At the first landing, a side flight of 100 steps branches right to this partly ruined dagoba, one of the oldest at Mihintale. It’s 12m high (originally more than 30m) and 130m around its base. A Brahmi inscription decrees that funding for the dagoba came from taxes on a nearby water tank. Four stone flower altars backed by vahalkada (solid panels of sculpture) stand at the cardinal points, and surrounding these are sculptures of dwarfs, geese and other figures.
While exactly who built it is open to conjecture, it was likely not long after King Devanampiya Tissa (r 307-267 BC) had 68 cave monasteries built nearby. King Lajjitissa later enlarged the stupa in the 1st century BC. It's fun to explore the surrounding boulder and cave shrines that housed monks some 2000 years ago.
