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



119 



no other heir 1 ; sending him the likeness of his grandson, 

 which was of natural size 2 , in the form of a statue of gold, placed 

 in a large box, with a crown of gold set with many precious 

 stones in the hand for the king to crown it therewith 3 . 

 These ships reached Portugal safely 4 , and the king received 

 these ambassadors very well ; and for the act of swearing 

 the prince the king commanded to summon all the lords 

 of the realm, and carried it out in public assembly with 

 the greatest solemnity and ceremony possible, crowning the 

 prince after the manner of the kingdom, commanding great 

 festivities and bull fights to be held 5 . And having passed 

 to them his letter of confirmation, and bestowed many 

 favours on the ambassadors 6 , he sent them back well satisfied 

 in the next ships 7 . 



Dec. V., Bk. ix., Chap. vii. 



* * * * * * * 



And hoisting sail he [the governor, Martini Alfonso de 

 Sousa] went following his course with strong dry winds until 



1 Possibly this may imply that Bhuvaneka Bahu's daughter was 

 dead. As the marriage seems to have taken place in (June ?) 1538, 

 this " heir " cannot have been more than some eighteen months old. 



2 The original has " que era de Maraa," which is unintelligible. I 

 suspect that Maraa is an error for marca, and that the meaning is 

 what I have given ; though the words might be taken as referring to 

 the prince, in which case they would mean "who was of note." 



3 The Rajdvaliya (77) mentions the golden image, but not the 

 other details. 



4 In August 1541, according to Fig. Falcao. 



5 It is remarkable that of this ceremony and the attendant festi- 

 vities no account is extant, in print at any rate. Ribeiro (I. v.) says 

 that the ceremony took place in 1541 ; but I think it more probable 

 that the year was 1542. 



8 In a valuable paper by the eminent Portuguese scholar Dr. Sousa 

 Viterbo, published in the Historia e Memorias of the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences in Lisbon, and entitled " O Thesouro do Rei de Ceylao," are 

 printed some documents of March 1543 relating to this embassy, chiefly 

 favours granted by King D. Joao III. In these the ambassador is called 

 " Pamditer," the infant grandson " Tammapala Pandarym," the Sinha- 

 lese king " Buhanegabahoo," and his grand chamberlain " Tammatey 

 Samparaprimal ' ' (this last e vidently Vidiye Bandara's brother Tammita 

 Surya Baiidara, whom we shall meet with below, in VI. ix. xviii., &c). 



7 These last words are rather misleading: in fact, the ambassadors left 

 Portugal for India in the fleet that sailed 25 March 1543 under Diogo 

 da Silveira (see C. Lit. Reg. iii. 237, and cf. infra, p. 124, note 



