king of Rohuna, during the usurpation of Elala, B.C. 205, had
appropriated lands near Kalany, for the repairs of the
dagoba.--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 37.]
[Footnote 6: In the reign of Batiya Tissa, B.C. 20. _Mahawanso_,, ch.
xxxiv. p. 212; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.]
[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
The corporate character of the recipients served to neutralise the
obligations by which they were severally bound; the vow of poverty,
though compulsory on an individual priest, ceased to be binding on the
community of which he was a member; and whilst, on his own behalf, he
was constrained to abjure the possession of property, even to the extent
of one superfluous cloth, the wihara to which he was attached, in
addition to its ecclesiastical buildings, and its offerings in gems and
gold, was held competent to become the proprietor of broad and fertile
lands.[1] These were so bountifully bestowed by royal piety, by private
munificence, and by mortuary gifts, that ere many centuries had elapsed
the temples of Ceylon absorbed a large proportion of the landed property
of the kingdom, and their possessions were not only exempted from
taxation, but accompanied by a right to the compulsory labour of the
temple tenants.[2]
[Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. viii. p. 68.]
[Footnote 2: The _Rajaratnacari_ mentions an instance, A.D. 62, of eight
thousand rice fields bestowed in one grant; and similar munificence is
recorded in numerous instances prior, to A.D. 204.--_Rajaratnacari_, p.
57, 59, 64, 74, 113, &c. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 223, 224; ch. xxxvi.
p. 233.]
As the estates so made over to religious uses lay for the most part in
waste districts, the quantity of land which was thus brought under
cultivation necessarily involved large extensions of the means of
irrigation. To supply these, reservoirs were formed on such a scale as
to justify the term "consecrated lakes," by which they are described in
the Singhalese annals.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 37; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]
Where the circumstances of the ground permitted, their formation was
effected by drawing an embankment across the embouchure of a valley so
as to arrest and retain the waters by which it was traversed, and so
vast were the dimensions of some of these gigantic tanks that many yet
in existence still cover an area of from fifteen to twenty miles in
circumference. The ruins of that at Kalaweva, to the north-west of
Dambool, show that its original circuit could not have been less than
forty miles, its retaining bund being upwards of twelve miles long. The
spill-water of stone, which remains to the present time, is "perhaps one
of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour in the
island."[1]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR, _Mahawanso_, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was
formed by Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 257.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early
sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the
native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together
with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these
vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and
"out of compassion for living creatures;"[2] but so early as the first
century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming
tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they
enriched on the church. Wide districts, rendered fertile by the
interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were
appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood[3]; a tank and
the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for
the perpetual repairs of a dagoba[4], and the revenues of whole villages
and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a
single wihara.[5]
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 41, 45, 54, 55; King Saidaitissa B.C.
137, made "eighteen lakes" (_Rajavali_, p. 233). King Wasabha, who
ascended the throne A.D. 62, "caused sixteen large lakes to be enclosed"
(_Rajaratnacari_, p. 57). Detu Tissa, A.D. 253, excavated six
(_Rajavali_, p. 237), and King Maha Sen, A.D. 275, seventeen
(_Mahawanso_, ch, xxxviii. p. 236).]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxxvii. p. 242.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 210; xxxv. p. 221; xxxviii. p.
237, _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 57, 59, 64, 69, 74.]
[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215, 218, 223; ch. xxxvii. p.
234; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 51. TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 21.]
[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 218, 221; _Rajaratnacari_, ch.
ii. p. 51; _Rajaviai_, p. 241.]
So lavish were these endowments, that one king, who signalised his reign
by such extravagances as laying a carpet seven miles in length, "in
order that pilgrims might proceed with unsoiled feet all the way from
the Kadambo river (the Malwatté oya) to the mountain Chetiyo
(Mihintala)," awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of
water during the construction of a wihara, "land within the
circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the
temple."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv, p. 3.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
It was in this manner that the beautiful tank at Mineri, one of the most
lovely of these artificial lakes, was enclosed by Maha Sen, A.D. 275;
and, together with the 80,000 amonams of ground which it waters, was
conferred on the Jeytawana Wihara which the king had just erected at
Anarajapoora.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 69.]
To identify the crown still more closely with the interests of
agriculture, some of the kings superintended public works for irrigating
the lands of the temples[1]; and one more enthusiastic than the rest
toiled in the rice fields to enhance the merit of conferring their
produce on the priesthood.[2]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. The Buddhist kings of Burmah are
still accustomed to boast, almost in the terms of the _Mahawanso_, of
the distinction which they have earned, by the multitudes of tanks they
have constructed or restored. See YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission to
Ava in 1855_, p. 106.]
These broad possessions, the church, under all vicissitudes and
revolutions, has succeeded in retaining to the present day. Their
territories, it is true, have been diminished in extent by national
decay; the destruction of works for irrigation has converted into
wilderness and jungle plains once teeming with fertility; and the mild
policy of the British government, by abolishing _raja-kariya_[1], has
emancipated the peasantry, who are no longer the serfs either of the
temples or the chiefs. But in every district of the island the priests
are in the enjoyment of the most fertile lands, over which the crown
exercises no right of taxation; and such is the extent of their
possessions that, although their precise limits have not been
ascertained by the local government, they have been conjectured with
probability to be equal to one-third of the cultivated land of the
island.
[Footnote 1: Compulsory labour.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
One peculiarity in the Buddhist ceremonial served at all times to give a
singular impulse to the progress of horticulture. Flowers and garlands
are introduced in its religious rites to the utmost excess. The
atmosphere of the wiharas and temples is rendered oppressive with the
perfume of champac and jessamine, and the shrine of the deity, the
pedestals of his image, and the steps leading to the temple are strewn
thickly with blossoms of the nagaha and the lotus. At an earlier period
the profusion in which these beautiful emblems were employed in sacred
decorations appears almost incredible; the _Mahawanso_ relates that the
Ruanwellé dagoba, which was 270 feet in height, was on one occasion
"festooned with garlands from pedestal to pinnacle till it resembled one
uniform bouquet;" and at another time, it and the lofty dagoba at
Mihintala were buried under heaps of jessamine from the ground to the
summit.[1] Fa Hian, in describing his visit to Anarajapoora in the
fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and
flowers lavished on their worship by the Singhalese[2]; and the native
historians constantly allude as familiar incidents to the profusion in
which they were employed on ordinary occasions, and to the formation by
successive kings of innumerable gardens for the floral requirements of
the temples. The capital was surrounded on all sides[3] by flower
gardens, and these were multiplied so extensively that, according to the
_Rajaratnacari_, one was to be found within a distance of four leagues
in any part of Ceylon.[4] Amongst the regulations of the temple built at
Dambedinia, in the thirteenth century, was "every day an offering of
100,000 flowers, and each day a different flower."[5]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 52, 53.]
[Footnote 2: FA HIAN. _Foè Kouè Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.]
[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 227; _Mahawanso_, ch. xi. p. 67.]
[Footnote 4: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 29, 49. Amongst the officers attached
to the great establishments of the priests in Mihintala, A.D. 246, there
are enumerated in an inscription engraven on a rock there, a secretary,
a treasurer, a physician, a surgeon, a painter, twelve cooks, twelve
thatchers, ten carpenters, six carters, and _two florists_.]
