Chapter I (4)

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 241, 249. After the funeral rites of Gotama Buddha had been performed at Kusinara, B.C. 543, his "left canine tooth" was carried to Dantapura, the capital of Kalinga, where it was preserved for 800 years. The King of Calinga, in the reign of Maha-Sen, being on the point of engaging in a doubtful conflict, directed, in the event of defeat, that the sacred relic should be conveyed to Ceylon, whither it was accordingly taken as described. (_Rajavali_, p. 240.) Between A.D. 1303 and 1315 the tooth was carried back to Southern India by the leader of an army, who invaded Ceylon and sacked _Yapahoo_, which was then the capital. The succeeding monarch, Prakrama III., went in person to Madura to negotiate its surrender, and brought it back to Pollanarrua. Its subsequent adventures and its final destruction by the Portuguese, as recorded by DE COUTO and others, will be found in a subsequent passage, see Vol. II. P. VII. ch. v. The Singhalese maintain that the Dalada, still treasured in its strong tower at Kandy, is the genuine relic, which was preserved from the Portuguese spoilers by secreting it at Delgamoa in Saffragam.

TURNOUR'S _Account of the Tooth Relic of Ceylon; Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, 1837, vol. vi. p. 2, p. 856.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 459.]

One of the most striking events in this period of Singhalese history was the murder of the king, Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459, by his son, who seized the throne under the title of Kasyapa I. The story of this outrage, which is highly illustrative of the superstition and cruelty of the age, is told with much feeling in the _Mahawanso_; the author of which, Mahanamo, was the uncle of the outraged king, Dhatu Sena was a descendant of the royal line, whose family were living in retirement during the usurpation of the Malabars, A.D. 434 to 459. As a youth he had embraced the priesthood, and his future eminence was foretold by an omen. "On a certain day, when chaunting at the foot of a tree, when a shower of rain fell, a cobra de capello encircled him with its folds and covered his book with its hood."[1] He was educated by his uncle, Mahanamo, and in process of time, surrounding himself with adherents, he successfully attacked the Malabars, defeated two of their chiefs in succession, put three others to death, recovered the native sovereignty of Ceylon, "and the religion which had been set aside by the foreigners, he restored to its former ascendancy." He recalled the fugitive inhabitants to Anarajapoora; degraded the nobles who had intermarried with the Malabars, and vigorously addressed himself to repair the sacred edifices and to restore fertility to the lands which had been neglected during their hostile occupation by the strangers. He applied the jewels from his head-dress to replace the gems of which the statue of Buddha had been despoiled. The curled hair of the divine teacher was represented by sapphires, and the lock on his forehead by threads of gold.

[Footnote 1: This is a frequent traditionary episode in connection with the heroes of Hindu history.--_Asiat. Researches_, vol. xv. p. 275.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 459.]

The family of the king consisted of two sons and a daughter, the latter married to his nephew, who "caused her to be flogged on the thighs with a whip although she had committed no offence;" on which the king, in his indignation, ordered the mother of her husband to be burned. His nephew and eldest son now conspired to dethrone him, and having made him a prisoner, the latter "raised the chatta" (the white parasol emblematic of royalty), and seized on the supreme power. Pressed by his son to discover the depository of his treasures, the captive king entreated to be taken to Kalawapi, under the pretence of pointing out the place of their concealment, but in reality with a determination to prepare for death, after having seen his early friend Mahanamo, and bathed in the great tank which he himself had formerly constructed. The usurper complied, and assigned for the journey a "carriage with broken wheels," the charioteer of which shared his store of "parched rice" with the fallen king. "Thus worldly prosperity," says Mahanamo, who lived to write the sad story of the interview, "is like the glimmering of lightning, and what reflecting man would devote himself to its pursuit!" The Raja approached his friend and, "from the manner these two persons discoursed, side by side, mutually quenching the fire of their afflictions, they appeared as if endowed with royal prosperity. Having allowed him to eat, the thero (Mahanamo) in various ways administered consolation and abstracted his mind from all desire to prolong his existence." The king then bathed in the tank; and pointing to his friend and to it, "these," he exclaimed to the messengers, "are all the treasures I possess."

[Sidenote: A.D. 477.]

He was conducted back to the capital; and Kasyapa, suspecting that the king was concealing his riches for his second son, Mogallana, gave the order for his execution. Arrayed in royal insignia, he repaired to the prison of the raja, and continued to walk to and fro in his presence: till the king, perceiving his intention to wound his feelings, said mildly, "Lord of statesmen, I bear the same affection towards you as to Mogallana." The usurper smiled and shook his head; then stripping the king naked and casting him into chains, he built up a wall, embedding him in it with his face towards the east, and enclosed it with clay: "thus the monarch Dhatu-Sena, who was murdered by his son, united himself with Sakko the ruler of Devos."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. To this hideous incident Mahanamo adds the following curious moral: "This Raja Dhatu Sena, at the time he was improving the Kalawapi tank, observed a certain priest absorbed in meditation, and not being able to rouse him from abstraction, had him buried under the embankment by heaping earth over him. His own living entombment _was the retribution_ manifested in this life for that impious act."]

[Sidenote: A.D. 477.]

