[Footnote 1: Hence the indomitable hatred with which the Brahmans pursued the disciples of Buddhism from the fourth century before Christ to its final expulsion from Hindustan. "Abundant proofs," says Turnour, "may be adduced to show the fanatical ferocity with which these two great sects persecuted each other; and which, subsided into passive hatred and contempt, only when the parties were no longer placed in the position of actual collision."—Introd. Mahawanso, p. xxii.]

[Footnote 2: In its earliest form Buddhism was equally averse to persecution, and the Mahawanso extols the liberality of Asoca in giving alms indiscriminately to the members of all religions (Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 23). A sect which is addicted to persecution is not likely to speak approvingly of toleration, but the Mahawanso records with evident satisfaction the courtesy paid to the sacred things of Buddhism by the believers in other doctrines; thus the Nagas did homage to the relics of Buddha and mourned their removal from Mount Meru (Mahawanso, ch. xxxi. p. 189); the Yakkhos assisted at the building of dagobas to enshrine them, and the Brahmans were the first to respect the Bo-tree on its arrival in Ceylon (Ib. ch. xix. p. 119). COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, whose informant, Sopater, visited Ceylon in the sixth century, records that there was then the most extended toleration, and that even the Nestorian Christians had perfect freedom and protection for their worship.

Among the Buddhists of Burmah, however, "although they are tolerant of the practice of other religions by those who profess them, secession from the national faith, is rigidly prohibited, and a convert to any other form of faith incurs the penalty of death."—Professor WILSON, Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 261.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

This characteristic of the "religion of the Vanquisher" is in strict conformity, not alone with the spirit of his doctrine, but also with the letter of the law laid down for the guidance of his disciples. Two of the singular rock-inscriptions of India deciphered by Prinsep, inculcate the duty of leaving the profession of different faiths unmolested; on the ground, that "all aim at moral restraint and purity of life, although all cannot be equally successful in attaining to it." The sentiments embodied in one of the edicts[1] of King Asoca are very striking: "A man must honour his own faith, without blaming that of his neighbour, and thus will but little that is wrong occur. There are even circumstances under which the faith of others should be honoured, and in acting thus a man increases his own faith and weakens that of others. He who acts differently, diminishes his own faith and injures that of another. Whoever he may be who honours his own faith and blames that of others out of devotion to his own, and says, 'let us make our faith conspicuous,' that man merely injures the faith he holds. Concord alone is to be desired."

[Footnote 1: The twelfth tablet, which, as translated by BURNOUF and Professor WILSON, will be found in Mrs. SPEIR'S Life in Ancient India, book ii. ch. iv. p. 239.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 248.]

The obligation, to maintain the religion of Buddha was as binding as the command to abstain from assailing that of its rivals, and hence the kings who had treated the snake-worshippers with kindness, who had made a state provision for maintaining "offerings to demons," and built dwellings at the capital to accommodate the "ministers of foreign religions," rose in fierce indignation against the preaching of a firm believer in Buddha, who ventured to put an independent interpretation on points of faith. They burned the books of the Wytulians, as the new sect were called, and frustrated their irreligious attempt.[1] The first effort at repression was ineffectual. It was made by the King Wairatissa, A.D. 209; but within forty years the schismatic tendency returned, the persecution was renewed, and the apostate priests, after being branded on the back were ignominiously transported to the opposite coast of India.[2]

[Footnote 1: The Mahawanso throws no light on the nature of the Wytulian (or Wettulyan) heresy (ch. xxvii. p. 227), but the Rajaratnacari insinuates that Wytulia was a Brahman who had "subverted by craft and intrigue the religion of Buddha" (ch. ii, p. 61). As it is stated in a further passage that the priests who were implicated were stripped of their habits, it is evident that the innovation had been introduced under the garb of Buddha.—Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 65.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 25, Mahawanso, ch. xxxvi. p. 232. As the Mahawanso intimates in another passage that amongst the priests who were banished to the opposite coast of India, there was one Sangha-mitta, "who was profoundly versed in the rites of the demon faith ('bhuta')," it is probable that out of the Wytulian heresy grew the system which prevails to the present day, by which the heterodox dewales and halls for devil dances are built in close contiguity to the temples and wiharas of the orthodox Buddhists, and the barbarous rites of demon worship are incorporated with the abstractions of the national religion. On the restoration of Maha-Sen to the true faith, the Mahawanso represents him as destroying the dewales at Anarajapoora in order to replace them with wiharas (Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 237). An account of the mingling of Brahmanical with Buddhist worship, as it exists at the present day, will be found in HARDY'S Oriental Monachism, ch. xix. Professor H.H. WILSON, in his Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya, alludes to a heresy, which, anterior to the sixth century, disturbed the sangattar or college of Madura; the leading feature of which was the admixture of Buddhist doctrines with the rite of the Brahmans, and "this heresy," he says, "some traditions assert was introduced from Ceylon."—Asiat. Journ. vol. iii. p. 218.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 275.]

