No. 60. — 1908.] couto : htstorv of ceylon. 



61 



COUTO. 



DECADE V. 

 1536-1545 a.d. 



Portuguese Governors of India. — Nuno da Cunha, governor, 

 November 1529 to September 1530 ; D. Garcia de Noronha, 

 viceroy, September 1530 to April 1540 ; D. Estevao da 

 Gama, governor, April 1540 to May 1542 ; Martim Affonso 

 de Sousa, governor, May 1542 to September 1546. 



Sinhalese Rulers in Ceylon. — Bhuvaneka Bahu VII., 1534-51 

 (Kotte); Mayadunne, 1534-81 (?), (Sitavaka) ; Vira Vikrama, 

 1542-45 (Kandy). 



Tamil King in Jaffna. — Sangili. 



In this Decade Couto tells us of the attempts made by Maya- 

 dunne to oust his brother Bhuvaneka Bahu from the throne of 

 Kotte, laying siege to the city twice, between 1536 and 1539, 

 and having the help of a Moorish force from Calecut. The 

 siege was raised on the first occasion by Martim Affonso de 

 Sousa (who subsequently inflicted a severe defeat on the Moors 

 near Ramesvaram), 1 and on the second by Miguel Ferreira, 

 when the Moorish leaders were treacherously murdered. We 

 are also told of Bhuvaneka Bahu's sending (in 1540) an am- 

 bassador to the king of Portugal with a golden image of his 

 infant grandson to be crowned as his successor. Jaffna first 

 appears in Couto's history in a somewhat incidental manner. 

 In one chapter Couto gives an account of the ancient history of 

 the island as obtained by him from native sources ; in another 

 a learned dissertation on the opinions held by ancient geo- 

 graphers regarding Taprobana ; and in a third, an interesting 

 discussion on Adam's Peak. 



1 As the above incidents are recorded also in the Barros-Lavanha 

 Dec. IV. , I have combined the versions of the latter with those of 

 Couto (see infra, pp. 73-9, 90-8). 



