484 



THE TSrORTIIEEN FORESTS. 



[Part IX. 



where, being adopted by tlie king of the district, she 

 succeeded to his dominions. Meantime, a Hindu 

 prince, having ascertained from the Puranas that the 

 rock of Trincomahe was a holy fragment of the golden 

 mountain of Meru, hurled into its present site dm-ing 

 a conflict of the gods, repaired to Ceylon, and erected 

 upon it a temple to Siva. The princess, hearing of his 

 arrival, sent an army to expel him, but concluded the 

 war by accepting him as her husband ; and in order to 

 endow the pagoda which he had built, she attached to 

 it the vast rice-fields of Tamblegam, and formed the 

 great tank of Kandelai, or Gan-talawa \ for the pur- 

 pose of irrigating the surrounding plain. In process 

 of time, the princess died, and the king, retiring to the 

 Saamy Eock, shut himself up in the pagoda, and was 

 found translated into a golden lotus on the altar of 

 Siva. 



In the earher portion of their career in Ceylon, the 

 PortugTiese showed the utmost indifference to the pos- 

 session of Trincomahe ; but after the appearance of the 

 Dutch on this coast, and the conclusion of an alliance 

 between them and the Emperor of Kandy, Constan- 

 tino de Saa, in 1G22, alarmed at the possibihty of 

 these dauQ-erous rivals forming; estabhshments in the 

 island, took possession of the two ports of Batticaloa 

 and Trincomahe, and ruthlessly demolished the " Temple 

 of a Thousand Columns," in order to employ its mate- 

 rials in fortif\nng the heights on which it stood.^ Some 

 of the idols were rescued from this desecration, and con- 

 veyed to the pagoda of Tamblegam ^ ; but fi-agments of 



^ This, of course, is en'oneoiis, the 

 tank liaving been formed by King 

 Maba Sen between a.d. 275-801. — 

 3Iahftw(mso, ob. xxxiii. p. 238. The 

 Ceylon fiorentnieut Gazette, for 

 Nov. 1881, contains the translation 

 of a metrical legend ■written by 

 Kavi li\.i\ Varothayex, an an- 

 cient Tamil hard of Ceyhjn, who says 

 that the temple was built l)y Kuhok' 



Kotu ^laliaraja, son of a king of 

 Coromandel ; who also reclaimed 

 the surrounding lands for the sup- 

 port of the priests. 



• Valextyn, Oud en Nietno Oost- 

 Ltdien, isjC, ch. xvi. p. 367; Ribeyeo, 

 torn. ii. ch. i. p. 188. 



^ Journal of Vax Sexdex, Go- 

 vernor of Trincomalie^ a.d. 1786. 