The new sect had, however, established an interest in high places; and Sangha-mitta, one of the exiled priests, returning from banishment on the death of the king, so ingratiated himself with his successor, that he was entrusted with the education of the king's sons. One of the latter, Maha-Sen, succeeded to the throne, A.D. 275, and, openly professing his adoption of the Wytulian tenets, dispossessed the popular priesthood, and overthrew the Brazen Palace. With the materials of the great wihara, he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of Buddha was to be worshipped according to the rites of the reformed religion.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 235.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 275.]

So bold an innovation roused the passions of the nation; the people prepared for revolt, and a conflict was imminent, when the schismatic Sangha-mitta was suddenly assassinated, and the king, convinced of his errors, addressed himself with energy to restore the buildings he had destroyed, and to redress the mischiefs chiefs caused by his apostacy. He demolished the dewales of the Hindus, in order to use their sites for Buddhist wiharas; he erected nunneries, constructed the Jaytawanarama (a dagoba at Anarajapoora), formed the great tank of Mineri by drawing a dam across the Kara-ganga and that of Kandelay or Dantalawa, and consecrated the 20,000 fields which it irrigated to the Dennanaka Wihare.[1] "He repaired numerous dilapidated temples throughout the island, made offerings of a thousand robes to a thousand priests, formed sixteen tanks to extend cultivation—there is no defining the extent of his charity"—and having performed during his existence acts both of piety and impity, the Mahawanso cautiously adds, "his destiny after death was according to his merits."[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR's Epitome, p. 25.]

[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii. p. 238.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

With King Maha-Sen end the glories of the "superior dynasty" of Ceylon. The "sovereigns of the Suluwanse, who followed," says the Rajavali, "were no longer of the unmixed blood, but the offspring of parents, only one of whom was descended from the sun, and the other from the bringer of the Bo-tree or the sacred tooth; on that account, because the God Sakkraia had ceased to watch over Ceylon, because piety had disappeared, and the city of Anarajapoora was in ruins, and because the fertility of the land was diminished, the kings who succeeded Maha-Sen were no longer reverenced as of old."[1]

[Footnote 1: Rajavali, p. 289.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

The prosperity of Ceylon, though it may not have attained its acme, was sound and auspicious in the beginning of the fourth century, when the solar line became extinct. Pihiti, the northern portion of the island, was that which most engaged the solicitude of the crown, from its containing the ancient capital, whence it obtained its designation of the Raja-ratta or country of the kings. Here the labour bestowed on irrigation had made the food of the population abundant, and the sums expended on the adornment of the city, the multitude of its sacred structures, the splendour of its buildings, and the beauty of its lakes and gardens, rendered it no inappropriate representative of the wealth and fertility of the kingdom.

Anarajapoora had from time immemorial been a venerated locality in the eyes of the Buddhists; it had been honoured by the visit of Buddha in person, and it was already a place of importance when Wijayo effected his landing in the fifth century before the Christian era. It became the capital a century after, and the King Pandukabhaya, who formed the ornamental lake which adjoined it, and planted gardens and parks for public festivities, built gates and four suburbs to the city; set apart ground for a public cemetery, and erected a gilded hall of audience, and a palace for his own residence.

The Mahawanso describes with particularity the offices of the Naggaraguttiko, who was the chief of the city guard, and the organisation of the low caste Chandalas, who were entrusted with the cleansing of the capital and the removal of the dead for interment. For these and for the royal huntsmen villages were constructed in the environs, mingled with which were dwellings for the subjugated native tribes, and temples for the worship of foreign devotees.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 66.]

