590 



MEDIAEVAL HISTORY. 



[Part V. 



brought under his dominion the territory of tlie King of 

 Comar, the southern extremity of the Dekkan^, and at 

 the period when Abou-zeyd wrote, he hkewise claimed 

 the sovereignty of " Kalah." 



This incident is not mentioned in the Singhalese chro- 

 nicles, but their silence is not to be regarded as conclu- 

 sive evidence against its probability ; the historians of 

 the Hindus ignore the expedition of Alexander the Great, 

 and it is possible that those of Ceylon, indifferent to all 

 that did not dhectly concern the rehgion of Buddha, may 

 have felt httle interest in the fortunes of Galle, situated as 

 it was at the remote extremity of the island, and in a 

 region that hardly acknowledged a nominal allegiance to 

 the Singhalese crown. 



The assertion of Abou-zeyd as to the sovereignty of 

 the Maharaja of Zabedj, at Kalah, is consistent with the 

 statement of Soleyman in the first portion of the work, 

 that " the island was in subjection to two monarchs ; " ^ 

 and this again agrees with the report of Sopater to 

 Cosmas Indico-pleustes, who adds that the king who 

 possessed the hyacinth was at enmity with the king of 

 the country in which were the harbour and the great 

 emporium.^ 



But there is evidence that the subjection of this por- 

 tion of Ceylon to the chief of the great insular empire 

 was at that period currently beheved in the East. In 

 the " Garsharsj^-Namali" a Persian poem of the tenth 

 century, by Asedi, a manuscript of which was in the 

 possession of Sir Wilham Ouseley, the story turns on a 

 naval expedition, fitted out by Delak, whose dominions 

 extended from Persia to Palestine, and despatched at 

 the request of the Maharaja against Baku, the King of 



1 INIassotjdi relates the conquest of 

 the kiugdoin of Coinar by the Maha- 

 raja of Zabedj, nearly in the same 

 words as it is told by Abou-zeyd; 

 GiLDEMEiSTER, Script. Arab., pp. 145, 

 146. Reinatjd, Memoircii .wr Plnde, 

 p. 225. 



^ Relation, vol. i. p. 6. 



^ At'io £i fiaaiXflt; tialv h' ry vijuo) 

 ivavTioi dXXijXwt', 6 lig t'xaiJ' tuv 

 liaKivGoi', Kal 6 irtpoi; rh fiipo^ to aWo 

 iv w (cnl iinrvuioii ku'i )) \ijxvri' 



Cosmas Indic. 



