CHAP. X.] THE DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS. 



397 



racter still more predatory than those which preceded A.D. 

 it, and it was headed by a king in person, who carried 

 away 12,000 Singhalese as slaves to Mysore. It oc- 

 curred in the reign of Waknais, A.D. 110, whose son 

 Gaja-bahu, A.D. 113, avenged the outrage by invading 

 the Solee or Chola country with an expedition which 

 sailed from Jaffnapatam, and brought back not only the 

 rescued Singhalese captives, but also a multitude of 

 Solleans, whonT"the king established on lands in the 

 Alootcoor Corle, where the Malabar features are thought 

 to be discernible to the present day. 1 



A long interval of repose ensued, and no fresh ex- 

 pedition from India is mentioned in the chronicles of 

 Ceylon till A.D. 433, when the capital was again taken 

 by the Malabars ; the Singhalese families fled beyond 

 the Mahawelli-ganga ; and the invaders occupied the 

 entire extent of the Pihiti Eatta, where for twenty- 

 seven years, live of them in succession administered the 

 government, till Dhatu Sena collected forces sufficient 

 to overpower the strangers, and, emerging from his 

 retreat in Eohuna, recovered possession of the north of 

 the island. 2 



Dhatu Sena, after his victory, seems to have made an 

 attempt, though an ineffectual one, to reverse the policy 

 that had operated under his predecessors as an in- 

 centive to the immigration of Malabars; settlement 



title deeds of land (sasanams), en- 

 graved on plates of copper, and pre- 

 sented to them by the early kings of 

 that portion of the peninsula. Some 

 of the latter have been carefully 

 translated into English (see Madras 

 Journ., vol. xiii. xiv.). One of their 

 MSS. has recently been brought to 

 England, under circumstances which 

 are recounted by Mr. FOESTEB, in 

 the third voL of his One Primeval 

 Language, p. 303. This MS. I have 

 been permitted to examine. It is in 

 corrupted Rabbinical Hebrew, writ- 

 ten about the year 1781, and contains 

 a partial synopsis of the modern his- 



tory of the section of the Jewish na- 

 tion to whom it belongs ; with ac- 

 counts of their arrival in the year 

 A.D. 68, and of their reception by the 

 Malabar kings. Of one of the latter, 

 frequently spoken of by the honorific 

 style of SRI PERVMAL, but identifiable 

 with IRA vi VARMAR, who reigned 

 A.D. 379, the manuscript says that 

 his "rule extended from ~Goa to 

 Colombo." 



1 CASIE CHITTY, Ceylon Gazetteer, 

 p. 7. 



2 Rajavali, p. 243 j TuRXOUR's 

 Epitome, p. 27. 



