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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XI. 



extended his kingdom, which surpassed all the other Oriental 

 states, ruling over the land up to forty degrees north. 



This empire remained to the descendants of this miraculous 

 prince for more than two thousand years ; and five hundred 

 years before the coming of Christ was the time when it 

 most flourished. 



Vigia-raju, hereditary son of the last monarch of Tana- 

 parin, became, through his vices, so hated by his vassals r 

 that his own father resolved to banish him from his empire 

 in order to please his subjects, to whom he was more a 

 father than to his own son — an action worthy of a just 

 king, who places the welfare of the kingdom before that of 

 his own flesh and blood. 



Expelled from the monarchy and disinherited for his depra- 

 vity, Vigia-raju took with him four hundred young nobles,* 

 who had been his companions in education and debauchery, 

 and embarked in search of new shores and lands to live 

 in. The first land he discovered was the Island of Gey lan, until 

 then uninhabited ;f and delighted with the fertility of the 

 land and its situation, he made up his mind to live in it, 

 and married the daughter of a neighbouring prince on the 

 opposite shore, who, knowing Vigia-raju, desired to be related 

 to him on account of his celestial lineage, sent over with 

 the princess many of the principal and most noble women of 

 his kingdom for the other exiles. His subjects began by 



" Burnouf conjectures that the point from which Vijaya set sail for 

 Ceylon was the Godavery, where the name of Bandar-maha-lanka (the 

 port of the great Lanka) still commemorates the event. De Couto, recording 

 the Sinhalese tradition as collected by the Portuguese, says he landed at 

 Preature (Periyaturai), between Trincomalie and Jaffna, and that the first 

 city founded by him was Mantota. (Decade, V. I. L. C, 5.) 



f The early inhabitants of Ceylon before Vijaya were said to be the 

 YahWio, or demons, and JVdgas, or snakes. About the female Rahsliasis or 

 demons, Hwieen Thsang, the Chinese traveller of the seventh century, says, 

 they continually were on the look out for the merchants who landed in 

 the Island; they assumed the forms of beautiful women, and coming before 

 them with sweet smelling flowers and musical instruments, enticed them 

 into the iron town. Then they feasted them and gave themselves up to 

 their carnal appetites, after which they shut the merchants up in iron 

 cages and eat them up one after the other. 



