No. 44. — 1893.] epic of parakrama. 



67 



The land was divided (after the death of the illustrious 

 Vijaya Bahu, who was contemporary with William the 

 Conqueror) by the dissensions and intrigues of the royal 

 family, into four parts. 



Over the northern kingdom, of which Pulatthi, or Polon- 

 naruwa, was the capital, Gaja Bahu, a cousin of Parakrama, 

 was reigning at the time of our story. This was still looked 

 on as the principal kingdom, the true Sinhalese throne. 



The southern part of the Island, which in the palmy days 

 of the united monarchy had been administered by one 

 subordinate prince, was now divided into three so-called 

 kingdoms under Manabharana, our hero's father, and his two 

 brothers. 



Under this divided government and these weak rulers 

 the condition of the country had not been happy. These 

 rulers lived, the historian tells us, like village headmen, with- 

 out dignity and without ambition. They made no attempt 

 to fulfil the opportunities of their office to the good of 

 others and their own ; but with hearts set only upon cruelty 

 were utterly gone out of the path of duty. 



It does not appear that these chieftains were in any true 

 sense kings over large provinces, or that their provinces put 

 together covered the whole of Southern Ceylon ; on the 

 contrary, the three places in which they are respectively 

 said to have reigned are all (according to Dhammaratana's 

 identification) in the southern Bintenna, the low-country of 

 Uva, in the triangle between Passara, Balangocla, and 

 Hambantota. 



Sankhatthali, where our hero was born, is identified with 

 the modern Alupota in Wellassa, which is also called Maliga- 

 tenna, and where there are still ruins of a palace. There is 

 now a resthouse there, a few miles, as the crow flies, south- 

 east of Passara. His father's little dominion reached south- 

 wards at least as far as Purikhagama orPilagama, believed to 

 be now Galge, on the border between the Buttala and 

 Kataragama districts. His uncle Vallabha had his chief city 

 somewhere in the Kolonna Korale, and Sirimegha, his other 



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