[Footnote 5: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 103. The same book states that another
king, in the fifteenth century, "offered no less than 6,480,320 sweet
smelling flowers" at the shrine of the Tooth.--_Ib._, p. 136.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
Another advantage conferred by Buddhism on the country was the planting
of fruit trees and esculent vegetables for the gratuitous use of
travellers in all the frequented parts of the island. The historical
evidences of this are singularly corroborative of the genuineness of the
Buddhist edicts engraved on various rocks and monuments in India, the
deciphering of which was the grand achievement of Prinsep and his
learned coadjutors. On the pillars of Delhi, Allahabad, and other
places, and on the rocks of Girnar and Dhauli, there exist a number of
Pali inscriptions purporting to be edicts of Asoca (the Dharmasoca of
the _Mahawanso_), King of Magadha, in the third century before the
Christian era, who, on his conversion to the religion of Buddha,
commissioned Mahindo, his son, to undertake its establishment in Ceylon.
In these edicts, which were promulgated in the vernacular dialect, the
king endeavoured to impress both upon his subjects and allies, as well
as those who, although aliens, were yet "united in the law" of Buddha,
the divine precepts of their great teacher; prominent amongst which are
the prohibition against taking animal life[1], and the injunction that,
"everywhere wholesome vegetables, roots, and fruit trees shall be
cultivated, and that on the roads wells shall be dug and trees planted
for the enjoyment of men and animals." In apparent conformity with these
edicts, one of the kings of Ceylon, Addagaimunu, A.D. 20, is stated in
the _Mahawanso_ to have "caused to be planted throughout the island
every description of fruit-bearing creepers, and interdicted the
destruction of animal life,"[2] and similar acts of pious benevolence,
performed by command of various other sovereigns, are adverted to on
numerous occasions.
[Footnote 1: It is curious that one of these edicts of Asoca, who was
contemporary with Devenipiatissa, is addressed to "all the conquered
territories of the raja, even unto the ends of the earth; as in Chola,
in Pida, in Keralaputra, _and in Tambapanni_ (or Ceylon)." This license
of speech, reminding one of the grandiloquent epistles "from the
Flaminian Gate," was no doubt assumed in virtue of the recent
establishment of Buddhism, or, as it is called in the _Mahawanso_ "the
religion of the Vanquisher," and Asoca, as its propagator, thus claims
to address the converts as his "subjects."]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215. The king Upatissa, A.D. 368,
in the midst of a solemn ceremonial, "observing ants, and other insects
drowning in an inundation, halted, and having swept them towards the
with the feathers of a peacock's tail, and enabled them to save a
themselves, he continued the procession."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii p.
249; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49, 52; _Rajavali_, p. 228.]
CHAP. VII
FATE OF THE ABORIGINES.
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
It has already been shown, that devotion and policy combined to
accelerate the progress of social improvement in Ceylon, and that before
the close of the third century of the Christian era, the island to the
north of the Kandyan mountains contained numerous cities and villages,
adorned with temples and dagobas, and seated in the midst of highly
cultivated fields. The face of the country exhibited broad expanses of
rice land, irrigated by artificial lakes, and canals of proportionate
magnitude, by which the waters from the rivers, which would otherwise
have flowed idly to the sea, were diverted inland in all directions to
fertilise the rice fields of the interior.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. xxxvii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
In the formation of these prodigious tanks, the labour chiefly employed
was that of the aboriginal inhabitants, the Yakkhos and Nagas, directed
by the science and skill of the conquerors. Their contributions of this
kind, though in the instance of the Buddhist converts they may have been
to some extent voluntary, were, in general, the result of compulsion.[1]
Like the Israelites under the Egyptians, the aborigines were compelled
to make bricks[2] for the stupendous dagobas erected by their
masters[3]; and eight hundred years after the subjugation of the island,
the _Rajavali_ describes vast reservoirs and appliances for irrigation,
as being constructed by the forced labour of the Yakkhos[4] under the
superintendence of Brahman engineers.[5] This, to some extent, accounts
for the prodigious amount of labour bestowed on these structures; labour
which the whole revenue of the kingdom would not have sufficed to
purchase, had it not been otherwise procurable.
[Footnote 1: In some instances the soldiers of the king were employed in
forming works of irrigation.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii.]
[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 237, 238. Exceptions to the extortion of
forced labour for public works took place under the more pious kings,
who made a merit of paying the workmen employed in the erection of
dagobas and other religious monuments.--_Mahawanso_, ch, xxxv.]
[Footnote 5: _Maharwanso_, ch. x.]
Under this system, the fate of the aborigines was that usually
consequent on the subjugation of an inferior race by one more highly
civilised. The process of their absorption into the dominant race was
slow, and for centuries they continued to exist distinct, as a
subjugated people. So firmly rooted amongst them was the worship both of
demons and serpents, that, notwithstanding the ascendency of Buddhism,
many centuries elapsed before it was ostensibly abandoned; from time to
time, "demon offerings" were made from the royal treasury[1]; and one of
the kings, in his enlarged liberality, ordered that for every ten
villages there should be maintained an astrologer and a "devil-dancer,"
in addition to the doctor and the priest.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_. p. 23.]
[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii.;
_Rajavali_, p. 241.]
Throughout the Singhalese chronicles, the notices of the aborigines are
but casual, and occasionally contemptuous. Sometimes they allude to
"slaves of the Yakkho tribe,"[1] and in recording the progress and
completion of the tanks and other stupendous works, the _Mahawanso_ and
the _Rajaratnacari_, in order to indicate the inferiority of the natives
to their masters, speak of their conjoint labours as that of "men and
snakes,"[2] and "men and demons."[3]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xix, p. 115.]
[Footnote 3: The King Maha-Sen, anxious for the promotion of
agriculture, caused many tanks to be made "by men and
devils."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii.; UPHAM'S _Transl.; Rajaratnacari_, p.
69; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
Notwithstanding the degradation of the natives, it was indispensable to
"befriend the interests" of a race so numerous and so useful; hence,
they were frequently employed in the military expeditions of the Wijayan
sovereigns[1], and the earlier kings of that dynasty admitted the rank
of the Yakkho chiefs who shared in these enterprises. They assigned a
suburb of the capital for their residence[2], and on festive occasions
they were seated on thrones of equal eminence with that of the king.[3]
But every aspiration towards a recovery of their independence was
checked by a device less characteristic of ingenuity in the ascendant
race, than of simplicity combined with jealousy in the aborigines. The
feeling was encouraged and matured into a conviction which prevailed to
the latest period of the Singhalese sovereignty, that no individual of
pure Singhalese extraction could be elevated to the supreme power, since
no one could prostrate himself before one of his own nation.[4]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. x.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid.,_ ch. x. p. 67.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid.,_ p. 66.]
[Footnote 4: JOINVILLE'S _Asiat. Res,_ vol. vii. p. 422.]
For successive generations, however, the natives, although treated with
partial kindness, were regarded as a separate race. Even the children of
Wijayo, by his first wife Kuweni, united themselves with their maternal
connexions on the repudiation of their mother by the king, "and retained
the attributes of Yakkhos,"[1] and by that designation the natives
continued to be distinguished down to the reign of Dutugaimunu.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. vii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
In spite of every attempt at conciliation, the process of amalgamation
between the two races was reluctant and slow. The earliest Bengal
immigrants sought wives among the Tamils, on the opposite coast of
India[1]; and although their descendants intermarried with the natives,
the great mass of the population long held aloof from the invaders, and
occasionally vented their impatience in rebellion.[2] Hence the progress
of civilisation amongst them was but partial and slow, and in the
narratives of the early rulers of the island there is ample evidence
that the aborigines long retained their habits of shyness and timidity.
[Footnote 1: _Ibid.,_ p. 53.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, lxxxv.]
