360 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[PART III. 



CHAP. VI. 



THE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON CIVILISATION. 



B.C. AFTER the reign of Dutugaimunu there is little in the 

 137 ' pages of the native historians to sustain interest in the 

 story of the Singhalese monarchs. The long hue of 

 sovereigns is divided into two distinct classes ; the kings 

 of the Maha-wanse or " superior dynasty " of the uncon- 

 taminated blood of Wijayo, who occupied the throne from 

 his death, B.C. 505, to that of Maha-Sen, A.D. 302, and 

 the kings of the Sulu-wanse or " inferior race," whose de- 

 scent was less pure, but who, amidst invasions, revolutions, 

 and decline, continued, with unsteady hand, to hold the 

 government down to the occupation of the island by 

 Europeans in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 



To the great dynasty, and more especially to its 

 earliest members, the inhabitants were indebted for the 

 first rudiments of civilisation, for the arts of agricultural 

 life, for an organised government, and for a system of 

 national worship. But neither the piety nor the muni- 

 ficence of the kings sufficed to conciliate the personal 

 attachment of their subjects, or to strengthen their throne 

 by national attachment such as would have fortified its 

 occupant against the fatalities incident to despotism. 

 Of fifty-one sovereigns who formed the pure Wijayan 

 dynasty, two were deposed by their subjects, and nine- 

 teen put to death by their successors. 1 Excepting the 



1 There is something very striking 

 in the facility with which aspirants to 

 the throne obtained the instant ac- 

 quiescence of the people, so soon as 

 assassination had put them in pos- 



session of power. This is the more 

 remarkable, where the usm-pers were 

 of the lower grade, as in the in- 

 stance of Subho, a gate porter, who 

 murdered King Yasa Silo, A.D. 60, 



