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[Vol. XX. 



died 1 at the age of eighty years 2 , the divine justice permitting 

 that he who was the murderer of his father 3 should die by 

 the hand of his own son ; and that just as he murdered his 

 brothers, in order to take the kingdom from them 4 , another 

 should murder his sons in order to take from him his. 



That insolent and arrogant Madune, who had given so much 

 trouble to the Portuguese 5 , being dead, tiaju forthwith raised 

 his camp and went to Ceitavaca and took possession of the 

 palace and treasure of his father ; and getting his brothers into 

 his hands he murdered them, among whom was the heir to 

 the kingdom named Pale Pandar 6 , who was commonly called 



1 See supra, p. 177. The Mahavansa (xcii. 4) says that Raja Sinha 

 ''slew his father with his own hand." Linsch. (i. 78) records the 

 event in the curious statement that " not long since a simple barber 

 murthered their [the Sinhalese] chief king," adding that the name of 

 this " barber " was "Raju." The diarist of Spilbergen's voyage, while 

 repudiating the idea that Raja Sinha was " a barber's son, as some 

 write," asserts (see Gey. Lit. Reg. vi. 332) that he was a bastard by a 

 danceress, and also lays to his charge the murder of his father and 

 " three brothers the lawful heirs." It must be remembered that Couto 

 was in India at the time referred to, and Linschoten a few years later ; 

 and all three writers reflect what was evidently the common opinion, 

 which the Mahavansa substantiates. Therefore I cannot accept the 

 arguments to the contrary brought forward by W. F. Gunawardhana 

 Mudaliyar, in his paper on " Raja Sinha I." in the C. A. S. Jl. xviii. 

 382 ff., based as they are on the silence of such late writers as Ribeiro 

 and Baldseus and the anticipatory statement of the Rdjdvaliya quoted 

 by me supra, p. 208, note 3 . 



2 Couto is the only writer that records Mayadunne's age at the time 

 of his death ; and if this " round number " be accepted as approxi- 

 mately correct, it would place Mayadunne's birth in circa 1501. This, 

 I think, is a little too early ; and perhaps the " seventy years " of the 

 Rdjdvaliya (86) were in reality the extent of his life, and not of his 

 reign, as erroneously stated. (Mudaliyar W. F. Gunawardhana 

 accepts the Rdjdvaliya statement, which would make Mayadunne's 

 reign begin in 1511! He also, by an ingenious calculation, evolves 

 ninety-one as the age at which the old king died, " an honoured parent 

 and a powerful prince. ' ' ) That Mayadunne died in 158 1 is now generally 

 accepted. 



3 See supra, V. i. v. (p. 72) ; Rdjdvaliya 76. 



4 There appears to be no ground for this charge. (Cf. supra, 

 V. i. vi., pp. 72-3.) 



& See supra, V. i. vi. et cet. seq., and cf. p. 177. 



6 " Pale " apparently represents the second component of the name 

 " Timbiripola." The latest mention of this prince by the Rdjdvaliya 

 is in connection with an engagement between Mayadunne's troops and 

 the Portuguese and Dharmapala's forces, in 1556 apparently (p. 85). 



