A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c8.185

c8.185

This necessarily slight notice of architecture in Ceylon may be concluded by mention of a unique building at Polonnāruwa known as the Sat Mahāl Prasādaya, a seven-storied square brick tower, built in diminishing stages, and rising from a low basement, which measures 39 feet 2 inches each way at ground level. The brickwork was covered with fine lime plaster, probably once coloured, and twenty niches contained as many stucco statues, eleven of which still exist. The edifice was erected by order of King Nissanka Malla a little before A. D. 1200, in imitation of Cambodian models, and probably for the use of the Cambodian mercenaries then in the service of the Ceylonese monarch.¹