The parricide next directed his groom and his cook to assassinate his brother, who, however, escaped to the coast of India.[1] Failing in the attempt, he repaired to Sihagiri, a place difficult of access to men, and having cleared it on all sides, he surrounded it with a rampart. He built three habitations, accessible only by flights of steps, and ornamented with figures of lions (siho), whence the fortress takes its name, _Siha-giri_, "the Lion Rock." Hither he carried the treasures of his father, and here he built a palace, "equal in beauty to the celestial mansion." He erected temples to Buddha, and monasteries for his priests, but conscious of the enormity of his crimes, these endowments were conferred in the names of his minister and his children. Failing to "derive merit" from such acts, stung with remorse, and anxious to test public feeling, he enlarged his deeds of charity; he formed gardens at the capital, and planted groves of mangoes throughout the island. Desirous to enrich a wihara at Anarajapoora, he proposed to endow it with a village, but "the ministers of religion, regardful of the reproaches of the world, declined accepting gifts at the hands of a parricide. Kasyapa, bent on befriending them, dedicated the village to Buddha, after which they consented, _on the ground that it was then the property of the divine teacher_." Impelled, says the _Mahawanso_, by the irrepressible dread of a future existence, he strictly performed his "aposaka"[2] vows, practised the virtue of non-procrastination, acquired the "dathanga,"[3] and caused books to be written, and image and alms-edifices to be formed.

[Footnote 1: I am indebted to the family of the late Mr. Turnour for access to a manuscript translation of a further portion of the _Mahawanso_, from which this continuation of the narrative is extracted.]

[Footnote 2: A lay devotee who takes on himself the obligation of asceticism without putting on the yellow robe.]

[Footnote 3: The dathanga or "teles-dathanga" are the thirteen ordinances by which the cleaving to existence is destroyed, involving piety, abstinence, and self-mortification.--HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. ii. p. 9.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 495.]

Meanwhile, after an interval of eighteen years, Mogallana, having in his exile collected a sufficient force, returned from India to avenge the murder of his father; and the brothers encountered each other in a decisive engagement at Ambatthakolo in the Seven Corles. Kasyapa, perceiving a swamp in his front, turned the elephant which he rode into a side path to avoid it; on which his army in alarm raised the shout that "their liege lord was flying," and in the confusion which followed, Mogallana, having struck off the head of his brother, returned the krese to its scabbard, and led his followers to take possession of the capital; where he avenged the death of his father, by the execution of the minister who had consented to it. He established a marine force to guard the island against the descents of the Malabars, and "having purified both the orthodox dharma[1], and the religion of the vanquisher, he died, after reigning eighteen years, signalised by acts of piety."[2] This story as related by its eye-witness, Mahanamo, forms one of the most characteristic, as well as the best authenticated episodes of contemporary history presented by the annals of Ceylon.

[Footnote 1: The doctrines of Buddha.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxix. Manuscript translation by TURNOUR. TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, says Kasyapa "committed suicide on the field of battle," but this does not appear from the narrative of the _Mahawanso_.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

Such was the feebleness of the royal house, that of the eight kings who succeeded Mogallana between A.D. 515 and A.D. 586, two died by suicide, three by murder, and one from grief occasioned by the treason of his son. The anarchy consequent upon such disorganisation stimulated the rapacity of the Malabars; and the chronicles of the following centuries are filled with the accounts of their descents on the island and the misery inflicted by their excesses.

CHAP. X.

THE DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS.

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

It has been already explained that the invaders who engaged in forays into Ceylon, though known by the general epithet of Malabars (or as they are designated in Pali, _damilos_, "Tamils"), were also natives of places in India remote from that now known as Malabar. They were, in reality, the inhabitants of one of the earliest states organised in Southern India, the kingdom of Pandya[1], whose sovereigns, from their intelligence, and their encouragement of native literature, have been appropriately styled "the Ptolemies of India." Their dominions, which covered the extremity of the peninsula, comprehended the greater portion of the Coromandel coast, extending to Canara on the western coast, and southwards to the sea.[2] Their kingdom was subsequently contracted in dimensions, by the successive independence of Malabar, the rise of the state of Chera to the west, of Ramnad to the south, and of Chola in the east, till it sank in modern times into the petty government of the Naicks of Madura.[3]

[Footnote 1: Pandya, as a kingdom was not unknown in classical times, and its ruler was the [Greek: Basileus Pandiôn] mentioned in the _Periplus of the Erythræan Sea_, and the king Pandion, who sent an embassy to Augustus.--PLINY, vi. 26; PTOLEMY, vii. 1.]

[Footnote 2: See an _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, by Prof. H. H. WILSON, _Asiat. Journ._, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 3: See _ante_, p. 353, n.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

The relation between this portion of the Dekkan and the early colonisers of Ceylon was rendered intimate by many concurring incidents. Wijayo himself was connected by maternal descent with the king of Kalinga[1], now known as the Northern Circars; his second wife was the daughter of the king of Pandya, and the ladies who accompanied her to Ceylon were given in marriage to his ministers and officers.[2] Similar alliances were afterwards frequent; and the Singhalese annalists allude on more than one occasion to the "damilo consorts" of their sovereigns.[3] Intimate intercourse and consanguinity, were thus established from the remotest period. Adventurers from the opposite coast were encouraged by the previous settlers; high employments were thrown open to them, Malabars were subsidised both as cavalry and as seamen; and the first abuse of their privileges was in the instance of the brothers Sena and Goottika, who, holding naval and military commands, took advantage of their position and seized on the throne, B.C. 237; apparently with such acquiescence on the part of the people, that even the _Mahawanso_ praises the righteousness of their reign, which was prolonged to twenty-two years, when they were put to death by the rightful heir to the throne.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 53; the _Rajarali_ (p. 173) says they were 700 in number.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxi. p. 127.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

The easy success of the first usurpers encouraged the ambition of fresh aspirants, and barely ten years elapsed till the _first_ regular invasion of the island took place, under the illustrious Elala, who, with an army from Mysore (then called Chola or Soli), subdued the entire of Ceylon, north of the Mahawelli-ganga, and compelled the chiefs of the rest of the island, and the kings of Rohuna and Maya, to acknowledge his supremacy and become his tributaries.[1] As in the instance of the previous revolt, the people exhibited such faint resistance to the usurpation, that the reign of Elala extended to forty-four years. It is difficult to conceive that their quiescence under a stranger was entirely ascribable to the fact, that the rule of the Malabars, although adverse to Buddhism, was characterised by justice and impartiality. Possibly they recognised to some extent their pretensions, as founded on their relationship to the legitimate sovereigns of the island, and hence they bore their sway without impatience.[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 17; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 128; _Rajavali_, p. 188.]

