NO. 40.— 1890.] KURUNEGALA ROCKS. 



397 



afflicted with insanity.* The only personage who could 

 effect the necessary cure was Malaya Raja, King of Malaya- 

 desa, who is said to have sprung from a flower. But how 

 was he to be brought to this Island ? Indra devised the 

 means. Rahu, King of the Asurayas, was engaged for the 

 purpose, and, upon the edict of Indra, he assumed the form of 

 a wild boar. He was directed to enter the royal garden of 

 King Malaya and to damage the plantations therein ; which 

 he accordingly did. The king, being informed of the 

 depredations, became very indignant, and, being a keen 

 sportsman, armed with his bow and arrow, and attended by 

 his retinue of huntsmen, hastened to the scene, and ordered 

 his followers to drive the boar towards him. The animal, on 

 being pressed, leaped over the head of His Majesty, escaped 

 from the garden, and effected an entrance into the king's 

 palace, where greater damage was done. Enraged at the 

 wanton destruction and at the audacity of the unclean beast, 

 the king gave chase, and pursued the animal as far as the 

 sea-shore. The boar leaped into the sea. The king and 

 some of his trusty attendants followed, while the others 

 remained on shore watching the chase. Hotly pursued by 



* Davy (" Account of Ceylon," pp. 119-21) gives it as the " tiger disease,'' 

 said to be a complicated malady of cough, asthma, fever, and diabetes, " in 

 consequence of Vijaya, the first king of Ceylon, having discarded his 

 benefactress and mistress Kuveni, who, in the shape of a tigress, 

 endeavoured to avenge her slighted charms." The Kuveni Asna relates that 

 after Vijaya's marriage with the Pandiyan princess she was anointed queen. 

 When living thus in connubial bliss, Kuveni, enraged at the perjury of the 

 king, took the form of a tigress, and put out her tongue, which was one of 

 glass two gows long, so that it may, piercing through and bursting seven 

 doors of the royal palace, enter the heart of the king. The king suddenly 

 awaking broke off the tip of the glass tongue with the point of his finger nail. 

 When this was done, and hearing that a herd of tigresses was moving 

 towards the city in order to hurt the king, a host of gods came to his 

 rescue, and surrounding, protected him from the impending attack. The 

 calamity which threatened his life having been thus averted, Vijaya 

 reigned in the glory of Indra for thirty-eight years, when he passed away to 

 regions of happiness ! The tradition that obtains in the Seven Korales 

 points to insanity as the disease which Panduvasa was suffering from — a 

 visitation resulting from dim dosa, or the curse of the gods, invoked by 

 Kuveni from the heights of Yakdessa-gala. The Rdjavaliya supports this 

 version. Vide Upham's Translation, p. 181. 



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