Seventy years later, when Mahindo arrived in Ceylon, the details of his reception disclose the increased magnificence of the capital, the richness of the royal parks, and the extent of the state establishments; and describe the chariots in which the king drove to Mihintala to welcome his exalted guest.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. xiv., xv., xx.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

Yet these were but preliminary to the grander constructions which gave the city its lasting renown; stupendous dagobas raised by successive monarchs, each eager to surpass the conceptions of his predecessors; temples in which were deposited statues of gold adorned with gems and native pearls; the decorated terraces of the Bo-tree, and the Brazen Palace, with its thousand chambers and its richly embellished halls. The city was enclosed by a rampart upwards of twenty feet in height[1], which was afterwards replaced by a wall[2]; and, so late as the fourth century, the Chinese traveller Fa Hian describes the condition of the place in terms which fully corroborate the accounts of the Mahawanso. It was crowded, he says, with nobles, magistrates, and foreign merchants; the houses were handsome, and the public buildings richly adorned. The streets and highways were broad and level, and halls for preaching and reading bana were erected in all the thoroughfares. He was assured that the island contained not less than from fifty to sixty thousand ecclesiastics, who all ate in common; and of whom from five to six thousand were supported by the bounty of the king.

[Footnote 1: By WASABHA, A.D. 66. Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR, in his Epitome of the History of Ceylon, says that Anarajapoora was enclosed by a rampart seven cubits high, B.C. 41, and that A.D. 66 King Wasabha built a wall round the city sixteen gows in circumference. As he estimates the gow at four English miles, this would give an area equal to about 300 square miles. A space so prodigious for the capital seems to be disproportionate to the extent of the kingdom, and far too extended for the wants of the population. TURNOUR does not furnish the authority on which he gives the dimensions, nor have I been able to discover it in the Rajavali nor in the Rajaratnacari. The Mahawanso alludes to the fact of Anarajapoora having been fortified by Wasabha, but, instead of a wall, the work which it describes this king to have undertaken, was the raising of the height of the rampart from seven cubits to eighteen (Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 222). Major Forbes, in his account of the ruins of the ancient city, repeats the story of their former extent, in which he no doubt considered that the high authority of Turnour in matters of antiquity was sustained by a statement made by Lieutenant Skinner, who had surveyed the ruins in 1822, to the effect that he had discovered near Alia-parte the remains of masonry, which he concluded to be a portion of the ancient city wall running north and south and forming the west face; and, as Alia-parte is seven miles from Anarajapoora, he regarded this discovery as confirming the account given of its original dimensions. Lieutenant, now Major, Skinner has recently informed me that, on mature reflection, he has reason to fear that his first inference was precipitate. In a letter of the 8th of May, 1856, he says:—"It was in 1833 I first visited Anarajapoora, when I made my survey of its ruins. The supposed foundation of the western face of the city wall was pointed out near the village of Alia-parte by the people, and I hastily adopted it. I had not at the time leisure to follow up this search and determine how far it extended, but from subsequent visits to the place I have been led to doubt the accuracy of this tradition, though on most other points I found the natives tolerably accurate in their knowledge of the history of the ancient capital. I have since sought for traces of the other faces of the supposed wall, at the distances from the centre of the city at which it was said to have existed, but without success." The ruins which Major Skinner saw at Alia-parte are most probably those of one of the numerous forts which the Singhalese kings erected at a much later period, to keep the Malabars in check.]

The sacred tooth of Buddha was publicly exposed on sacred days in the capital with gorgeous ceremonies, which he recounts, and thence carried in procession to "the mountains without fear;" the road to which was perfumed and decked with flowers for the occasion; and the festival was concluded by a dramatic representation of events in the life of Buddha, illustrated by scenery and costumes, with figures of elephants and stags, so delicately coloured as to be undistinguishable from nature.[1]

[Footnote 1: FA HIAN, Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 334, &c.]



CHAP. IX.

KINGS OF THE "LOWER DYNASTY."

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

The story of the kings of Ceylon of the Sulu-wanse or "lower line," is but a narrative of the decline of the power and prosperity which had been matured under the Bengal conquerors and of the rise of the Malabar marauders, whose ceaseless forays and incursions eventually reduced authority to feebleness and the island to desolation. The vapid biography of the royal imbeciles who filled the throne from the third to the thirteenth century scarcely embodies an incident of sufficient interest to diversify the monotonous repetition of temples founded and dagobas repaired, of tanks constructed and priests endowed with lands reclaimed and fertilised by the "forced labour" of the subjugated races. Civil dissensions, religious schisms, royal intrigues and assassinations contributed equally with foreign invasions to diminish the influence of the monarchy and exhaust the strength of the kingdom.