Notwithstanding the frequent resort of every nation of antiquity to its
coasts, the accounts of the first voyagers are almost wholly confined to
descriptions of the loveliness of the country, the singular brilliancy
of its jewels, the richness of its pearls, the sagacity of its
elephants, and the delicacy and abundance of its spices; but the
information which they furnish regarding its inhabitants is so uniformly
meagre, as to attest the absence of intercourse; and the writers of all
nations, Romans, Greeks, Arabians, Chinese and Indians, concur in their
allusions to the unsocial and uncivilised customs of the islanders.[1]
[Footnote 1: See an account of these singular peculiarities, Vol. I. P.
IV. c. vii.]
As the Bengal adventurers advanced into the interior of the island, a
large section of the natives withdrew into the forests and hunting
grounds on the eastern and southern coasts.[1] There, subsisting by the
bow[2] and the chase, they adhered, with moody tenacity, to the rude
habits of their race; and in the Veddah of the present day, there is
still to be recognised a remnant of the untamed aborigines of Ceylon.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Hiouen Thsang,_ the Chinese geographer, who visited India
in the seventh century, says that at that time the Yakkhos had retired
to the south-east corner of Ceylon;--and here their descendants, the
Veddahs, are found at the present day,--_Voyages,_ &c., liv. iv. p.
200.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiv. p. 145, xxxiii. p. 204.]
[Footnote 3: DE ALWIS, _Sidath Sangara,_ p. xvii. For an account of the
Veddahs and their present condition, see Vol. II. P. ix. ch. iii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
Even those of the original race who slowly conformed to the religion and
habits of their masters, were never entirely emancipated from the
ascendency of their ancient superstitions. Traces of the worship of
snakes and demons are to the present hour clearly perceptible amongst
them; the Buddhists still resort to the incantations of the "devil
dancers" in case of danger and emergency[1]; a Singhalese, rather than
put a Cobra de Capello to death, encloses the reptile in a wicker cage,
and sets it adrift on the nearest stream; and in the island of
Nainativoe, to the south-west of Jaffa, there was till recently a little
temple, dedicated to the goddess Naga Tambiran, in which consecrated
serpents were tenderly reared by the Pandarams, and daily fed at the
expense of the worshippers.[2]
[Footnote 1: For an account of Demon worship as it still exists in
Ceylon, see Sir J. EMERSON TENNANT'S _History of Christianity in
Ceylon,_ ch. v. p. 236.]
[Footnote 2: CASIE CHITTY'S _Gazetteer, &c.,_ p. 169.]
CHAP. VIII
EXTINCTION OF THE "GREAT DYNASTY."
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
From the death of Dutugaimunu to the exhaustion of the superior dynasty
on the death of Malta-Sen, A.D. 301, there are few demonstrations of
pious munificence to signalise the policy of the intervening sovereigns.
The king whom, next to Devenipiatissa and Dutugaimunu, the Buddhist
historians rejoice to exalt as one of the champions of the faith, was
Walagam-bahu I.[1], whose reign, though marked by vicissitudes, was
productive of lasting benefit to the national faith. Walagam-bahu
ascended the throne B.C. 104., but was almost immediately forced to
abdicate by an incursion of the Malabars; who, concerting a simultaneous
landing at several parts of the island, combined their movements so
successfully that they seized on Anarajapoora, and drove the king into
concealment in the mountains near Adam's Peak; and whilst one portion of
the invaders returned laden with plunder to the Dekkan, their companions
remained behind and held undisputed possession of the northern parts of
Ceylon for nearly fifteen years.
[Footnote 1: Called in the _Mahawanso_, "Wata-gamini".]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
In this and the frequent incursions which followed, the Malabar leaders
were attracted by the wealth of the country to the north of the
Mahawelli-ganga; the southern portion of the island being either too
wild and unproductive to present a temptation to conquest, or too steep
and inaccessible to afford facilities for invasion. Besides, the
highlanders who inhabit the lofty ranges that lie around Adam's Peak; (a
district known as Malaya, "the region of mountains and torrents,")[1]
then and at all times exhibited their superiority over the lowlanders in
vigour, courage, and endurance. Hence the petty kingdoms of Maya and
Rohuna afforded on every occasion a refuge to the royal family when
driven from the northern capital, and furnished a force to assist in
their return and restoration. Walagam-bahu, after many years'
concealment there, was at last enabled to resume the offensive, and
succeeded in driving out the infidels, and recovering possession of the
sacred city, an event which he commemorated in the usual manner by the
erection of dagobas, tanks, and wiharas.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii.]
[Illustration: THE ALU WIHARA NEAR MATELLE.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 89.]
But the achievement by which most of all he entitled himself to the
gratitude of the Singhalese annalists, was the reduction to writing of
the doctrines and discourses of Buddha, which had been orally delivered
by Mahindo, and previously preserved by tradition alone. These sacred
volumes, which may be termed the Buddhist Scriptures, contain the
Pittakataya, and its commentaries the Atthakatha, and were compiled by a
company of priests in a cave to the north of Matelle, known as the
Aloo-wihara.[1] This, and other caverns in which the king had sought
concealment during his adversity, he caused to be converted into rock
temples after his restoration to power. Amongst the rest, Dambool, which
is the most remarkable of the cave temples of Ceylon from its vastness,
its elaborate ornaments, and the romantic beauty of its situation and
the scenery surrounding it.
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 43. Abouzeyd states that at that
time public writers were employed in recording the traditions of the
island: "Le Royaume de Serendyb a une loi et des docteurs qui
s'assemblent de temps en temps comme se réunissent chez nous les
personnes qui recreillent les traditions du prophète, et les Indiens se
rendent auprès des docteurs, et écrivent sous leurs dictée, la vie de
leurs prophètes et les préceptes de leur loi."--REINAUD, _Relation,
&c.,_ tom. i. p. 127.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 62.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 50.]
The history of the Buddhist religion in Ceylon is not, however, a tale
of uniform prosperity. The first of its domestic enemies was Naga, the
grandson of the pious Walagam-bahu, whom the native, historians
stigmatise by the prefix of "chora" or the "marauder." His story is thus
briefly but emphatically told in the _Mahawanso_: "During the reign of
his father Mahachula, Chora Naga wandered through the island leading the
life of a robber; returning on the demise of the king he assumed the
monarchy; and in the places which had denied him an asylum during his
marauding career, he impiously destroyed the wiharas.[1] After a reign
of twelve years he was poisoned by his queen Anula, and regenerated in
the Lokantariko hell."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii.; _Rajarali_, p. 224; TURNOUR'S
_Epitome_, p. 19; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 43, 44.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 209.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 47.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 41.]
His son, King Kuda Tissa, was also poisoned by his mother, in order to
clear her own way to the throne. The Singhalese annals thus exhibit the
unusual incident of a queen enrolled amongst the monarchs of the _great
dynasty_--a precedent which was followed in after times; Queen Siwalli
having reigned in the succeeding century, A.D. 37, Queen Lila-wati, in
A.D. 1197, and Queen Kalyana-wati in A.D. 1202. From the excessive
vileness of her character, the first of these Singhalese women who
attained to the honours of sovereignty is denounced in the _Mahawanso_
as "the infamous Anula." In the enormity of her crimes and debauchery
she was the Messalina of Ceylon;--she raised to the throne a porter of
the palace with whom she cohabited, descending herself to the
subordinate rank of Queen Consort, and poisoned him to promote a
carpenter in his stead. A carrier of firewood, a Brahman, and numerous
other paramours followed in rapid succession, and shared a similar fate,
till the kingdom was at last relieved from the opprobrium by a son of
Prince Tissa, who put the murderess to death, and restored the royal
line in his own person. His successors for more than two centuries were
a race of pious _fainéants_, undistinguished by any qualities, and
remembered only by their fanatical subserviency to the priesthood.
