62 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. XX. 



Dec. V., Bk. i., Chap. v. 



Of the antiquity of the population of the island of Ceilad ; of the 

 beginning and origin of its kings ; and of all those that 

 it had until Bonoega Bao Bandar, who reigned 

 in this year of 1537. 



Since it falls to us here to enter on the wars of Ceilao (which 

 since we discovered that island has always been to the state of 

 India another Carthage to Rome ; because, little by little, it has 

 gone on consuming, in expenses, men and artillery, so much, 

 that it alone has swallowed up with its wars more than all the 

 other conquests of this East 1 ), it will be well for us to give an 

 account of the beginning of its population and of the origin 

 of its kings, a subject regarding which no one has hitherto 

 written except ourselves 2 , the which it cost us much trouble to 

 ascertain from their own writings, which we found in the hands 

 of some princes of that island who came to this city of Goa 3 . 



Accordingly it must be known that about five hundred 

 years before the advent of Christ there was reigning in the 

 kingdom of Ajota (which nowadays we call Tanacarim 4 ) a 

 liea then king, who at that time possessed the greatest empire 

 in the East, since he had under his sceptre all that lies between 

 the river Ganges and Cochin-China 5 , and inland as far as some 

 forty degrees north. This king had a son called Vigia Raya, 

 heir to the kingdom, so wild, and of such a licentious nature, 

 that in all his father's dominions there was not a married 



1 Couto wrote this in 1597 or a little before, at the time when Azevedo 

 the infamous was trying to retrieve the disastrous defeat of Pedro Lopes 

 de Sousa in 1594 by carrying fire and sword through the lowlands of 

 Ceylon (see Dec. XII., passim). 



2 Couto is justified in making this assertion, his summary of the Rdjd- 

 valiya (a very meagre and not very correct one unfortunately) being the 

 earliest version in any European language. 



3 In V. ii. x. (p. 101 ) Couto tells us that he had heard one of these princes 

 chant the Sinhalese chronicles. The princes referred to were probably 

 Dom Filippe of Kandy and his son Dom Joao and nephew Dom 

 Filippe of Sitavaka, all of whom were refugees or captives at Goa shortly 

 before this (see infra, pp. 389, note 4 , 392, note 4 ). 



4 This parenthetical statement is, of cource, founded on a serious 

 blunder, Couto having confused the ancient Ayodhya (Oudh) in 

 Northern India with its modern namesake in Siam (see Hob.-Job. s.vv. 

 " Oudh " and " Judea "). We find the same confusion in his account 

 of the origin of the Solar dynasty in V. n. x. (p. 101). 



6 The Sinhalese chronicles do not credit Sinhabahu with ruling over 

 an empire of any such extent as here stated, and his petty kingdom lay 

 in exactly the opposite direction to that indicated by Couto. 