[Footnote 2: See _ante_, p. 360, n.]

The majority of the subsequent invasions of Ceylon by the Malabars partook less of the character of conquest than of forays, by a restless and energetic race, into a fertile and defenceless country. Mantotte, on the northwest coast, near Adam's Bridge, became the great place of debarcation; and here successive bands of marauders landed time after time without meeting any effectual resistance from the unwarlike Singhalese.

The _second_ great invasion took place about a century after the first, B.C. 103, when seven Malabar leaders effected simultaneous descents at different points of the coast[1], and combined with a disaffected "Brahman prince" of Rohuna, to force Walagam-bahu I. to surrender his sovereignty. The king, after an ineffectual show of resistance, fled to the mountains of Malaya; one of the invaders carried off the queen to the coast of India; a third despoiled the temples of Anarajapoora and retired, whilst the others continued in possession of the capital for nearly fifteen years, till Walagam-bahu, by the aid of the Rohuna highlanders, succeeded in recovering the throne.

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 16. The _Mahawanso_ says they landed at "Mahatittha."--_Mantotte_, ch. xxxiii. p. 203.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

The _third_ great invasion on record[1] was in its character still more predatory than those which preceded it, but it was headed by a king in person, who carried away 12,000 Singhalese as slaves to Mysore. It occurred in the reign of Waknais, A.D. 110, whose son Gaja-bahu, A.D. 113, avenged the outrage by invading the Solee country with an expedition which sailed from Jaffnapatam, and brought back not only the rescued Singhalese captives, but also a multitude of Solleans, whom the king established on lands in the Alootcoor Corle, where the Malabar features are thought to be discernible to the present day.[2]

[Footnote 1: This incursion of the Malabars is not mentioned in the _Mahawanso_, but it is described in the _Rajavali_, p. 229, and mentioned by TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, &c., p. 21. There is evidence of the conscious supremacy of the Malabars over the north of Ceylon, in the fourth century, in a very curious document, relating to that period. The existence of a colony of Jews at Cochin, in the southwestern extremity of the Dekkan, has long been known in Europe, and half a century ago, particulars of their condition and numbers were published by Dr. Claudius Buchanan. (_Christian Researches, &c._) Amongst other facts, he made known their possession of Hebrew MSS. demonstrative of the great antiquity of their settlement in India, and also of their title deeds of land (_sasanams_), engraved on plates of copper, and presented to them by the early kings of that portion of the peninsula. Some of the latter have been carefully translated into English (see _Madras Journ._, vol. xiii. xiv.). One of their MSS. has recently been brought to England, under circumstances which are recounted by Mr. FORSTER, in the third vol. of his _One Primeval Language_, p. 303. This MS. I have been permitted to examine. It is in corrupted Rabbinical Hebrew, written about the year 1781, and contains a partial synopsis of the modern history of the section of the Jewish nation to whom it belongs; with accounts of their arrival in the year A.D. 68, and of their reception by the Malabar kings. Of one of the latter, frequently spoken of by the honorific style of SRI PERUMAL, but identifiable with IRAVI VARMAR, who reigned A.D. 379, the manuscript says that his "_rule extended from Goa to Colombo_."]

[Footnote 2: CASTE CHITTY, _Ceylon Gazetteer_, p. 7.]

A long interval of repose followed, and no fresh expedition from India is mentioned in the chronicles of Ceylon till A.D. 433, when the capital was again taken by the Malabars; the Singhalese families fled beyond the Mahawelli-ganga; and the invaders occupied the entire extent of the Pihiti Ratta, where for twenty-seven years, five of them in succession administered the government, till Dhatu Sena collected forces sufficient to overpower the strangers, and, emerging from his retreat in Rohuna, recovered possession of the north of the island.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 243; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

Dhatu Sena, after his victory, seems to have made an attempt, though an ineffectual one, to reverse the policy which had operated under his predecessors as an incentive to the immigration of Malabars; settlement and intermarriages had been all along encouraged[1], and even during the recent usurpation, many Singhalese families of rank had formed connections with the Damilos. The schisms among the Buddhist themselves, tending as they did to engraft Brahmanical rites upon the doctrines of the purer faith, seem to have promoted and matured the intimacy between the two people; some of the Singhalese kings erected temples to the gods of the Hindus[2], and the promoters of the Wytulian heresy found a refuge from persecution amongst their sympathisers in the Dekkan.[3]

[Footnote 1: Anula, the queen of Ceylon, A.D. 47, met with no opposition in raising one of her Malabar husbands to the throne.--TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 19. Sotthi Sena, who reigned A.D. 432, had a Damilo queen.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.]

[Footnote 2: Sri Sanga Bo III. A.D. 702, "made a figure of the God Vishnu; and was a supporter of the religion of Buddha, and a friend of the people."--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 78.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 234; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 25.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

The Malabars, trained to arms, now resorted in such numbers to Ceylon, that the leaders in civil commotions were accustomed to hire them in bands to act against the royal forces[1]; and whilst no precautions were adopted to check the landing of marauders on the coast, the invaders constructed forts throughout the country to protect their conquests from recapture by the natives. Proud of these successful expeditions, the native records of the Chola kings make mention of their victories; and in one of their grants of land, engraved on copper, and still in existence, Viradeva-Chola, the sovereign by whom it was made, is described as having triumphed over "Madura, Izham, Caruvar, and the crowned head of Pandyan;" Izham, (or Ilám) being the Tamil name of Ceylon.[2] On their expulsion by Dhatu Sena, he took possession of the fortresses and extirpated the Damilos; degraded the Singhalese who had intermarried with them; confiscated their estates in favour of those who had remained true to his cause; and organised a naval force for the protection of the coasts[3] of the island.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvi. p. 238.]