[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]
Buddhism, relieved from the fury of impiety, was next imperilled by the
danger of schism. Even before the funeral obsequies of Buddha, schism
had displayed itself in Maghadha, and two centuries had not elapsed from
his death till it had manifested itself on no less than seventeen
occasions, and in each instance it was with difficulty checked by
councils in which the priesthood settled the faith in relation to the
points which gave rise to dispute; but not before the actual occurrence
of secessions from the orthodox church.[1] The earliest differences were
on questions of discipline amongst the colleges and fraternities at
Anarajapoora; but in the reign of Wairatissa, A.D. 209, a formidable
controversy arose, impugning the doctrines of Buddhism, and threatening
for a time to rend in sunder the sacred unity of the church.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 21.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xxxiii.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]
Buddhism, although, tolerant of heresy, has ever been vehement in its
persecution of schism. Boldly confident in its own superiority, it bears
without impatience the glaring errors of open antagonists, and seems to
exult in the contiguity of competing systems as if deriving strength by
comparison. In this respect it exhibits a similarity to the religion of
Brahma, which regards with composure shades of doctrinal difference, and
only rises into jealous energy in support of the distinctions of caste,
an infringement of which might endanger the supremacy of the
priesthood.[1] To the assaults of open opponents the Buddhist displays
the calmest indifference, convinced that in its undiminished strength,
his faith is firm and inexpugnable; his vigilance is only excited by the
alarm of internal dissent, and all his passions are aroused to stifle
the symptoms of schism.[2]
[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, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] 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'à présent un ouvrage de ce genre aussi bien exécuté et capable de
soutenir la comparaison avec cette encyclopédie 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 _Dáthá dhátu_, 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 quitté la _terre de Han_,
plusieurs années s'étaient écoulées; les gens avec lesquels il avait des
rapports étaient tous des hommes de contrées étrangères. Les montagnes,
les rivières, les herbes, les arbres, tout ce qui avait frappé ses yeux
était nouveau pour lui. De plus, ceux qui avaient fait route avec lui,
s'en étaient séparés, les uns s'étant arrêtés, et les autres étant
morts. En réfléchissant au passé, son coeur était toujours rempli de
pensées et de tristesse. Tout à coup, à cóté de cette figure de jaspe,
il vit un marchand qui faisait hommage à la statue d'un éventail de
taffetas blanc du pays de _Tsin_. Sans qu'en s'en aperçût cela lui causa
une émotion telle que ses larmes coulèrent et remplirent ses yeux." (FA
HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.) "Tsin" means the
province of Chensi, which was the birthplace of Fa Hian.]
[Footnote 2: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] 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.]
[Illustration: FORTIFIED ROCK OF SIGIRI]
[Sidenote: A.D. 495.]
Meanwhile, after an interval of eighteen years, Mogallana, having in his
exile collected a sufficient force, returned from India to avenge the
murder of his father; and the brothers encountered each other in a
decisive engagement at Ambatthakolo in the Seven Corles. Kasyapa,
perceiving a swamp in his front, turned the elephant which he rode into
a side path to avoid it; on which his army in alarm raised the shout
that "their liege lord was flying," and in the confusion which followed,
Mogallana, having struck off the head of his brother, returned the krese
to its scabbard, and led his followers to take possession of the
capital; where he avenged the death of his father, by the execution of
the minister who had consented to it. He established a marine force to
guard the island against the descents of the Malabars, and "having
purified both the orthodox dharma[1], and the religion of the
vanquisher, he died, after reigning eighteen years, signalised by acts
of piety."[2] This story as related by its eye-witness, Mahanamo, forms
one of the most characteristic, as well as the best authenticated
episodes of contemporary history presented by the annals of Ceylon.
[Footnote 1: The doctrines of Buddha.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxix. Manuscript translation by TURNOUR.
TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, says Kasyapa "committed suicide on the field
of battle," but this does not appear from the narrative of the
_Mahawanso_.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
Such was the feebleness of the royal house, that of the eight kings who
succeeded Mogallana between A.D. 515 and A.D. 586, two died by suicide,
three by murder, and one from grief occasioned by the treason of his
son. The anarchy consequent upon such disorganisation stimulated the
rapacity of the Malabars; and the chronicles of the following centuries
are filled with the accounts of their descents on the island and the
misery inflicted by their excesses.
CHAP. X.
THE DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS.
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
It has been already explained that the invaders who engaged in forays
into Ceylon, though known by the general epithet of Malabars (or as they
are designated in Pali, _damilos_, "Tamils"), were also natives of
places in India remote from that now known as Malabar. They were, in
reality, the inhabitants of one of the earliest states organised in
Southern India, the kingdom of Pandya[1], whose sovereigns, from their
intelligence, and their encouragement of native literature, have been
appropriately styled "the Ptolemies of India." Their dominions, which
covered the extremity of the peninsula, comprehended the greater portion
of the Coromandel coast, extending to Canara on the western coast, and
southwards to the sea.[2] Their kingdom was subsequently contracted in
dimensions, by the successive independence of Malabar, the rise of the
state of Chera to the west, of Ramnad to the south, and of Chola in the
east, till it sank in modern times into the petty government of the
Naicks of Madura.[3]
[Footnote 1: Pandya, as a kingdom was not unknown in classical times,
and its ruler was the [Greek: Basileus Pandiôn] mentioned in the
_Periplus of the Erythræan Sea_, and the king Pandion, who sent an
embassy to Augustus.--PLINY, vi. 26; PTOLEMY, vii. 1.]
[Footnote 2: See an _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, by
Prof. H. H. WILSON, _Asiat. Journ._, vol. iii.]
[Footnote 3: See _ante_, p. 353, n.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
The relation between this portion of the Dekkan and the early colonisers
of Ceylon was rendered intimate by many concurring incidents. Wijayo
himself was connected by maternal descent with the king of Kalinga[1],
now known as the Northern Circars; his second wife was the daughter of
the king of Pandya, and the ladies who accompanied her to Ceylon were
given in marriage to his ministers and officers.[2] Similar alliances
were afterwards frequent; and the Singhalese annalists allude on more
than one occasion to the "damilo consorts" of their sovereigns.[3]
Intimate intercourse and consanguinity, were thus established from the
remotest period. Adventurers from the opposite coast were encouraged by
the previous settlers; high employments were thrown open to them,
Malabars were subsidised both as cavalry and as seamen; and the first
abuse of their privileges was in the instance of the brothers Sena and
Goottika, who, holding naval and military commands, took advantage of
their position and seized on the throne, B.C. 237; apparently with such
acquiescence on the part of the people, that even the _Mahawanso_
praises the righteousness of their reign, which was prolonged to
twenty-two years, when they were put to death by the rightful heir to
the throne.[4]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 43.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 53; the _Rajarali_ (p. 173) says
they were 700 in number.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.]
[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxi. p. 127.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
The easy success of the first usurpers encouraged the ambition of fresh
aspirants, and barely ten years elapsed till the _first_ regular
invasion of the island took place, under the illustrious Elala, who,
with an army from Mysore (then called Chola or Soli), subdued the entire
of Ceylon, north of the Mahawelli-ganga, and compelled the chiefs of the
rest of the island, and the kings of Rohuna and Maya, to acknowledge his
supremacy and become his tributaries.[1] As in the instance of the
previous revolt, the people exhibited such faint resistance to the
usurpation, that the reign of Elala extended to forty-four years. It is
difficult to conceive that their quiescence under a stranger was
entirely ascribable to the fact, that the rule of the Malabars, although
adverse to Buddhism, was characterised by justice and impartiality.
