412 THE SINGHALESE CHKONICLES. [Part III. 



A.D. old, was speedily set aside by means of a hired 

 1202. force, and the first queen, Leela-Wattee, restored to 

 the throne. But the same band who had eflfected 

 a revolution hi her favour were prompt to repeat 

 the exploit ; she was a second time deposed, and a 

 third time recaUed by the intervention of foreign merce- 

 naries.^ 

 A.D. Within thh-ty 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 Idng of Ceylon a.d. 

 1211.2 



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 

 Bajaratnacari describe with painful elaboration the 

 extinction of Buddhism, the overthrow of temples, the 

 ruin of dagobas, the expulsion of priests, and the occu- 

 pation of their dwelhngs 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 dwelhng in flames 

 or a house darkened by funeral rites." ^ 



On all former occasions Eohuna and the South had 

 been comparatively free from the actual presence of the 

 enemy, but in this instance they estabhshed themselves 



^ Of the very rare examples now 

 extant of Singhalese coins, one of the 

 most remarkable bears the name of 

 Leela-Wattee. — Numismatic Chron i- 

 cle, 185.3. Pajjers on some Coins of 

 Ceylon, hy'V\\ S. W. Vaux,^*-^., p. 12G. 



^ Rq/avali, p. 256. 



* llahawanso, ch. Ixxix. ; Raja- 

 ratnacari, p. 93 j Rajavali, p. 250. 