Of sixty-two sovereigns who reigned from the death of Maha-Sen, A.D. 301, to the accession of Prakrama Bahu, A.D. 1153, nine met a violent death at the hands of their relatives or subjects, two ended their days in exile, one was slain by the Malabars, and four committed suicide. Of the lives of the larger number the Buddhist historians fail to furnish any important incidents; they relate merely the merit which each acquired by his liberality to the national religion or the more substantial benefits conferred on the people by the formation of lakes for irrigation.

[Sidenote: A.D. 330.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 339.]

Unembarrassed by any questions of external policy or foreign expeditions, and limited to a narrow range of internal administration, a few of the early kings addressed themselves to intellectual pursuits. One immortalised himself in the estimation of the devout by his skill in painting and sculpture, and in carving in ivory, arts which he displayed by modelling statues of Buddha, and which he employed himself in teaching to his subjects.[1] Another was equally renowned as a medical author and a practitioner of surgery[2], and a third was so passionately attached to poetry that in despair for the death of Kalidas[3], he flung himself into the flames of the poet's funeral pile.

[Footnote 1: Detoo Tissa, A.D. 330, Mahawanso, xxxvii. p. 242.]

[Footnote 2: Budha Daasa, A.D. 339. Mahawanso, xxxvii, p. 243. His work on medicine, entitled Sara-sangraha or Sarat-tha-Sambo, is still extant, and native practitioners profess to consult it.—TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 27.]

[Footnote 3: Not KALIDAS, the author of Sacontala, to whom Sir W. Jones awards the title of "The Shakspeare of the East," but PANDITA KALIDAS, a Singhalese poet, none of whose verses have been preserved. His royal patron was Kumara Das, king of Ceylon, A.D. 513. For an account of Kalidas, see DE ALWIS'S Sidath Sangara, p. cliv.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 400.]

With the exception of the embassy sent from Ceylon to Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius[1], the earliest diplomatic intercourse with foreigners of which a record exists, occurred in the fourth or fifth centuries, when the Singhalese appear to have sent ambassadors to the Emperor Julian[2], and for the first time to have established a friendly connection with China. It is strange, considering the religious sympathies which united the two people, that the native chronicles make no mention of the latter negotiations or their results, so that we learn of them only through Chinese historians. The Encyclopoedia of MA-TOUAN-LIN, written at the close of the thirteenth century[3], records that Ceylon first entered into political relations with China in the fourth century.[4] It was about the year 400 A.D., says the author, "in the reign of the Emperor Nyan-ti, that ambassadors arrived from Ceylon bearing a statue of Fo in jade-stone four feet two inches high, painted in five colours, and of such singular beauty that one would have almost doubted its being a work of human ingenuity. It was placed in the Buddhist temple at Kien-Kang (Nankin)." In the year 428 A.D., the King of Ceylon (Maha Nama) sent envoys to offer tribute, and this homage was repeated between that period and A.D. 529, by three other Singhalese kings, whose names it is difficult to identify with their Chinese designations of Kia-oe, Kia-lo, and the Ho-li-ye.

[Footnote 1: PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24.]

[Footnote 2: AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, lib. XX. c. 7.]

[Footnote 3: KLAPROTH doubts, "si la science de l'Europe a produit jusqu'a present un ouvrage de ce genre aussi bien execute et capable de soutenir la comparaison avec cette encyclopedie chinoise."—Journ. Asiat. tom. xxi. p. 3. See also Asiatic Journal, London, 1832, xxxv. p. 110. It has been often reprinted in 100 large volumes. M. STANISLAS JULIEN says that in another Chinese work, Pien-i-tien, or The History of Foreign Nations, there is a compilation including every passage in which Chinese authors have written of Ceylon, which occupies about forty pages 4to. Ib. tom. xxix. p. 39. A number of these authorities will be found extracted in the chapter in which I have described the intercourse between China and Ceylon, Vol. I. P. v. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 4: Between the years 317 and 420 A.D.—Journ. Asiat. tom. xxviii. p. 401.]

In A.D. 670, another ambassador arrived from Ceylon, and A.D. 742, Chi-lo-mi-kia sent presents to the Emperor of China consisting of pearls (perles de feu), golden flowers, precious stones, ivory, and pieces of fine cotton cloth. At a later period mutual intercourse became frequent between the two countries, and some of the Chinese travellers who resorted to Ceylon have left valuable records as to the state of the island.