Possibly they recognised to some extent their pretensions, as founded on
their relationship to the legitimate sovereigns of the island, and hence
they bore their sway without impatience.[2]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 17; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 128;
_Rajavali_, p. 188.]
[Footnote 2: See _ante_, p. 360, n.]
The majority of the subsequent invasions of Ceylon by the Malabars
partook less of the character of conquest than of forays, by a restless
and energetic race, into a fertile and defenceless country. Mantotte, on
the northwest coast, near Adam's Bridge, became the great place of
debarcation; and here successive bands of marauders landed time after
time without meeting any effectual resistance from the unwarlike
Singhalese.
The _second_ great invasion took place about a century after the first,
B.C. 103, when seven Malabar leaders effected simultaneous descents at
different points of the coast[1], and combined with a disaffected
"Brahman prince" of Rohuna, to force Walagam-bahu I. to surrender his
sovereignty. The king, after an ineffectual show of resistance, fled to
the mountains of Malaya; one of the invaders carried off the queen to
the coast of India; a third despoiled the temples of Anarajapoora and
retired, whilst the others continued in possession of the capital for
nearly fifteen years, till Walagam-bahu, by the aid of the Rohuna
highlanders, succeeded in recovering the throne.
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 16. The _Mahawanso_ says they
landed at "Mahatittha."--_Mantotte_, ch. xxxiii. p. 203.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
The _third_ great invasion on record[1] was in its character still more
predatory than those which preceded it, but it was headed by a king in
person, who carried away 12,000 Singhalese as slaves to Mysore. It
occurred in the reign of Waknais, A.D. 110, whose son Gaja-bahu, A.D.
113, avenged the outrage by invading the Solee country with an
expedition which sailed from Jaffnapatam, and brought back not only the
rescued Singhalese captives, but also a multitude of Solleans, whom the
king established on lands in the Alootcoor Corle, where the Malabar
features are thought to be discernible to the present day.[2]
[Footnote 1: This incursion of the Malabars is not mentioned in the
_Mahawanso_, but it is described in the _Rajavali_, p. 229, and
mentioned by TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, &c., p. 21. There is evidence of
the conscious supremacy of the Malabars over the north of Ceylon, in the
fourth century, in a very curious document, relating to that period. The
existence of a colony of Jews at Cochin, in the southwestern extremity
of the Dekkan, has long been known in Europe, and half a century ago,
particulars of their condition and numbers were published by Dr.
Claudius Buchanan. (_Christian Researches, &c._) Amongst other facts, he
made known their possession of Hebrew MSS. demonstrative of the great
antiquity of their settlement in India, and also of their title deeds of
land (_sasanams_), engraved on plates of copper, and presented to them
by the early kings of that portion of the peninsula. Some of the latter
have been carefully translated into English (see _Madras Journ._, vol.
xiii. xiv.). One of their MSS. has recently been brought to England,
under circumstances which are recounted by Mr. FORSTER, in the third
vol. of his _One Primeval Language_, p. 303. This MS. I have been
permitted to examine. It is in corrupted Rabbinical Hebrew, written
about the year 1781, and contains a partial synopsis of the modern
history of the section of the Jewish nation to whom it belongs; with
accounts of their arrival in the year A.D. 68, and of their reception by
the Malabar kings. Of one of the latter, frequently spoken of by the
honorific style of SRI PERUMAL, but identifiable with IRAVI VARMAR, who
reigned A.D. 379, the manuscript says that his "_rule extended from Goa
to Colombo_."]
[Footnote 2: CASTE CHITTY, _Ceylon Gazetteer_, p. 7.]
A long interval of repose followed, and no fresh expedition from India
is mentioned in the chronicles of Ceylon till A.D. 433, when the capital
was again taken by the Malabars; the Singhalese families fled beyond the
Mahawelli-ganga; and the invaders occupied the entire extent of the
Pihiti Ratta, where for twenty-seven years, five of them in succession
administered the government, till Dhatu Sena collected forces sufficient
to overpower the strangers, and, emerging from his retreat in Rohuna,
recovered possession of the north of the island.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 243; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
Dhatu Sena, after his victory, seems to have made an attempt, though an
ineffectual one, to reverse the policy which had operated under his
predecessors as an incentive to the immigration of Malabars; settlement
and intermarriages had been all along encouraged[1], and even during the
recent usurpation, many Singhalese families of rank had formed
connections with the Damilos. The schisms among the Buddhist themselves,
tending as they did to engraft Brahmanical rites upon the doctrines of
the purer faith, seem to have promoted and matured the intimacy between
the two people; some of the Singhalese kings erected temples to the gods
of the Hindus[2], and the promoters of the Wytulian heresy found a
refuge from persecution amongst their sympathisers in the Dekkan.[3]
[Footnote 1: Anula, the queen of Ceylon, A.D. 47, met with no opposition
in raising one of her Malabar husbands to the throne.--TURNOUR'S
_Epitome_, p. 19. Sotthi Sena, who reigned A.D. 432, had a Damilo
queen.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.]
[Footnote 2: Sri Sanga Bo III. A.D. 702, "made a figure of the God
Vishnu; and was a supporter of the religion of Buddha, and a friend of
the people."--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 78.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 234; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p.
25.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]
The Malabars, trained to arms, now resorted in such numbers to Ceylon,
that the leaders in civil commotions were accustomed to hire them in
bands to act against the royal forces[1]; and whilst no precautions were
adopted to check the landing of marauders on the coast, the invaders
constructed forts throughout the country to protect their conquests from
recapture by the natives. Proud of these successful expeditions, the
native records of the Chola kings make mention of their victories; and
in one of their grants of land, engraved on copper, and still in
existence, Viradeva-Chola, the sovereign by whom it was made, is
described as having triumphed over "Madura, Izham, Caruvar, and the
crowned head of Pandyan;" Izham, (or Ilám) being the Tamil name of
Ceylon.[2] On their expulsion by Dhatu Sena, he took possession of the
fortresses and extirpated the Damilos; degraded the Singhalese who had
intermarried with them; confiscated their estates in favour of those who
had remained true to his cause; and organised a naval force for the
protection of the coasts[3] of the island.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvi. p. 238.]
[Footnote 2: DOWSON, on the Chera Kingdom of India.--_Asiat. Journ._
vol. viii. p. 24.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawansa_ ch. xxxviii. p. 256. and xxxix. TURNOUR'S MS.,
_Trans._]
But his vigorous policy produced no permanent effect; his son Mogallana,
after the murder of his father and the usurpation of Kasyapa, fled for
refuge to the coast of India, and subsequently recovered possession of
the throne, by the aid of a force which he collected there.[1] In the
succession of assassinations, conspiracies, and civil wars which
distracted the kingdom in the sixth and seventh centuries, during the
struggles of the rival branches of the royal house, each claimant, in
his adversity, betook himself to the Indian continent, and Malabar
mercenaries from Pandya and Soli enrolled themselves indifferently under
any leader, and deposed or restored kings at their pleasure.[2]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 29; _Rajavali_ p. 244.]
[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 31; _Rajavali_ p. 247.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 523.]
The _Rajavali_, in a single passage enumerates fourteen sovereigns who
were murdered each by his successor, between A.D. 523, and A.D. 648.
During a period of such violence and anarchy, peaceful industry was
suspended, and extensive emigrations took place to Bahar and Orissa.
