194 



KANDY AND PERADEXIA. 



[Part VII. 



CHAP. V. 



]L\XDY AND PERADEXIA. 



TTaxdy presents no arcliitectural monument mtli any 

 pretension to antiquity. Its singularly seciu"e position, 

 in a peninsula formed b}^ a sweep of the great river 

 and surrounded by a double circumvallation of moun- 

 tains, may, at a very early period, liave rendered it a 

 stronghold of tlie princes of Maya ; but the first mention 

 of it as a city is at tlie beginning of the fourteenth 

 century \ when a temple was built there to contain the 

 dalada and other rehcs. From possessing these it be- 

 came an important seat of the Buddhist hierarchy, and 

 eventually the residence of branches of tlie royal family. 

 But it was not till the close of the sixteenth century 

 tliat it was adopted as the capital of the island, after 

 the destruction of Cotta and the defeat of Eaja Siugha 

 n., by Winiala Dliarma, a.d. 1592. The town at that 

 time probabh' occupied in part the valley afterwards 

 submerged by the construction of the Kandy Lake, 

 whicli was formed by the last kino-, in 1807. Dmins; 

 the wars with the Portuguese and tlie Dutch, Kandy 

 was so repeatedly burned and otherwise destroyed that 

 scarcely any i)art of the ancient buildings, except the 

 temples and the royal residence, was remaining when 

 the English obtained possession of the city in 1815.- 



' 111 the ]»'i>>ii of r<uulita I'rak- 

 rama Balm III., between 12G7 and 

 1801 A.I). — Mdhairanso, cli. Ix.vxiii. ; 

 Rajdratnocdri. p. 104. 



- Tlie Portuguese captured Kandy 

 in A.r». 1592, and they bunied it in 

 A.D. 1627 (RiiiEVRO, pt. ii. ch. i. 



p. 192) ; and again in A.D. 1G."37 

 (Faeia y SorzA, pt. iv. ch. ^-iii. p. 

 375). The Dutch occupied it after 

 its destruction by its own inhabitants 

 in A.D. 1704 ; — and it Wiiij partijxlly 

 biinit by the king on the approach of 

 the Eno-lish in a^d. 1803. 



