324 journal, r.a.s. (ceylon), [Vol. X. 



gedara, the residence of Appurala, A'rachchi of Bombura, 

 situated near the foot of Medamahanuwara-kanda. Thence 

 he sought to take refuge in a cave on the mountain side, but 

 being overtaken by darkness and torrents of rain he missed 

 his way, and returned in sorry plight to Udupitiye-gedara. 

 Here he passed the night, and the next morning (February 

 17) a party of the British having come up under the guidance 

 of the friendly chief Ekneligoda, the three royal personages 

 were seized and stripped of their jewellery and carried 

 captives into Kandy. The Udupitiya family still lives in 

 Bombura, the present occupant of Udupitiye-gedara being a 

 great grandson of the A'rachchi at whose house the king was 

 caught. The site of the original house, the actual scene of 

 the capture, is easily traced, and lies beneath the shade 

 of an ancient tamarind and a siiriya tree. Near it is 

 another house called Uda-gedara, on the site of an older 

 building of the same name, where the English soldiers who 

 accompanied Ekneligoda's party were quartered. I visited 

 these places, and it was not without interest that I looked 

 upon the scenes where, after a chequered history of 2,122 

 years, the last act was played in the drama of Sinhalese 

 monarchy. 



NOTE A. 1 



Medamahanuwara was a place of refuge, and was so used by many 

 of the Kandyan kings during internal dissensions and at the time of 

 their wars against the Portuguese and Dutch. 



King Senarat, who reigned from a.d. 1627 to 1634, embellished the 

 place by erecting the rock fortress Gale-nuwara, a royal palace, and a 

 Dalada temple, as the following translations of two extracts from 

 the Rdjdwaliya and Siyamopasampaddwata will show : — 



Edjdvaliya. — " King Senevirat retired to the city which he had built 

 at Kalagatwatta in Malepane. Having afterwards erected the fortress 

 Gale-nuwara in Medamahanuwara, he publicly held court there. He 

 had three sons, viz., princes Rasin, Vijayapala, and Kumarasinha. 



1 By N. don M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, Assistant Librarian of the 

 Colombo Museum. 