[Footnote 2: DOWSON, on the Chera Kingdom of India.--_Asiat. Journ._ vol. viii. p. 24.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawansa_ ch. xxxviii. p. 256. and xxxix. TURNOUR'S MS., _Trans._]

But his vigorous policy produced no permanent effect; his son Mogallana, after the murder of his father and the usurpation of Kasyapa, fled for refuge to the coast of India, and subsequently recovered possession of the throne, by the aid of a force which he collected there.[1] In the succession of assassinations, conspiracies, and civil wars which distracted the kingdom in the sixth and seventh centuries, during the struggles of the rival branches of the royal house, each claimant, in his adversity, betook himself to the Indian continent, and Malabar mercenaries from Pandya and Soli enrolled themselves indifferently under any leader, and deposed or restored kings at their pleasure.[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 29; _Rajavali_ p. 244.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 31; _Rajavali_ p. 247.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 523.]

The _Rajavali_, in a single passage enumerates fourteen sovereigns who were murdered each by his successor, between A.D. 523, and A.D. 648. During a period of such violence and anarchy, peaceful industry was suspended, and extensive emigrations took place to Bahar and Orissa. Buddhism, however, was still predominant, and protection was accorded to its professors.

[Sidenote: A.D. 640.]

Hiouen Thsang, a Chinese traveller, wno visited India between 629 A.D. and 645[1], encountered numbers of exiles, who informed him that they fled from civil commotions in Ceylon, in which religion had undergone persecution, the king had lost his life, cultivation had been interrupted, and the island exhausted by famine. This account of the Chinese voyager accords accurately with the events detailed in the Singhalese annals, in which it is stated that Sanghatissa was deposed and murdered, A.D. 623, by the Seneriwat, his minister, who, amidst the horrors of a general famine, was put to death by the people of Rohuna, and a civil war ensued; one result of which was the defeat of the Malabar mercenaries and their distribution as slaves to the temples. Hiouen Thsang relates the particulars of his interviews with the fugitives, from whom he learned the extraordinary riches of Ceylon, the number and wealth of its wiharas, the density of its population in peaceful times, the fertility of its soil, and the abundance of its produce.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen Thsang, et de ses Voyages dans l'Inde depuis l'an_ 629 _jusquèn_ 643. _Par_ HOEI-LI _et_ YEN-THSANG, _&c. Traduite du Chinois par_ STANISLAUS JULIEN, Paris, 1853.]

[Footnote 2: "Ce royaume a sept mille li de tour, et sa capitale quarante li; la population est agglomérée, et la terre produit des grains en abondance."--HIOUEN-THSANG, liv. iv. p. 194.]

For nearly four hundred years, from the seventh till the eleventh century, the exploits and escapes of the Malabars occupy a more prominent portion of the Singbalese annals than that devoted to the policy of the native sovereigns. They filled every office, including that of prime minister[1], and they decided the claims of competing candidates for the crown. At length the island became so infested by their numbers that the feeble monarchs found it impracticable to effect their exclusion from Anarajapoora[2]; and to escape from their proximity, the kings in the eighth century began to move southwards, and transferred their residence to Pollanarrua, which eventually became the capital of the kingdom. Enormous tanks were constructed in the vicinity of the new capital; palaces were erected, surpassing those of the old city in architectural beauty; dagobas were raised, nearly equal in altitude to the Thuparama and Ruanwelli, and temples and statues were hewn out of the living rock, the magnitude and beauty of whose ruins attest the former splendour of Pollanarrua.[3]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, A.D. 686, p. 31.]

[Footnote 3: The first king who built a palace at Pollanarrua was Sri Sanga Bo II., A.D. 642. His successor, Sri Sanga Bo III., took up his residence there temporarily, A.D. 702; it was made the capital by Kuda Akbo, A.D. 769, and its embellishment, the building of colleges, and the formation of tanks in its vicinity, were the occupations of numbers of his successors.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 640.]

Notwithstanding their numbers and their power, it is remarkable that the Malabars were never identified with any plan for promoting the prosperity and embellishment of Ceylon, or with any undertaking for the permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were the earliest colonists, and with whom originated every project for enriching and adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify or enrich, but to impoverish and deface;--and nothing can more strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single fact that everything tending to exalt and to civilise, in the early condition of Ceylon, was introduced by the northern conquerors, whilst all that contributed to ruin and debase it is distinctly traceable to the presence and influence of the Malabars.

[Sidenote: A.D. 840.]

The Singhalese, either paralysed by dread, made feeble efforts to rid themselves of the invaders; or fascinated by their military pomp, endeavoured to conciliate them by alliances. Thus, when the king of Pandya over-ran the north of Ceylon, A.D. 840, plundered the capital and despoiled its temples, the unhappy sovereign had no other resource than to purchase the evacuation of the island by a heavy ransom.[1] Yet such was the influence still exercised by the Malabars, that within a very few years his successor on the throne lent his aid to the son of the same king of Pandya in a war against his father, and conducted the expedition in person.[2] His army was, in all probability, composed chiefly of Damilos, with whom he overran the south of the Indian peninsula, and avenged the outrage inflicted on his own kingdom in the late reign by bearing back the plunder of Madura.

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 35; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 79.]

