Part 76 (1/2)

[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 cla.s.sical times, and its ruler was the [Greek: Basileus Pandion] mentioned in the _Periplus of the Erythraean Sea_, and the king Pandion, who sent an emba.s.sy 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. x.x.xviii. 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 Anaraj.a.poora 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 ”Mahat.i.ttha.”--_Mantotte_, ch. x.x.xiii. 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 mult.i.tude 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]