[Sidenote: A.D. 413.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 432.]

It was during the reign of Maha Nama, about the year 413 A.D., that Ceylon was visited by Fa Hian, and the statements of the Mahawanso are curiously corroborated by the observations recorded by this Chinese traveller. He describes accurately the geniality of the climate, whose uniform temperature rendered the seasons undistinguishable. Winter and summer, he says, are alike unknown, but perpetual verdure realises the idea of a perennial spring, and periods for seed time and harvest are regulated by the taste of the husbandman. This statement has reference to the multitude of tanks which rendered agriculture independent of the periodical rains.

[Sidenote: A.D. 459.]

Fa Hian speaks of the lofty monuments which were the memorials of Buddha, and of the gems and gold which adorned his statues at Anarajapoora. Amongst the most surprising of these was a figure in what he calls "blue jasper," inlaid with jewels and other precious materials, and holding in one hand a pearl of inestimable value.[1] He describes the Bo-tree in terms which might almost be applied to its actual condition at the present day, and he states that they had recently erected a building to contain "the tooth of Buddha," which was exhibited to the pious in the middle of the third moon with processions and ceremonies which he minutely details.[2] All this corresponds closely with the narrative of the Mahawanso. The sacred tooth of Buddha, called at that time Datha dhatu, and now the Dalada, had been brought to Ceylon a short time before Fa Hian's arrival in the reign of Kisti-Sri-Megha-warna, A.D. 311, in charge of a princess of Kalinga, who concealed it in the folds of her hair. And the Mahawanso with equal precision describes the procession as conducted by the king and by the assembled priests, in which the tooth was borne along the streets of Anarajapoora amidst the veneration of the multitude.[3]

[Footnote 1: It was whilst looking at this statue that FA HIAN encountered an incident which he has related with touching simplicity:—"Depuis que FA HIAN avait quitte la terre de Han, plusieurs annees s'etaient ecoulees; les gens avec lesquels il avait des rapports etaient tous des hommes de contrees etrangeres. Les montagnes, les rivieres, les herbes, les arbres, tout ce qui avait frappe ses yeux etait nouveau pour lui. De plus, ceux qui avaient fait route avec lui, s'en etaient separes, les uns s'etant arretes, et les autres etant morts. En reflechissant au passe, son coeur etait toujours rempli de pensees et de tristesse. Tout a coup, a cote de cette figure de jaspe, il vit un marchand qui faisait hommage a la statue d'un eventail de taffetas blanc du pays de Tsin. Sans qu'en s'en apercut cela lui causa une emotion telle que ses larmes coulerent et remplirent ses yeux." (FA HIAN, Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.) "Tsin" means the province of Chensi, which was the birthplace of Fa Hian.]

[Footnote 2: FA HIAN, Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 334-5.]

[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 Pandion] mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean 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 Ilam) 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 jusquen 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 agglomeree, 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.]

Occasionally, after long periods of inaction, collisions took place; or the Singhalese kings equipped expeditions against the north; but the contest was unequal; and in spite of casual successes, "the king of the Ceylonese Malabars," as he is styled in the Rajavali, held his court at Jaffnapatam, and collected tribute from both the high and the low countries, whilst the south of the island was subdivided into a variety of petty kingdoms, the chiefs of which, at Yapahu, at Kandy, at Gampola, at Matura, Mahagam, Matelle, and other places[1], acknowledged the nominal supremacy of the sovereign at Cotta, with whom, however, they were necessarily involved in territorial quarrels, and in hostilities provoked by the withholding of tribute.

[Footnote 1: Rajavali, p. 263; Mahawanso, ch. lxxxvii.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1410.]

