8 
JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VoL. XXII. 
social study of the period. Almost all the principal highways 
and cities of the time traversed by these winged messengers 
are described. The Selalihini Sandesa, " tlie sela message," 
written circa 1450 by the priest Sri Rahula, describes the route 
between Kot^te and Kelaniya. The distance being short, the 
bird is made to take a circuitous course, byway of Gurubebila 
(Hanvella) on to Kelaniya, to enable the poet to describe the 
intervening country.^ The Paravi Sandesa, " dov^e message," 
by the same author, describes the route between Ko^te and 
Dondra, the dove -messenger flying along the seabeach road 
now traversed by the railway from Colombo to Matara. The 
Gird Sandesa, the " parrot-message," by an unknown poet, is a 
very valuable poem, teemiag with allusions to contemporary 
events and manners, and describes the route from Kott© to 
Totagamuva and the educational establishment Vijaya 
Bahu Pirivenaof Sri Rahula. The HaV'Sa, or Tisara Sandesa, 
ascribed to the High Priest Vidagama Maitreya, conveys a 
message by a " swan " from the capital to the Buddhist hierarch 
Vanaratana Mahasami, then presiding over the ecclesiastical 
college of Padmavati Pirivena at Keragala. This work 
illustrates in detail the aspect of the capital, and contains a 
vivid presentation of the royal durbar with the different ranks 
of officials who stood before the throne. There is yet another 
Tisara SandesahQlongmgio the same period by a different hand, 
which unfortunately I could not consult, the poem not being 
printed, and no manuscript being available to me for reference. 
iLheKovul Sandesa,'^ " the cuckoo (koU) message," apart from 
its literary excellence, has great value from a historical point 
of view. It was composed by the priestly warden of the 
Irugalkula Pirivena at Mulgirigala in the Southern Province, 
and invokes a blessing on Sapumalkumara, who was then 
administering Jaffna as prince regent, soon after the conquest, 
and contaias a contemporary picture of the capital city of 
Jaffna and its environs. The poems of S ri Rahula glow with an 
intense patriotism and affection for the royal family, and even 
in the Kdvyasekhara, which deals with a birth tale of the 
Buddha, there are scattered allusions to the ancestry, virtues, 
1 But vide Appendix B. 
2 Still unpublished. 