Buddhism, however, was still predominant, and protection was accorded to
its professors.
[Sidenote: A.D. 640.]
Hiouen Thsang, a Chinese traveller, wno visited India between 629 A.D.
and 645[1], encountered numbers of exiles, who informed him that they
fled from civil commotions in Ceylon, in which religion had undergone
persecution, the king had lost his life, cultivation had been
interrupted, and the island exhausted by famine. This account of the
Chinese voyager accords accurately with the events detailed in the
Singhalese annals, in which it is stated that Sanghatissa was deposed
and murdered, A.D. 623, by the Seneriwat, his minister, who, amidst the
horrors of a general famine, was put to death by the people of Rohuna,
and a civil war ensued; one result of which was the defeat of the
Malabar mercenaries and their distribution as slaves to the temples.
Hiouen Thsang relates the particulars of his interviews with the
fugitives, from whom he learned the extraordinary riches of Ceylon, the
number and wealth of its wiharas, the density of its population in
peaceful times, the fertility of its soil, and the abundance of its
produce.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen Thsang, et de ses Voyages
dans l'Inde depuis l'an_ 629 _jusquèn_ 643. _Par_ HOEI-LI _et_
YEN-THSANG, _&c. Traduite du Chinois par_ STANISLAUS JULIEN, Paris,
1853.]
[Footnote 2: "Ce royaume a sept mille li de tour, et sa capitale
quarante li; la population est agglomérée, et la terre produit des
grains en abondance."--HIOUEN-THSANG, liv. iv. p. 194.]
For nearly four hundred years, from the seventh till the eleventh
century, the exploits and escapes of the Malabars occupy a more
prominent portion of the Singbalese annals than that devoted to the
policy of the native sovereigns. They filled every office, including
that of prime minister[1], and they decided the claims of competing
candidates for the crown. At length the island became so infested by
their numbers that the feeble monarchs found it impracticable to effect
their exclusion from Anarajapoora[2]; and to escape from their
proximity, the kings in the eighth century began to move southwards, and
transferred their residence to Pollanarrua, which eventually became the
capital of the kingdom. Enormous tanks were constructed in the vicinity
of the new capital; palaces were erected, surpassing those of the old
city in architectural beauty; dagobas were raised, nearly equal in
altitude to the Thuparama and Ruanwelli, and temples and statues were
hewn out of the living rock, the magnitude and beauty of whose ruins
attest the former splendour of Pollanarrua.[3]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.]
[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, A.D. 686, p. 31.]
[Footnote 3: The first king who built a palace at Pollanarrua was Sri
Sanga Bo II., A.D. 642. His successor, Sri Sanga Bo III., took up his
residence there temporarily, A.D. 702; it was made the capital by Kuda
Akbo, A.D. 769, and its embellishment, the building of colleges, and the
formation of tanks in its vicinity, were the occupations of numbers of
his successors.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 640.]
Notwithstanding their numbers and their power, it is remarkable that the
Malabars were never identified with any plan for promoting the
prosperity and embellishment of Ceylon, or with any undertaking for the
permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were
the earliest colonists, and with whom originated every project for
enriching and adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify
or enrich, but to impoverish and deface;--and nothing can more
strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single
fact that everything tending to exalt and to civilise, in the early
condition of Ceylon, was introduced by the northern conquerors, whilst
all that contributed to ruin and debase it is distinctly traceable to
the presence and influence of the Malabars.
[Sidenote: A.D. 840.]
The Singhalese, either paralysed by dread, made feeble efforts to rid
themselves of the invaders; or fascinated by their military pomp,
endeavoured to conciliate them by alliances. Thus, when the king of
Pandya over-ran the north of Ceylon, A.D. 840, plundered the capital and
despoiled its temples, the unhappy sovereign had no other resource than
to purchase the evacuation of the island by a heavy ransom.[1] Yet such
was the influence still exercised by the Malabars, that within a very
few years his successor on the throne lent his aid to the son of the
same king of Pandya in a war against his father, and conducted the
expedition in person.[2] His army was, in all probability, composed
chiefly of Damilos, with whom he overran the south of the Indian
peninsula, and avenged the outrage inflicted on his own kingdom in the
late reign by bearing back the plunder of Madura.
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 35; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 79.]
[Footnote 2: A.D. 858; _Rajaratnacari_, p, 84.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 954.]
This exploit served to promote a more intimate intercourse between the
two races, and after the lapse of a century, A.D. 954, the king of
Ceylon a second time interposed with an army to aid the Pandyan
sovereign in a quarrel with his neighbour of Chola, wherein the former
was worsted, and forced to seek a refuge in the territory of his insular
ally, whence he was ultimately expelled for conspiracy against his
benefactor. Having fled to India without his regalia, his Cholian rival
made the refusal of the king of Ceylon to surrender them the pretext for
a fresh Malabar invasion, A.D. 990, when the enemy was repulsed by the
mountaineers of Rohuna, who, from the earliest period down to the
present day, have evinced uniform impatience of strangers, and steady
determination to resist their encroachments.
[Sidenote: A.D. 997.]
But such had been the influx of foreigners, that the efforts of these
highland patriots were powerless against their numbers. Mahindo III.,
A.D. 997, married a princess of Calinga[1], and in a civil war which
ensued, during the reign of his son and successor, the novel spectacle
was presented of a Malabar army supporting the cause of the royal family
against Singhalese insurgents. The island was now reduced to the extreme
of anarchy and insecurity; "the foreign population" had increased to
such an extent as to gain a complete ascendency over the native
inhabitants, and the sovereign had lost authority over both.[2]
[Footnote 1: Now the Northern Circars.]
[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 37.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1023.]
In A.D. 1023, the Cholians again invaded Ceylon[1], carried the king
captive to the coast of India (where he died in exile), and established
a Malabar viceroy at Pollanarrua, who held possession of the island for
nearly thirty years, protected in his usurpation by a foreign army.
Thus, "throughout the reign of nineteen kings," says the _Rajaratnacari_
"extending over eighty-six years, the Malabars kept up a continual war
with the Singhalese, till they filled by degrees every village in the
island."[2]
[Footnote 1: In the reign of Mahindo IV.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 85.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1028.]
During the absence of the rightful sovereign, and in the confusion which
ensued on his decease, various members of the royal family arrived at
the sovereignty of Rohuna, the only remnant of free territory left. Four
brothers, each assuming the title of king, contended together for
supremacy; and amidst anarchy and intrigue, each in turn took up the
reins of government, as they fell or were snatched from the hands of his
predecessor[1], till at length, on the retirement of all other
candidates, the forlorn crown was assumed by the minister Lokaiswara,
who held his court at Kattragam, and died A.D. 1071.[2]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 39.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxi.]
CHAP XI.
THE REIGN OF PRAKRAMA BAHU.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1071.]
From the midst of this gloom and despondency, with usurpation successful
in the only province where even a semblance of patriotism survived, and
a foreign enemy universally dominant throughout the rest of Ceylon,
there suddenly arose a dynasty which delivered the island from the sway
of the Malabars, brought back its ancient wealth and tranquillity, and
for the space of a century made it pre-eminently prosperous at home and
victorious in expeditions by which its rulers rendered it respected
abroad.
The founder of this new and vigorous race was a member of the exiled
family, who, on the death of Lokaiswara, was raised to the throne under
the title of Wijayo Bahu.[1] Dissatisfied with the narrow limits of
Rohuna, he resolved on rescuing Pihiti from the usurping strangers; and,
by the courage and loyalty of his mountaineers, he recovered the ancient
capitals from the Malabars, compelled the whole extent of the island to
acknowledge his authority, reunited the several kingdoms of Ceylon under
one national banner, and, "for the security of Lanka against foreign
invasion, placed trustworthy chiefs at the head of paid troops, and
stationed them round the coast."[2] Thus signally successful at home,
the fame of his exploits "extended over all Dambadiva[3], and
ambassadors arrived at his court from the sovereigns of India and Siam."
