286 JOURNAL, R.A.s. (ceylon). [Yol. X.VIII. 
Kumara/" and he commanded that the temple services and 
festivals should be maintained without intermission with 
every description of music, such as the music of the drum 
and pipe, and dancing and singing. Having filled it 
with all manner of riches he peopled the city with a great 
multitude."! 
Finding in the weakness of the Sinhalese the most 
favourable opportunity of adding their maritime provinces to 
his own, Arya Chakkrawarti had marched down from 
Jaffna. In order to mask his design, he proclaimed that he 
had come to see the country.^ "Alakeswara, who saw 
through the design of this prince, Avith an army betook 
himself to the village of Rayigama and pitched there. The 
King of Jaffna in the meantime continued to advance and 
seized the seven Sinhalese ports,"§ the only parts that he 
could successfully hold against the Sinhalese, imposed a large 
tax on the inhabitants, and withdrew. While these things 
were passing Alakeswara built a walled town at Rayigama, 
which he plentifully provided with men and provisions, and 
also another between the five villages called Cotta, and a 
moat and a wall there drawn round it. He provided it with 
troops and quantities of arms, and constructed dykes round 
the fortress," so as to flood the country round in the event of 
an invasion. He built moats and tanks to serve as reservoirs, 
and laid in large supplies of salt, cocoanuts, and paddy to 
stand a protracted siege. || When he had fortified Kotte, 
* Sk. Skanda Kumara or Kartikeya, the war-g"od of the Aryans, popularly 
known to the Sinhalese as Katarag-ama Deviyo (from Sk. Kartikeya). 
Kotte would appear to have been under the special protection of this 
divinity, to whom a temple was dedicated. The shrine is singled out for 
praise in Sri Rahula's 8elaMhini Sandesa^Y.'^^^ &c., as the glory of the city. 
f JSIihdya Sangraha (printed edition), p. 26. To this day there are families 
at Kotte bearing ge names showing their descent from sires who came over 
from villages in the neighbourhood of Alakesawara's city of Kayigama, e.g.y 
Bulat-Sijghala, Makalandawa. 
X Valentyn, vol. V., p 71. (Dutch edition). The passages adapted from 
the Dutch are placed within inverted commas. 
§ Properly " nine ports." 
II Rdjavaliya (G-unasekara's translation), p. 66. 
