NO. 43. — 1892.] SIRIVADDHANAPURA. 



211 



The next step is a curious one. In 1877 the learned 

 Sumangala Terunnanse and the lamented Batuwantudawe 

 Pandit published their Sinhalese translation of the Maha- 

 wansa, and into their text, I know not how, the error crept, 

 which substituted " eight yoduns" for " half a yodun," though 

 they had correctly edited the Pali text some years before. 



It is to be attributed, I suppose, to this oversight, that 

 when the learned Wijesinha Mudaliyar came to make his 

 admirable English version, he adopted the text which those 

 great scholars had adopted, and removed the city 97 miles, 

 instead of 7, from Dambadeniya. 



The truth seemed now in a fair way to be for ever lost sight 

 of, at least by all who formed their opinions from published 

 works, and not from direct study of original authorities. 



But happily there were still in Ceylon students of the 

 latter class, and among them Mr. K. J. Pohath, Mr. D. M. de 

 Zilva Wickremasinghe, Native Assistant to the Archaeological 

 Commissioner, and Welivitiye Dhammaratana Terunnanse, 

 the latter of whom has been kind enough to help me with 

 his opinion. 



The honour of drawing public attention to the mistake 

 belongs to Mr. Pohath, and that of putting the truth in the 

 clearest light to Mr. Wickremasinghe. 



Mr. Pohath communicated to the Orientalist, vol. III., 

 p. 218, the important note which I will now read :— 



Sirivardana Pura. — It may be interesting and useful to point 

 out that Sir Emerson Tennent has made a serious mistake when he 

 says in his History of Ceylon, vol. I., p. 414, that King Pandita Para- 

 krama Bahu (erroneously called by him " Prakrama " Bahu) III. 

 " founded the city of Kandy, then called Sirivardana-pura." The truth 

 is that tbis king never built a city called " Sirivardana-pura," much less 

 the city of Kandy. It was to a city in Hat-k6rale (Seven Korales) called 

 Sirivardana-pura, in the neighbourhood of the city of Dambadeniya, 

 that Pandita Parakrama Bahu III. removed the Dalada-relic. Accord- 

 ing to some histories of Ceylon, Kandy became the capital of the 

 Island in 1371 a.d., and Pandita Parakrama Bahu III. ascended the 

 throne in 1266, more than a century before Kandy became the capital. 



Dr. Murdoch, in his useful compilation of the History of Ceylon, 

 published by the Christian Vernacular Education Society, has fallen 



