CEYLON BRANCH— ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 75 



S{ there was no need for several Kings to be in the island of 

 " Ceylon, and accordingly, having assembled his forces, placed 

 " them under the command of his eldest son, Sapoomal Cumara, 

 " and sent them out against the Malabar enemy ; and the Prince 

 " fell upon many villages belonging to Jaffna, and defeated the 

 * same, taking many prisoners, whom he brought to Cotta. 

 " The King sent out his said son for the second time with another 

 4t army ; and this time the Prince entered the city of Jaffna 

 " itself, and made himself master of the ports thereof. When 

 '* the Prince entered Jaffna, he rode upon a black horse ; and 

 * 4 the Malabars; hiding themselves, lay in wait, in order to 

 ' ' direct their efforts against the same, with a view to get the 

 •* Prince into their power; but the Prince's steed sprang amongst 

 !i them, like a tiger on his prey, and put them to Might; and 

 ;£ the Prince himself, in the midst of the Malabars, made such 

 " carnage that the streets of Jaffna ran with blood that day as 

 ** if it had been a river ; and, moreover, the Prince took the 

 H King A wry a Chakrawarta and put him to death, and taking 

 " his wife and children, brought them to Cotta and presented 

 w them to his father, " who, thereupon, " conferred on him 

 46 many presents, and likewise the Government of Jaffna, and thither 

 u he sent him to rule accordingly. " * 



This subjection to foreign power appears, however, to have 

 been of very short duration ; for we find that when the Por- 

 tuguese arrived on the island, Jaffna was governed by its na* 

 tive sovereigns, and was at its highest pitch of glory. Both 

 the Tamil and Singhalese sovereigns not only then lived in amity 

 but had also become related together by an intermarriage.f 



* Upham's Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, vol. ii. p .p. 

 268—269. t Valentyn, in his History of the Indies, vol. v. chap. vi. p. 76, 

 states, that Vidia Bandara KaJa (Weedeye Raja), the father of 

 Darma Palla (Don John Dharmapaala), whom the Portuguese 

 raised to the throne of Cotta in A. D. 1542, was the grandson of 

 Taniam Vallaba (Taniwalla Bdhu, or Tamewalla Abhaya), King 

 of Madampe and brother of Bhuwaneka Bahu 7th, by one of 

 the King's of Jaffna, 



K 



