No. 60.— 1908.] couto : history of ceylo^v 



67 



afraid of them, the day that they intended to embark they 

 captured the king, and sacked his city : and carrying off 

 from it great treasures they departed for China, and presented 

 the captive king to theirs. The latter was very angry at the 

 treachery that his vassals had practised on a king who had 

 received them into his country ; and he forthwith commanded 

 them under pain of death to take him back again to his king- 

 dom, for which purpose he ordered an armada to be got ready, 

 in which he embarked him with every honour 1 ; and so we 

 shall leave him for the moment, to return to him again. 



This captive king had a widowed daughter 2 , who, with two 

 little sons 3 that she had, had the fortune to escape from the 

 Chins on the day of the sack, and with them betook herself 

 into the interior. The Chins having embarked, as the king had 

 no son left, a heathen called Alagexere 4 , to whom the same 

 king had given the government of the realm, seized the king- 

 dom. This man, seeing himself in that position, fulfilling his 

 office with the desire of reigning, strove much to get the prin- 

 cess with the princes into his hands, in order to kill them, and 

 remain secure in the kingdom. This lady was warned of this 

 plan ; and wishing to save her sons, she proceeded with them 

 to the parts about Ceitavaca in disguise, and with such 

 secrecy that she confided in nobody : there she remained 

 sustaining her sons in poverty 5 . The traitor, considering the 

 boys to be dead, crowned himself as emperor of the whole 

 island ; and after he had governed for a little more than two 

 years, there arrived the armada from China, which brought 

 his king, and put in to the port of Columbo. The tyrant 

 caused him to be received with very deceitful demonstrations : 

 and conducting him to the city that night he murdered him 6 , 

 remaining king, as which he lived ten years 7 . This tyrant 



1 It is noteworthy that this statement regarding the remission of 

 Vijaya Bahu, which finds no place in the Rdjdvaliya, is confirmed by the 

 Chinese historians (see Ten. i. 416, 621). 



2 According to the Rdjdvaliya (67) it was Vijaya Bahu's queen 

 Sunetra Devi. 



3 Only one according to the Rdjdvaliya. 



4 Alakesvara or Alagakkonara (see Bell's Rep. on Keg. Dist. 92 ; 

 C. A. S. JL xviii. 281-308). 



5 See Rdjdvaliya 69-70 ; Bell's Rep. on Keg. Dist. 42. 



6 The foregoing is not borne out by any of the Sinhalese chronicles. 



7 Alakesvara appears actually to have ruled for some five or six years. 

 Couto leads us to infer that he died a natural death ; but the Rdjdvaliya 

 states that the elder Visidagama caused him to be put to death. 



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