[Footnote 1: A.D. 1071.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lix.; _Rajaranacari_, p. 58; _Rajavali_,
p. 251; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 39.]
[Footnote 3: India Proper.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1126.]
As he died without heirs a contest arose about the succession, which
threatened again to dissever the unity of the kingdom by arraying Rohuna
and the south against the brother of Wijayo Bahu, who had gained
possession of Pollanarrua. But in this emergency the pretensions of all
other claimants to the crown were overruled in favour of Prakrama, a
prince of accomplishments and energy so unrivalled as to secure for him
the partiality of his kindred and the admiration of the people at large.
He was son to the youngest of four brothers who had recently contended
together for the crown, and his ambition from childhood had been to
rescue his country from foreign dominion, and consolidate the monarchy
in his own person. He completed by foreign travel an education which,
according to the _Mahawanso_, comprised every science and accomplishment
of the age in which he lived, including theology, medicine, and logic;
grammar, poetry, and music; the training of the elephant and the
management of the horse.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxiv.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1153.]
On the death of his father he was proclaimed king by the people, and a
summons was addressed by him to his surviving uncle, calling on him to
resign in his favour and pay allegiance to his supremacy. As the feeling
of the nation was with him, the issue of a civil war left him master of
Ceylon. He celebrated his coronation as King of Pihiti at Pollanarrua,
A.D. 1153, and two years later after reducing the refractory chiefs of
Rohuna to obedience, he repeated the ceremonial by crowning himself
"sole King of Lanka."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxi.]
There is no name in Singhalese history which holds the same rank in the
admiration of the people as that of Prakrama Bahu, since to the piety of
Devenipiatissa he united the chivalry of Dutugaimunu.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]
The tranquillity insured by the independence and consolidation of his
dominions he rendered subservient to the restoration of religion, the
enrichment of his subjects, and the embellishment of the ancient
capitals of his kingdom; and, ill-satisfied with the inglorious ease
which had contented his predecessors, he aspired to combine the renown
of foreign conquests with the triumphs of domestic policy.
Faithful to the two grand objects of royal solicitude, religion and
agriculture, the earliest attention of Prakrama was directed to the
re-establishment of the one, and the encouragement and extension of the
other. He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, restored the monuments of
religion in more than their pristine splendour, and covered the face of
the kingdom with works for irrigation to an extent which would seem
incredible did not their existing ruins corroborate the historical
narrative of his stupendous labours.
Such had been the ostensible decay of Buddhism during the Malabar
domination that, when the kingdom was recovered from them by Wijayo
Bahu, A.D. 1071, "there was not to be found in the whole island five
tirunansis," and an embassy was bent to Arramana[1] to request that
members of this superior rank of the priesthood might be sent to restore
the order in Ceylon.[2]
[Footnote 1: A part of the Chin-Indian peninsula, probably between
Arracan and Siam.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 85; _Rajavali_, p. 252; _Mahawanso_,
ch, lx.
From the identity of the national faith in the two countries;
intercourse existed between Siam and Ceylon from time immemorial. At a
very early period missions were interchanged for the inter-communication
of Pali literature, and in later times, when, owing to the oppression of
the Malabars certain orders of the priesthood had become extinct in
Ceylon, it became essential to seek a renewal of ordination at the hands
of the Siamese heirarchy (_Rajaratnacari_, p. 86). In the numerous
incursions of the Malabars from Chola and Pandya, the literary treasures
of Ceylon were deliberately destroyed, and the _Mahawanso_ and
_Rajavali_, make frequent lamentations over the loss of the sacred
books. (See also _Rajaratnacari_, pp 77, 95, 97.) At a still later
period the savage Raja Singha who reigned between A.D. 1581 and 1592,
and became a convert to Brahmanism, sought eagerly for Buddhistical
books, and "delighted in burning them in heaps as high as a coco-nut
tree." These losses it was sought to repair by an embassy to Siam, sent
by Kirti-Sri in A.D. 1753, when a copious supply was obtained of Burmese
versions of Pali sacred literature.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]
During the same troublous times, schisms and heresy had combined to
undermine the national belief, and hence one of the first cares of
Prakrama Bahu was to weed out the perverted sects, and establish a
council for the settlement of the faith on debatable points.[1] Dagobas
and statues of Buddha were multiplied without end during his reign, and
temples of every form were erected both at Pollanarrua and throughout
the breadth of the island. Halls for the reading of bana, image rooms,
residences for the priesthood, ambulance halls and rest houses for their
accommodation when on journeys, were built in every district, and rocks
were hollowed into temples; one of which, at Pollanarrua, remains to the
present day with its images of Buddha; "one in a sitting and another in
a lying posture," almost as described in the _Mahawanso_.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. For a description of this temple
see the account of Pollanarrua in the present work, Vol. II. Pt. x. ch.
i.]
In conformity with the spirit of toleration, which is one of the
characteristics of Buddhism, the king "erected a house for the Brahmans
of the capital to afford the comforts of religion even to his Malabar
enemies." And mindful of the divine injunctions engraven on the rock by
King Asoca, "he forbade the animals in the whole of Lanka, both of the
earth and the water, to be killed,"[1] and planted gardens, "resembling
the paradise of the God-King Sakkraia, with trees of all sorts bearing
fruits and odorous flowers."
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii. Among the religious edifices
constructed by Prakrama Bahu in many parts of his kingdom, the
_Mahawanso_, enumerates three temples at Pollanarrua, besides others at
every two or three gows distance; 101 dagobas, 476 statues of Buddha,
and 300 image rooms built, besides 6100 repaired. He built for the
reception of priests from a distance, "230 lodging apartments, 50 halls
for preaching, and 9 for walking, 144 gates, and 192 rooms for the
purpose of offering flowers. He built 12 apartments and 230 halls for
the use of strangers, and 31 rock temples, with tanks, baths, and
gardens for the priesthood."]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]
For the people the king erected almonries at the four gates of the
capital, and hospitals, with slave boys and maidens to wait upon the
sick, superintending them in person, and bringing his medical knowledge
to assist in their direction and management.
Even now the ruins of Pollanarrua, the most picturesque in Ceylon,
attest the care which he lavished on his capital. He surrounded it with
ramparts, raised a fortress within them, and built a palace for his own
residence, containing four thousand apartments. He founded schools and
libraries; built halls for music and dancing; formed tanks for public
baths; opened streets, and surrounded the whole city with a wall which,
if we are to credit the native chronicles, enclosed an area twelve miles
broad by nearly thirty in length.