It was during this period that an event occurred, which is obscurely alluded to in some of the Singhalese chronicles, but is recorded with such minute details in several of the Chinese historical works, as to afford a reliable illustration of the condition of the island and its monarchy in the fifteenth century. Prior to that time the community of religion between Ceylon and China, and the eagerness of the latter country to extend its commerce, led to the establishment of an intercourse which has been elsewhere described[1]; missions were constantly despatched charged with an interchange of courtesies between their sovereigns; theologians and officers of state arrived in Ceylon empowered to collect information regarding the doctrines of Buddha; and envoys were sent in return bearing royal donations of relics and sacred books. The Singhalese monarchs, overawed by the magnitude of the imperial power, were induced to avow towards China a sense of dependency approaching to homage; and the gifts which they offered are all recorded in the Chinese annals as so many "payments of tribute." At length, in the year 1405 A.D,[2], during the reign of the emperor Yung-lo[3] of the Ming dynasty, a celebrated Chinese commander, Ching-Ho, having visited Ceylon as the bearer of incense and offerings, to be deposited at the shrine of Buddha, was waylaid, together with his followers, by the Singhalese king, Wijayo Bahu VI., and with difficulty effected an escape to his ships. To revenge this treacherous affront Ching-Ho was despatched a few years afterwards with a considerable fleet and a formidable military force, which the king (whom the Chinese historian calls A-lee-ko-nae-wih) prepared to resist; but by a vigorous effort Ho and his followers succeeded in seizing the capital, and bore off the sovereign, together with his family, as prisoners to China. He presented them to the emperor, who, out of compassion, ordered them to be sent back to their country on the condition that "the wisest of the family should be chosen king." "Seay-pa-nea-na"[4] was accordingly elected, and this choice being confirmed, he was sent to his native country, duly provided with a seal of investiture, as a vassal of the empire under the style of Sri Prakrama Bahu VI.,—and from that period till the reign of Teen-shun, A.D. 1434-1448, Ceylon continued to pay an annual tribute to China.

[Footnote 1: See Part v. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 2: The narrative in the text is extracted from the Ta-tsing-yi-tung, a "Topographical Account of the Manchoo Empire," written in the seventeenth century, to a copy of which, in the British Museum, my attention was directed by the erudite Chinese scholar, Mr. MEADOWS, author of "The Chinese and their Rebellions." The story of this Chinese expedition to Ceylon will also be found in the Se-yih-ke-foo-choo, "A Description of Western Countries," A.D. 1450; the Woo heo-pecu, "A Record of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1522, b. lviii. p. 3, and in the Ming-she, "A History of the Ming Dynasty," A.D. 1739, cccxxvi. p. 2. For a further account of this event see Part v. of this work; ch. iii.]

[Footnote 3: The Ming-she calls the Emperor "Ching-tsoo."]

[Footnote 4: So called in the Chinese original.]

From the beginning of the 13th century to the extinction of the Singhalese dynasty in the 18th, the island cannot be said to have been ever entirely freed from the presence of the Malabars. Even when temporarily subdued, they remained with forced professions of loyalty; Damilo soldiers were taken into pay by the Singhalese sovereigns; the dewales of the Hindu worship were built in close contiguity to the wiharas of Buddhism, and by frequent intermarriages the royal line was almost as closely allied to the kings of Chola and Pandya as to the blood of the Suluwanse.[1]

[Footnote 1: Rajavali, p.261, 262. In A.D. 1187 on the death or Mahindo V., the second in succession from the great Prakrama, the crown devolved upon Kirti Nissanga, who was summoned from Calinga on the Coromandel Coast. On the extinction of the recognised line of Suluwanse in A.D. 1706, a prince from Madura, who was merely a connection by marriage, succeeded to the throne. The King Raja Singha, who detained Knox in captivity, A.D. 1640, was married to a Malabar princess. In fact, the four last kings of Ceylon, prior to its surrender to Great Britain, were pure Malabars, without a trace of Singhalese blood.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1505.]

It was in this state of exhaustion, that the Singhalese were brought into contact with Europeans, during the reign of Dharma Prakrama IX, when the Portuguese, who had recently established themselves in India, appeared for the first time in Ceylon, A.D. 1505. The paramount sovereign was then living at Cotta; and the Rajavali records the event in the following terms:—"And now it came to pass that in the Christian year 1522 A.D., in the month of April, a ship from Portugal arrived at Colombo, and information was brought to the king, that there were in the harbour a race of very white and beautiful people, who wear boots and hats of iron, and never stop in one place. They eat a sort of white stone, and drink blood; and if they get a fish they give two or three ride in gold for it; and besides, they have guns with a noise louder than thunder, and a ball shot from one of them, after traversing a league, will break a castle of marble."[1]

[Footnote 1: Rajavali, Upham's version, p. 278.]

