 — CHAP. VII.

: Mahawanso, ch, xxvii. p. 103. Like the "nine-storied" pagodas of China, the palace of "the Lowa Maya Paya" was originally nine stories in height, and Fergusson, from the analogy of Buddhist buildings in other countries, supposes that these diminished in succession as the building arose, till the outline of the whole assumed the form of a pyramid. (Handbook of Architecture, b. i. ch. iii. p. 44.) In this he is undoubtedly correct, and a building still existing, though in ruins, at Pollanarrua, and known as the Sat-mal-pasado, or the "seven-storied palace," probably built by Prakrama, about the year 1170, serves to support his conjecture. See a description of it, part x. ch. i, vol. ii.