[Footnote 2: A.D. 858; _Rajaratnacari_, p, 84.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 954.]

This exploit served to promote a more intimate intercourse between the two races, and after the lapse of a century, A.D. 954, the king of Ceylon a second time interposed with an army to aid the Pandyan sovereign in a quarrel with his neighbour of Chola, wherein the former was worsted, and forced to seek a refuge in the territory of his insular ally, whence he was ultimately expelled for conspiracy against his benefactor. Having fled to India without his regalia, his Cholian rival made the refusal of the king of Ceylon to surrender them the pretext for a fresh Malabar invasion, A.D. 990, when the enemy was repulsed by the mountaineers of Rohuna, who, from the earliest period down to the present day, have evinced uniform impatience of strangers, and steady determination to resist their encroachments.

[Sidenote: A.D. 997.]

But such had been the influx of foreigners, that the efforts of these highland patriots were powerless against their numbers. Mahindo III., A.D. 997, married a princess of Calinga[1], and in a civil war which ensued, during the reign of his son and successor, the novel spectacle was presented of a Malabar army supporting the cause of the royal family against Singhalese insurgents. The island was now reduced to the extreme of anarchy and insecurity; "the foreign population" had increased to such an extent as to gain a complete ascendency over the native inhabitants, and the sovereign had lost authority over both.[2]

[Footnote 1: Now the Northern Circars.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 37.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1023.]

In A.D. 1023, the Cholians again invaded Ceylon[1], carried the king captive to the coast of India (where he died in exile), and established a Malabar viceroy at Pollanarrua, who held possession of the island for nearly thirty years, protected in his usurpation by a foreign army. Thus, "throughout the reign of nineteen kings," says the _Rajaratnacari_ "extending over eighty-six years, the Malabars kept up a continual war with the Singhalese, till they filled by degrees every village in the island."[2]

[Footnote 1: In the reign of Mahindo IV.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 85.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1028.]

During the absence of the rightful sovereign, and in the confusion which ensued on his decease, various members of the royal family arrived at the sovereignty of Rohuna, the only remnant of free territory left. Four brothers, each assuming the title of king, contended together for supremacy; and amidst anarchy and intrigue, each in turn took up the reins of government, as they fell or were snatched from the hands of his predecessor[1], till at length, on the retirement of all other candidates, the forlorn crown was assumed by the minister Lokaiswara, who held his court at Kattragam, and died A.D. 1071.[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxi.]

CHAP XI.

THE REIGN OF PRAKRAMA BAHU.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1071.]

From the midst of this gloom and despondency, with usurpation successful in the only province where even a semblance of patriotism survived, and a foreign enemy universally dominant throughout the rest of Ceylon, there suddenly arose a dynasty which delivered the island from the sway of the Malabars, brought back its ancient wealth and tranquillity, and for the space of a century made it pre-eminently prosperous at home and victorious in expeditions by which its rulers rendered it respected abroad.

The founder of this new and vigorous race was a member of the exiled family, who, on the death of Lokaiswara, was raised to the throne under the title of Wijayo Bahu.[1] Dissatisfied with the narrow limits of Rohuna, he resolved on rescuing Pihiti from the usurping strangers; and, by the courage and loyalty of his mountaineers, he recovered the ancient capitals from the Malabars, compelled the whole extent of the island to acknowledge his authority, reunited the several kingdoms of Ceylon under one national banner, and, "for the security of Lanka against foreign invasion, placed trustworthy chiefs at the head of paid troops, and stationed them round the coast."[2] Thus signally successful at home, the fame of his exploits "extended over all Dambadiva[3], and ambassadors arrived at his court from the sovereigns of India and Siam."

[Footnote 1: A.D. 1071.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lix.; _Rajaranacari_, p. 58; _Rajavali_, p. 251; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 3: India Proper.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1126.]

As he died without heirs a contest arose about the succession, which threatened again to dissever the unity of the kingdom by arraying Rohuna and the south against the brother of Wijayo Bahu, who had gained possession of Pollanarrua. But in this emergency the pretensions of all other claimants to the crown were overruled in favour of Prakrama, a prince of accomplishments and energy so unrivalled as to secure for him the partiality of his kindred and the admiration of the people at large.

He was son to the youngest of four brothers who had recently contended together for the crown, and his ambition from childhood had been to rescue his country from foreign dominion, and consolidate the monarchy in his own person. He completed by foreign travel an education which, according to the _Mahawanso_, comprised every science and accomplishment of the age in which he lived, including theology, medicine, and logic; grammar, poetry, and music; the training of the elephant and the management of the horse.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxiv.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1153.]

On the death of his father he was proclaimed king by the people, and a summons was addressed by him to his surviving uncle, calling on him to resign in his favour and pay allegiance to his supremacy. As the feeling of the nation was with him, the issue of a civil war left him master of Ceylon. He celebrated his coronation as King of Pihiti at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1153, and two years later after reducing the refractory chiefs of Rohuna to obedience, he repeated the ceremonial by crowning himself "sole King of Lanka."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxi.]

There is no name in Singhalese history which holds the same rank in the admiration of the people as that of Prakrama Bahu, since to the piety of Devenipiatissa he united the chivalry of Dutugaimunu.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

The tranquillity insured by the independence and consolidation of his dominions he rendered subservient to the restoration of religion, the enrichment of his subjects, and the embellishment of the ancient capitals of his kingdom; and, ill-satisfied with the inglorious ease which had contented his predecessors, he aspired to combine the renown of foreign conquests with the triumphs of domestic policy.

Faithful to the two grand objects of royal solicitude, religion and agriculture, the earliest attention of Prakrama was directed to the re-establishment of the one, and the encouragement and extension of the other. He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, restored the monuments of religion in more than their pristine splendour, and covered the face of the kingdom with works for irrigation to an extent which would seem incredible did not their existing ruins corroborate the historical narrative of his stupendous labours.