Before proceeding to recount the intercourse of the islanders with these civilised visitors, and the grave results which followed, it will be well to cast a glance over the condition of the people during the period which preceded, and to cull from the native historians such notices of their domestic and social position as occur in passages intended by the Singhalese annalists to chronicle only those events which influenced the national worship, or the exploits of those royal personages, who earned immortality by their protection of Buddhism.



PART IV.

* * * * *

SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS

OF

THE ANCIENT SINGHALESE.



CHAPTER I

POPULATION.—CASTE.—SLAVERY AND RAJA-KARIYA.

POPULATION.—In no single instance do the chronicles of Ceylon mention the precise amount of the population of the island, at any particular period; but there is a sufficiency of evidence, both historical and physical, to show that it must have been prodigious and dense, especially in the reigns of the more prosperous kings. Whatever limits to the increase of man artificial wants may interpose in a civilised state and in ordinary climates are unknown in a tropical region, where clothing is an encumbrance, the smallest shelter a home, and sustenance supplied by the bounty of the soil in almost spontaneous abundance. Under such propitious circumstances, in the midst of a profusion of fruit-bearing-trees, and in a country replenished by a teeming harvest twice, at least, in each year, with the least possible application of labour; it may readily be conceived that the number of the people will be adjusted mainly, if not entirely, by the extent of arable land.

The emotion of the traveller of the present time, as day after day he traverses the northern portions of the island, and penetrates the deep forests of the interior, is one of unceasing astonishment at the inconceivable multitude of deserted tanks, the hollows of which are still to be traced; and the innumerable embankments, overgrown with timber, which indicate the sites of vast reservoirs that formerly fertilised districts now solitary and barren. Every such tank is the landmark of one village at least, and such are the dimensions of some of them that in proportion to their area, it is probable that hundreds of villages may have been supported by a single one of these great inland lakes.

The labour necessary to construct one of these gigantic works for irrigation is in itself an evidence of local density of population; but their multiplication by successive kings, and the constantly recurring record of district after district brought under cultivation in each successive reign[1], demonstrate the steady increase of inhabitants, and the multitude of husbandmen whose combined and sustained toil was indispensable to keep these prodigious structures in productive activity.

[Footnote 1: The practice of recording the formation of tanks for irrigation by the sovereign is not confined to the chronicles of Ceylon. The construction of similar works on the continent of India has been commemorated in the same manner by the native historians. The memoirs of the Rajas of Orissa show the number of tanks made and wells dug in every reign.]

The Rajavali relates that in the year 1301 A.D. King Prakrama III, on the eve of his death, reminded his sons, that having conquered the Malabars, he had united under one rule the three kingdoms of the island, Pihiti with 450,000 villages, Rohuna with 770,000, and Maya with 250,000.[1] A village in Ceylon, it must be observed, resembles a "town" in the phraseology of Scotland, where the smallest collection of houses, or even a single farmstead with its buildings is enough to justify the appellation. In the same manner, according to the sacred ordinances which regulate the conduct of the Buddhist priesthood, a "solitary house, if there be people, must be regarded as a village,"[2] and all beyond it is the forest.

[Footnote 1: Rajavali p. 262. A century later in the reign or Prakrama-Kotta, A.D. 1410, the Rajaratnacari says, there then were 256,000 villages in the province of Matura, 495,000 in that of Jaffna, and 790,000 in Oovah.—P. 112.]

[Footnote 2: Hardy's Eastern Monachism, ch. xiii. p. 133.]

Even assuming that the figures employed by the author of the Rajavali partake of the exaggeration common to all oriental narratives, no one who has visited the regions now silent and deserted, once the homes of millions, can hesitate to believe that when the island was in the zenith of its prosperity, the population of Ceylon must of necessity have been at least ten times as great as it is at the present day.

The same train of thought leads to a clearer conception of the means by which this dense population was preserved, through so many centuries, in spite of frequent revolutions and often recurring invasions; as well as of the causes which led to its ultimate disappearance, when intestine decay had wasted the organisation on which the fabric of society rested.

Cultivation, as it existed in the north of Ceylon, was almost entirely dependent on the store of water preserved in each village tank; and it could only be carried on by the combined labour of the whole local community, applied in the first instance to collect and secure the requisite supply for irrigation, and afterwards to distribute it to the rice lands, which were tilled by the united exertions of the inhabitants, amongst whom the crop was divided in due proportions. So indispensable were concord and union in such operations, that injunctions for their maintenance were sometimes engraven on the rocks, as an inperishable exhortation, to forbearance and harmony.[1]

[Footnote 1: See the inscription on the rock of Mihintala, A. D. 262, TURNOUR'S Epitome, Appendix, p. 90; and a similar one on a rock at Pollanarrua, ibid., p, 92.]

