No. 55.— 1904.] ALAKESWARA : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 281 
ALAKESWARA : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 
By Edward W. Perera, Esq., Advocate. 
During the middle of the fourteenth century the Sin- 
halese power had considerably declined. Partly due to the 
draining of the national resources in the attempt to keep back 
the Tamils, the immediate cause of the disorganization of 
the kingdom would appear to have been the presence of a 
Mohammedan usurper on the throne of Kurunegala, Vathimi 
Kumaraya, son of Bhuvaneka Bahu I., by a Moorish woman. 
The hatred aroused by the introduction of Mohammedanism 
as the State religion among an intensely Buddhist population, 
and the pre-occupation and schemes to oust the usurper and 
restore the national faith, allowed no time to the Sinhalese 
to pay any attention to their neighbours, and rendered their 
hold on the outlying Provinces of the country very 
precarious. 
On the western seaboard foreign pirates who had estab- 
lished themselves at the different ports levied toll and tribute 
from the country round and plundered passing vessels. 
On the north the Kingdom of Jaffna daily grew in prestige 
and power. Since the day the blind harper from Chola 
(Tanjore) received from the Sinhalese monarch at Anura- 
dhapura the peninsula of Jaffna as guerdon for his 
minstrelsy,'" the Tamil colony and the dynasty of the prince 
he led over from South India had grown steadily, and the 
unrest in the Sinhalese Kingdom gave them an opportunity 
of quietly developing their resources. 
The accession of the learned Parakrama Bahu IV. to the 
throne of Kurunegala brought back the national faith and a 
settled government. Beyond restoring order in the districts 
* Brito's Yalpana Vaipava Malai^ p. 13. 