Such had been the ostensible decay of Buddhism during the Malabar domination that, when the kingdom was recovered from them by Wijayo Bahu, A.D. 1071, "there was not to be found in the whole island five tirunansis," and an embassy was bent to Arramana[1] to request that members of this superior rank of the priesthood might be sent to restore the order in Ceylon.[2]

[Footnote 1: A part of the Chin-Indian peninsula, probably between Arracan and Siam.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 85; _Rajavali_, p. 252; _Mahawanso_, ch, lx.

From the identity of the national faith in the two countries; intercourse existed between Siam and Ceylon from time immemorial. At a very early period missions were interchanged for the inter-communication of Pali literature, and in later times, when, owing to the oppression of the Malabars certain orders of the priesthood had become extinct in Ceylon, it became essential to seek a renewal of ordination at the hands of the Siamese heirarchy (_Rajaratnacari_, p. 86). In the numerous incursions of the Malabars from Chola and Pandya, the literary treasures of Ceylon were deliberately destroyed, and the _Mahawanso_ and _Rajavali_, make frequent lamentations over the loss of the sacred books. (See also _Rajaratnacari_, pp 77, 95, 97.) At a still later period the savage Raja Singha who reigned between A.D. 1581 and 1592, and became a convert to Brahmanism, sought eagerly for Buddhistical books, and "delighted in burning them in heaps as high as a coco-nut tree." These losses it was sought to repair by an embassy to Siam, sent by Kirti-Sri in A.D. 1753, when a copious supply was obtained of Burmese versions of Pali sacred literature.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

During the same troublous times, schisms and heresy had combined to undermine the national belief, and hence one of the first cares of Prakrama Bahu was to weed out the perverted sects, and establish a council for the settlement of the faith on debatable points.[1] Dagobas and statues of Buddha were multiplied without end during his reign, and temples of every form were erected both at Pollanarrua and throughout the breadth of the island. Halls for the reading of bana, image rooms, residences for the priesthood, ambulance halls and rest houses for their accommodation when on journeys, were built in every district, and rocks were hollowed into temples; one of which, at Pollanarrua, remains to the present day with its images of Buddha; "one in a sitting and another in a lying posture," almost as described in the _Mahawanso_.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. For a description of this temple see the account of Pollanarrua in the present work, Vol. II. Pt. x. ch. i.]

In conformity with the spirit of toleration, which is one of the characteristics of Buddhism, the king "erected a house for the Brahmans of the capital to afford the comforts of religion even to his Malabar enemies." And mindful of the divine injunctions engraven on the rock by King Asoca, "he forbade the animals in the whole of Lanka, both of the earth and the water, to be killed,"[1] and planted gardens, "resembling the paradise of the God-King Sakkraia, with trees of all sorts bearing fruits and odorous flowers."

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii. Among the religious edifices constructed by Prakrama Bahu in many parts of his kingdom, the _Mahawanso_, enumerates three temples at Pollanarrua, besides others at every two or three gows distance; 101 dagobas, 476 statues of Buddha, and 300 image rooms built, besides 6100 repaired. He built for the reception of priests from a distance, "230 lodging apartments, 50 halls for preaching, and 9 for walking, 144 gates, and 192 rooms for the purpose of offering flowers. He built 12 apartments and 230 halls for the use of strangers, and 31 rock temples, with tanks, baths, and gardens for the priesthood."]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

For the people the king erected almonries at the four gates of the capital, and hospitals, with slave boys and maidens to wait upon the sick, superintending them in person, and bringing his medical knowledge to assist in their direction and management.

Even now the ruins of Pollanarrua, the most picturesque in Ceylon, attest the care which he lavished on his capital. He surrounded it with ramparts, raised a fortress within them, and built a palace for his own residence, containing four thousand apartments. He founded schools and libraries; built halls for music and dancing; formed tanks for public baths; opened streets, and surrounded the whole city with a wall which, if we are to credit the native chronicles, enclosed an area twelve miles broad by nearly thirty in length.

By his liberality, Rohuna and Pihiti were equally embellished; the buildings of Vigittapura and Sigiri were renewed; and the ancient edifices at Anarajapoora were restored, and its temples and palaces repaired, under the personal superintendence of his minister. It is worthy of remark that so greatly had the constructive arts declined, even at that period, in Ceylon, that the king had to "bring Damilo artificers" from the opposite coast of India to repair the structures at his capital.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxv. lxxvii.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

The details preserved in the Singhalese chronicles as to the works for irrigation which he formed or restored, afford an idea of the prodigious encouragement bestowed upon agriculture in this reign, as well as of the extent to which the rule of the Malabars had retarded the progress and destroyed the earlier traces of civilisation. Fourteen hundred and seventy tanks were constructed by the king in various parts of the island, three of them of such vast dimensions that they were known as the "Seas of Prakrama;"[1] and in addition to these, three hundred others were formed by him for the special benefit of the priests. The "Great Lakes" which he repaired, as specified in the _Mahawanso_, amount to thirteen hundred and ninety-five, and the smaller ones which he restored or enlarged to nine hundred and sixty. Besides these, he made five hundred and thirty-four watercourses and canals, by damming up the rivers, and repaired three thousand six hundred and twenty-one.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 88]

[Footnote 2: The useful ambition of signalising their reign by the construction of works of irrigation, is still exhibited by the Buddhist sovereigns of the East; and the king of Burmah in his interview with the British envoy in 1855, advanced his exploits of this nature as his highest claim to distinction. The conversation is thus reported in YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission_. London, 1858.