By his liberality, Rohuna and Pihiti were equally embellished; the
buildings of Vigittapura and Sigiri were renewed; and the ancient
edifices at Anarajapoora were restored, and its temples and palaces
repaired, under the personal superintendence of his minister. It is
worthy of remark that so greatly had the constructive arts declined,
even at that period, in Ceylon, that the king had to "bring Damilo
artificers" from the opposite coast of India to repair the structures at
his capital.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxv. lxxvii.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]
The details preserved in the Singhalese chronicles as to the works for
irrigation which he formed or restored, afford an idea of the prodigious
encouragement bestowed upon agriculture in this reign, as well as of the
extent to which the rule of the Malabars had retarded the progress and
destroyed the earlier traces of civilisation. Fourteen hundred and
seventy tanks were constructed by the king in various parts of the
island, three of them of such vast dimensions that they were known as
the "Seas of Prakrama;"[1] and in addition to these, three hundred
others were formed by him for the special benefit of the priests. The
"Great Lakes" which he repaired, as specified in the _Mahawanso_, amount
to thirteen hundred and ninety-five, and the smaller ones which he
restored or enlarged to nine hundred and sixty. Besides these, he made
five hundred and thirty-four watercourses and canals, by damming up the
rivers, and repaired three thousand six hundred and twenty-one.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 88]
[Footnote 2: The useful ambition of signalising their reign by the
construction of works of irrigation, is still exhibited by the Buddhist
sovereigns of the East; and the king of Burmah in his interview with the
British envoy in 1855, advanced his exploits of this nature as his
highest claim to distinction. The conversation is thus reported in
YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission_. London, 1858.
"_King._ Have you seen any of the royal tanks at Oung-ben-le', which
have recently been constructed?
"_Envoy._ I have not been yet, your Majesty, but I purpose going.
"_King._ I have caused _ninety-nine_ tanks and ancient reservoirs to be
dug and repaired; and _sixty-six_ canals: whereby a great deal of rice
land will be available. * * * In the reign of Nauraba-dzyar 9999 tanks
and canals were constructed: I purpose renewing them."--P. 109.]
The bare enumeration of such labours conveys an idea of the prodigious
extent to which structures of this kind had been multiplied by the early
kings; and we are enabled to form an estimate of the activity of
agriculture in the twelfth century, and the vast population whose wants
it supplied, by the thousands of reservoirs still partially used, though
in ruins; and the still greater number now dry and deserted, and
concealed by dense jungle, in districts once waving with yellow grain.
Such was the internal tranquillity which, under his rule, pervaded
Ceylon, that an inscription, engraved by one of his successors, on the
rock of Dambool, after describing the general peace and "security which
he established, as well in the wilderness as in the inhabited places,"
records that, "even a woman might traverse the island with a precious
jewel and not be asked what it was."[1]
[Footnote 1: Moore's melody, beginning "Rich and rare were the gems she
wore," was founded on a parallel figure illustrative of the security of
Ireland under the rule of King Brien; when, according to Warner, "a
maiden undertook a journey done, from one extremity of the kingdom to
another, with only a wand in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of
exceeding great value."]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]
In the midst of these congenial operations the energetic king had
command of military resources, sufficient not only to repress revolt
within his own dominions, but also to carry war into distant countries,
which had offered him insult or inflicted injury on his subjects. His
first foreign expedition was fitted out to chastise the king of Cambodia
and Arramana[1] in the Siamese peninsula, who had plundered merchants
from Ceylon, visiting those countries to trade in elephants; he had
likewise intercepted a vessel which was carrying some Singhalese
princesses, had outraged Prakrama's ambassador, and had dismissed him
mutilated and maimed. A fleet sailed on this service in the sixteenth
year of Prakrama's reign, he effected a landing in Arramana, vanquished
the king, and obtained full satisfaction.[2] He next directed his arms
against the Pandyan king, for the countenance which that prince had
uniformly given to the Malabar invaders of the island. He reduced Pandya
and Chola, rendered their sovereigns his tributaries, and having founded
a city within the territory of the latter, and coined money in his own
name, he returned in triumph to Ceylon.[3]
[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 406, n.]
[Footnote 2: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 41; _Mahawanso_, lxxiv.;
_Rajaratnacari_, p. 87; _Rajavali_, p. 254.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvi. I am not aware whether the Tamil
historians have chronicled this remarkable expedition, and the conquest
of this portion of the Dekkan by the king of Ceylon; but in the
catalogue of the Kings appended by Prof. WILSON to his _Historical
Sketch of Pandya_ (Asiat. Journ. vol. iii. p. 201) the name of "Pracrama
Baghu" occurs as the sixty-fifth in the list of sovereigns of that
state. For an account of Dipaldenia, where he probably coined his Indian
money, see _Asiat. Soc. Journ. Bengal_, v. vi. pp. 218, 301.]
"Thus," says the _Mahawanso_, "was the whole island of Lanka improved
and beautified by this king, whose majesty is famous in the annals of
good deeds, who was faithful in the religion of Buddha, and whose fame
extended abroad as the light of the moon."[1] "Having departed this
life," adds the author of the _Rajavali_, "he was found on a silver rock
in the wilderness of the Himalaya, where are eighty-four thousand
mountains of gold, and where he will reign as a king as long as the
world endures."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxviii]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 91.]
CHAP. XII.
FATE OF THE SINGHALESE MONARCHY.--ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE, A.D. 1501.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1186.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1187.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1192.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1196.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1197.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1202.]
The reign of Prakrama Bahu, the most glorious in the annals of Ceylon,
is the last which has any pretension to renown. His family were unequal
to sustain or extend the honours he had won, and his nephew[1], a pious
voluptuary, by whom he was succeeded, was killed in an intrigue with the
daughter of a herdsman whilst awaiting the result of an appeal to the
Buddhist sovereign of Arramana to aid him in reforming religion. His
murderer, whom he had previously nominated his successor, himself fell
by assassination. An heir to the throne was discovered amongst the
Singhalese exiles on the coast of India[2], but death soon ended his
brief reign. His brother and his nephew in turn assumed the crown; both
were despatched by the Adigar, who, having allied himself with the royal
family by marrying the widow of the great Prakrama, contrived to place
her on the throne, under the title of Queen Leela-Wattee, A.D. 1197.
Within less than three years she was deposed by an usurper, and he being
speedily put to flight, another queen, Kalyana-Wattee, was placed at the
head of the kingdom. The next ill-fated sovereign, a baby of three
months old, was speedily set aside by means of a hired force, and the
first queen, Leela-Wattee, restored to the throne. But the same band who
had effected a revolution in her favour were prompt to repeat the
exploit; she was a second time deposed, and a third time recalled by the
intervention of foreign mercenaries.[3]
[Footnote 1: Wijayo Bahu II., killed by Mihindo, A.D. 1187.]
[Footnote 2: Kirti Nissanga, brought from Calinga, A.D. 1192.]
[Footnote 3: Of the very rare examples now extant of Singhalese coins,
one of the most remarkable bears the name of Leela-Wattee.--_Numismatic
Chronicle, 1853. Papers on some Coins of Ceylon, by_ W.S.W. Vaux,
_Esq_., p. 126.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1211.]
Within thirty years from the decease of Prakrama Bahu, the kingdom was
reduced to such an extremity of weakness by contentions amongst the
royal family, and by the excesses of their partisans, that the vigilant
Malabars seized the opportunity to land with an army of 24,000 men,
reconquered the whole of the island, and Magha, their leader, became
king of Ceylon A.D. 1211.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 256.]
The adventurers who invaded Ceylon on this occasion came not from Chola
or Pandya, as before, but from Calinga, that portion of the Dekkan which
now forms the Northern Circars. Their domination was marked by more than
ordinary cruelty, and the _Mahawanso_ and _Rajaratnacari_ describe with
painful elaboration the extinction of Buddhism, the overthrow of
temples, the ruin of dagobas, the expulsion of priests, and the
occupation of their dwellings by Damilos, the outrage of castes, the
violation of property, and the torture of its possessors to extract the
disclosure of their treasures, "till the whole island resembled a
dwelling in flames or a house darkened by funeral rites."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxix.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 93;
_Rajavali_, p. 256.]
[Illustration]
[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-ké-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
_ridé_ 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.