80 



CETLON BRANCH 



power ; but the Prince's steed "sprang amongst them, like a. 

 tiger on his prey, and put them to flight ; 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 King Awrya 

 Chakrawarta and put him to death, and taking his wife and 

 children, brought them to Cotta and presented them to his 

 father," who thereupon, "conferred on him many presents, 

 and likewise the Government of Jaffna, and thither 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 

 Portuguese arrived on the Island, Jaffna was governed by its 

 native 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 intermar-. 

 riage. f 



In a. d. 1544, when the inhabitants of Manaar em- 

 braced the Christian religion, which was preached there by 

 the disciples of St. Francis Xavier, the then King of Jaffna, 

 who, according to Father Bouhours, had usurped the crown 

 from his elder brother, sent a body of his troops to Manaar 

 and caused 600 of the Christians of both sexes and of all ages 

 to be cruelly massacred ; by this, however, he failed in arrest-, 

 ing the progress of the Gospel in his dominions. The more he 



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

 pp. 268—269. 



f Valentyn, in his History of the Indies, vol. v. chap, vi, p. 76, 

 states, that Vidia Bandara R&]&(Weedeye Raja), the father ofDarma 

 Palla {Don John Dharmapaala), whom the Portuguese raised to the 

 throne of Cotta in A. d. 1542, was the grandson of Taniam Vallaba 

 (Ta.niwa.lla Baku, or Tamewalla Abhaya), King of M.idampe and 

 brother of Bhuwaneka Bahu 7th, by one of the Kings of Jaffna. 