"_King._ Have you seen any of the royal tanks at Oung-ben-le', which have recently been constructed?

"_Envoy._ I have not been yet, your Majesty, but I purpose going.

"_King._ I have caused _ninety-nine_ tanks and ancient reservoirs to be dug and repaired; and _sixty-six_ canals: whereby a great deal of rice land will be available. * * * In the reign of Nauraba-dzyar 9999 tanks and canals were constructed: I purpose renewing them."--P. 109.]

The bare enumeration of such labours conveys an idea of the prodigious extent to which structures of this kind had been multiplied by the early kings; and we are enabled to form an estimate of the activity of agriculture in the twelfth century, and the vast population whose wants it supplied, by the thousands of reservoirs still partially used, though in ruins; and the still greater number now dry and deserted, and concealed by dense jungle, in districts once waving with yellow grain. Such was the internal tranquillity which, under his rule, pervaded Ceylon, that an inscription, engraved by one of his successors, on the rock of Dambool, after describing the general peace and "security which he established, as well in the wilderness as in the inhabited places," records that, "even a woman might traverse the island with a precious jewel and not be asked what it was."[1]

[Footnote 1: Moore's melody, beginning "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," was founded on a parallel figure illustrative of the security of Ireland under the rule of King Brien; when, according to Warner, "a maiden undertook a journey done, from one extremity of the kingdom to another, with only a wand in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value."]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

In the midst of these congenial operations the energetic king had command of military resources, sufficient not only to repress revolt within his own dominions, but also to carry war into distant countries, which had offered him insult or inflicted injury on his subjects. His first foreign expedition was fitted out to chastise the king of Cambodia and Arramana[1] in the Siamese peninsula, who had plundered merchants from Ceylon, visiting those countries to trade in elephants; he had likewise intercepted a vessel which was carrying some Singhalese princesses, had outraged Prakrama's ambassador, and had dismissed him mutilated and maimed. A fleet sailed on this service in the sixteenth year of Prakrama's reign, he effected a landing in Arramana, vanquished the king, and obtained full satisfaction.[2] He next directed his arms against the Pandyan king, for the countenance which that prince had uniformly given to the Malabar invaders of the island. He reduced Pandya and Chola, rendered their sovereigns his tributaries, and having founded a city within the territory of the latter, and coined money in his own name, he returned in triumph to Ceylon.[3]

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 406, n.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 41; _Mahawanso_, lxxiv.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 87; _Rajavali_, p. 254.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvi. I am not aware whether the Tamil historians have chronicled this remarkable expedition, and the conquest of this portion of the Dekkan by the king of Ceylon; but in the catalogue of the Kings appended by Prof. WILSON to his _Historical Sketch of Pandya_ (Asiat. Journ. vol. iii. p. 201) the name of "Pracrama Baghu" occurs as the sixty-fifth in the list of sovereigns of that state. For an account of Dipaldenia, where he probably coined his Indian money, see _Asiat. Soc. Journ. Bengal_, v. vi. pp. 218, 301.]

"Thus," says the _Mahawanso_, "was the whole island of Lanka improved and beautified by this king, whose majesty is famous in the annals of good deeds, who was faithful in the religion of Buddha, and whose fame extended abroad as the light of the moon."[1] "Having departed this life," adds the author of the _Rajavali_, "he was found on a silver rock in the wilderness of the Himalaya, where are eighty-four thousand mountains of gold, and where he will reign as a king as long as the world endures."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxviii]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 91.]

CHAP. XII.

FATE OF THE SINGHALESE MONARCHY.--ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE, A.D. 1501.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1186.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1187.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1192.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1196.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1197.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1202.]

The reign of Prakrama Bahu, the most glorious in the annals of Ceylon, is the last which has any pretension to renown. His family were unequal to sustain or extend the honours he had won, and his nephew[1], a pious voluptuary, by whom he was succeeded, was killed in an intrigue with the daughter of a herdsman whilst awaiting the result of an appeal to the Buddhist sovereign of Arramana to aid him in reforming religion. His murderer, whom he had previously nominated his successor, himself fell by assassination. An heir to the throne was discovered amongst the Singhalese exiles on the coast of India[2], but death soon ended his brief reign. His brother and his nephew in turn assumed the crown; both were despatched by the Adigar, who, having allied himself with the royal family by marrying the widow of the great Prakrama, contrived to place her on the throne, under the title of Queen Leela-Wattee, A.D. 1197. Within less than three years she was deposed by an usurper, and he being speedily put to flight, another queen, Kalyana-Wattee, was placed at the head of the kingdom. The next ill-fated sovereign, a baby of three months old, was speedily set aside by means of a hired force, and the first queen, Leela-Wattee, restored to the throne. But the same band who had effected a revolution in her favour were prompt to repeat the exploit; she was a second time deposed, and a third time recalled by the intervention of foreign mercenaries.[3]

[Footnote 1: Wijayo Bahu II., killed by Mihindo, A.D. 1187.]

[Footnote 2: Kirti Nissanga, brought from Calinga, A.D. 1192.]

[Footnote 3: Of the very rare examples now extant of Singhalese coins, one of the most remarkable bears the name of Leela-Wattee.--_Numismatic Chronicle, 1853. Papers on some Coins of Ceylon, by_ W.S.W. Vaux, _Esq_., p. 126.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1211.]

Within thirty years from the decease of Prakrama Bahu, the kingdom was reduced to such an extremity of weakness by contentions amongst the royal family, and by the excesses of their partisans, that the vigilant Malabars seized the opportunity to land with an army of 24,000 men, reconquered the whole of the island, and Magha, their leader, became king of Ceylon A.D. 1211.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 256.]

