History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c12.8

v1.c12.8

"The thero Sarabhû, at the demise of the supreme Buddha, receiving at his funeral pile the Thorax-bone, brought and deposited it in that identical dâgaba. This inspired personage caused a dâgaba to be erected twelve cubits high to enshrine it, and thereon departed. The younger brother of King Devânampiyatissa (B.C. 244), having discovered this marvellous dâgaba, constructed another encasing it, thirty cubits in height. King Dutthagâmini (*cir.* B.C. 96), while residing there, during his subjugation of the Malabars, constructed a dâgaba, encasing that one, eighty cubits in height." Thus was the "Mahiyangana dâgaba completed.”¹ It is possible that at each successive addition some new deposit was made; at least most of the topes examined in Afghanistân and the Panjâb, which show signs of these successive increments, seem also to have had successive deposits, one above the other.