396 



THE SIXGHALESE CHROMCLES. 



[Part III. 



A.D. 



515. 



fact, that tlie rule of tlie 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 sove- 

 reigns of the island, and hence they bore their sway with- 

 out impatience.^ 



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 north- 

 west coast, near Adam's Bridge, became the great place of 

 clebarcation ; and here successive bands of marauders 

 landed time after time without meeting any effectual resist- 

 ance from the unwarhke 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 ^, and combined with a disaffected " Brahman 

 prince " of Eohuna, to force Walagam-bahu I. to sur- 

 render 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 Eohuna highlanders, succeeded in recovering the 

 throne. 



The third great invasion on record ^ was in its cha- 



1 See ante, p. 3G0, n. 



^ Tdtinouk's Epitome, p. 16. The 

 Muliaii'unso says they landed at 

 " Mahatittha." — Mantotte, ch. xxxiii. 

 p. 203. 



^ This incursion of the Malabars 

 is not mentioned in the Mnliawanso, 

 but it is described in the Rajavali, p. 

 229, and mentioned by Tttrnoith, in 

 his Ejntome, S^-c, p. 21. There is 

 evidence of the conscious supremacy 

 of the ]\Ialabars over the north of 

 Ceylon, in the fourth century, in a 



very curious document, relating to 

 that period. The existence of a co- 

 lony of .Tews at Cochin, in the south- 

 Vfestern extremity of the Dekkan, 

 has long been kuowTi in Europe, and 

 half a century ago, particulars of 

 their condition and numbers were 

 published by Dr. Claudius Buchanan. 

 {Christian Researches, 4''c.) Amongst 

 other facts, he made known their 

 possession of Hebrew MSS. demon- 

 sti-atiA'e of the great antiquity of their 

 settlement in India, and also of their 