The adventurers who invaded Ceylon on this occasion came not from Chola or Pandya, as before, but from Calinga, that portion of the Dekkan which now forms the Northern Circars. Their domination was marked by more than ordinary cruelty, and the _Mahawanso_ and _Rajaratnacari_ describe with painful elaboration the extinction of Buddhism, the overthrow of temples, the ruin of dagobas, the expulsion of priests, and the occupation of their dwellings by Damilos, the outrage of castes, the violation of property, and the torture of its possessors to extract the disclosure of their treasures, "till the whole island resembled a dwelling in flames or a house darkened by funeral rites."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxix.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 93; _Rajavali_, p. 256.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1211.]

On all former occasions Rohuna and the South had been comparatively free from the actual presence of the enemy, but in this instance they established themselves at Mahagam[1], and thence to Jaffnapatam, every province in the island was brought under subjection to their rule.

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, 257.]

The peninsula of Jaffna and the extremity of the island north of Adam's Bridge, owing to its proximity to the Indian coast, was at all times the district most infested by the Malabars. Jambukola, the modern Colombogam, is the port which is rendered memorable in the _Mahawanso_ by the departure of embassies and the arrival of relics from the Buddhist countries, and Mantotte, to the north of Manaar, was the landing place of the innumerable expeditions which sailed from Chola and Pandya for the subjugation of Ceylon.

The Tamils have a tradition that, prior to the Christian era, Jaffna was colonised by Malabars, and that a Cholian prince assumed the government, A.D. 101,--a date which corresponds closely with the second Malabar invasion recorded in the _Mahawanso_. Thence they extended their authority over the adjacent country of the Wanny, as far south as Mantotte and Manaar, "fortified their frontiers and stationed wardens and watchers to protect themselves from invasion."[1] The successive bands of marauders arriving from the coast had thus on every occasion a base for operations, and a strong force of sympathisers to cover their landing; and from the inability of the Singhalese to offer an effectual resistance, those portions of the island were from a very early period practically abandoned to the Malabars, whose descendants at the present day form the great bulk of its population.

[Footnote 1: See a paper on the early History of Jaffna by S. CASIE CHITTY, _Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society of Ceylon, 1847_, p. 68.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1235.]

After an interval of twenty years, Wijayo Bahu III., A.D. 1235, collected as many Singhalese followers as enabled him to recover a portion of the kingdom, and establish himself in Maya, within which he built a capital at Jambudronha or Dambedenia, fifty miles to the north of the present Colombo. The Malabars still retained possession of Pihiti and defended their frontier by a line of forts drawn across the island from Pollanarrua to Ooroototta on the western coast.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxx. lxxxii.; _Rajaratnacuri_, pp. 94, 94; _Rajavali_, p.258.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1266.]

Thirty years later Pandita Prakrama Bahu III, A.D. 1266, effected a further dislodgment of the enemy in the north; but Ceylon, which possessed

"The fatal gift of beauty, that became A funeral dower of present woes
and past,"

was destined never again to be free from the evils of foreign invasion; a new race of marauders from the Malayan peninsula were her next assailants[1]; and these were followed at no very long interval by a fresh expedition from the coast of India.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, pp. 256, 260. A second Malay landing is recorded in the reign of Prakrama III., A.D. 1267.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxii.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1303.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1319.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1347.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1410.]

Having learned by experience the exposure and insecurity of the successive capitals, which had been built by former sovereigns in the low lands, this king founded the city of Kandy, then called Siriwardanapura, amongst the mountains of Maya[1], to which he removed the sacred _dalada_, and the other treasures of the crown. But such precautions came too late: to use the simile of the native historian, they were "fencing the field whilst the oxen were within engaged in devouring the corn."[2] The power of the Malabars had become so firmly rooted, and had so irresistibly extended itself, that, one after another, each of the earlier capitals was abandoned to them, and the seat of government carried further towards the south. Pollanarrua had risen into importance in the eighth and ninth centuries, when Anarajapoora was found to be no longer tenable against the strangers. Dambedenia was next adopted, A.D. 1235 as a retreat from Pollanarrua; and this being deemed insecure, was exchanged, A.D. 1303, for Yapahu in the Seven Corles. Here the Pandyan marauders followed in the rear of the retreating sovereign[3], surprised the new capital, and carried off the dalada relic to the coast of India. After its recovery Yapahu was deserted, A.D. 1319. Kornegalle or Kurunaigalla, then called Hastisailapoora and Gampola[4], still further to the south and more deeply intrenched amongst the Kandyan mountains, were successively chosen for the royal residence, A.D. 1347. Thence the uneasy seat of government was carried to Peradenia, close by Kandy, and its latest migration, A.D. 1410, was to Jaya-wardana-pura, the modern Cotta, a few miles east of Colombo.

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 104; _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxiii.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 82.]

[Footnote 3: A.D. 1303.]

[Footnote 4: Gampola or Gam-pala, _Ganga-siripura_, "the beautiful city near the river," is said in the _Rajaratnacari_ to have been built by one of the brothers-in-law of Panduwaasa, B.C. 504.]

Such frequent removals are evidences of the alarm and despondency excited by the forays and encroachments of the Malabars, who from their stronghold at Jaffna exercised undisputed dominion over the northern coasts on both sides of the island, and, secure in the possession of the two ancient capitals, Anarajapoora and Pollanarrua, spread over the rich and productive plains of the north. To the present hour the population of the island retains the permanent traces of this alien occupation of the ancient kingdom of Pihiti. The language of the north of the island, from Chilaw on the west coast to Batticaloa on the east, is chiefly, and in the majority of localities exclusively, Tamil; whilst to the south of the Dederaoya and the Mahawelli-ganga, in the ancient divisions of Rohuna and Maya, the vernacular is uniformly Singhalese.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1410.]