Hence, in the recurring convulsions which overthrew successive dynasties, and transferred the crown to usurpers, with a facile rapidity, otherwise almost unintelligible, it is easy to comprehend that the mass of the people had the strongest possible motives for passive submission, and were constrained to acquiescence by an instinctive dread of the fatal effects of prolonged commotion.

If interrupted in their industry, by the dread of such events, they retired till the storm had blown over, and returned, after each temporary dispersion, to resume possession of the lands and their village tank.

The desolation which now reigns over the plains which the Singhalese formerly tilled, was precipitated by the reckless domination of the Malabars, in the fourteenth and following centuries. The destruction of reservoirs and tanks has been ascribed to defective construction, and to the absence of spill-waters, and other facilities for discharging the surplus-water, during the prevalence of excessive rains; but independently of the fact that vast numbers of these tanks, though utterly deserted, remain, in this respect, almost uninjured to the present day, we have the evidence of their own native historians, that for upwards of fifteen centuries, the reservoirs, when duly attended to, successfully defied all the dangers to be apprehended from inundation. Their destruction and abandonment are ascribable, not so much to any engineering defect, as to the disruption of the village communities, by whom they were so long maintained. The ruin of a reservoir, when neglected and permitted to fall into decay, was speedy and inevitable; and as the destruction of the village tank involved the flight of all dependent upon it, the water, once permitted to escape, carried pestilence and miasma over the plains they had previously covered with plenty. After such a calamity any partial return of the villagers, even where it was not prevented by the dread of malaria, would have been impracticable; for the obvious reason, that where the whole combined labour of the community was not more than sufficient to carry on the work of conservancy and cultivation, the diminished force of a few would have been utterly unavailing, either to effect the reparation of the watercourses, or to restore the system on which the culture of rice depends. Thus the process of decay, instead of a gradual decline as in other countries, became sudden and utter desolation in Ceylon.

From such traces as are perceptible in the story of the earliest immigrants, it is obvious that in their domestic habits and civil life they brought with them and perpetuated in Ceylon the same pursuits and traits which characterised the Aryan races that had colonised the valley of the Ganges. The Singhalese Chronicles abound, like the ancient Vedas, with allusions to agriculture and herds, to the breeding of cattle and the culture of grain. They speak of village communities and of their social organisation, as purely patriarchal. Women were treated with respect and deference; and as priestesses and queens they acquired a prominent place in the national esteem. Rich furniture was used in dwellings and costly textures for dress; but these were obtained from other nations, whose ships resorted to the island, whilst its inhabitants, averse to intercourse with foreigners, and ignorant of navigation, held the pursuits of the merchant in no esteem.

Caste.—Amongst the aboriginal inhabitants caste appears to have been unknown, although after the arrival of Wijayo and his followers the system in all its minute subdivisions, and slavery, both domestic and praedial, prevailed throughout the island. The Buddhists, as dissenters, who revolted against the arrogant pretensions of the Brahmans, embodied in their doctrines a protest against caste under any modification. But even after the conversion of the Singhalese to Buddhism, and their acceptance of the faith at the hands of Mahindo, caste as a national institution was found too obstinately established to be overthrown by the Buddhist priesthood; and reinforced, as its supporters were, by subsequent intercourse with the Malabars, it has been perpetuated to the present time, as a conventional and social, though no longer as a sacred institution. Practically, the Singhalese ignore three of the great classes, theoretically maintained by the Hindus; among them there are neither Brahmans, Vaisyas, nor Kshastryas; and at the head of the class which they retain, they place the Goi-wanse or Vellalas, nominally "tillers of the soil." In earlier times the institution seems to have been recognised in its entirety, and in the glowing description given in the Mahawanso of the planting of the great Bo-tree, "the sovereign the lord of chariots directed that it should be lifted by the four high caste tribes and by eight persons of each of the other castes."[1] In later times the higher ranks are seldom spoken of in the historical books but by specific titles, but frequent allusion is made to the Chandalas, the lowest of all, who were degraded to the office of scavengers and carriers of corpses.[2]