History of Sri Lanka

 

FROM THE PAGES OF HISTORY

Advent of Vijaya

Vijaya grew up to be a wayward youth, collected a band of ruffians about him and harassed the people who complained to the king. Sinhabahu warned his son thrice, but Vijaya did not give up his evil ways. The king thereupon apprehended Vijaya and seven hundred of his followers, had their heads half shaven as a punishment, and sent them away from his kingdom in a ship. Their wives were sent away in a second ship and the children in a third. The ships drifted apart in the sea, the ship with the women on board touching land in Mahiladvipa (the Island of Females) and that with the children arriving at Naggadipa (the Island of the Naked Men, possibly the Nicobars).

The ship with Vijaya and his followers on board touched at the port of Supparaka (Sopara, north of Bombay), but their behaviour was such that they were driven out and put out to sea once more. According to one account, the port of Barukachcha (Broach, near Surat) was the place where the exiles met with a hostile reception. The ship eventually arrived in Ceylon, and Vijaya and his men came ashore. Thankful for their deliverance they grasped the earth with their hands, which became red by contact with the soil. They thereupon named the place Tambapanni (copper-coloured hand); the name was later extended in its application to the district and to the whole Island.

Vijaya is said to have landed at Tambapanni on the very day of the Buddha’s Parinirvana (Passing-away). The Buddha, it is said, foresaw that Vijaya would convert this Island into an abode of men, and that His religion would flourish there in the future. He therefore requested Indra, the king of gods, to protect Vijaya and his followers. Indra deputed Uppalavanna (Varuna) for this task, and that deity, in the guise of a hermit, was awaiting Vijaya on the day of his landing. It was from him that Vijaya and his followers learnt that the place at which they had arrived was called Sirisavaththu, inhabited by demons (Yaksas). Uppalavanna protected the exiles by tying the sacred paritta thread on their wrists. Following a bitch, who was in reality, a Yaksini in disguise, Vijaya’s men came into the power of Kuveni, the daughter of a Yaksa king, but no harm befell them, as they were protected by the sacred thread. Vijaya went in search of his men and, learning that they were held as prisoners of Kuveni, threatened to kill her if they were not released. She not only yielded and gave up the men, but also offered her hand to Vijaya, who accepted her advances. Kuveni pointed out to him a stratagem by means of which he was able to slay the Yaksas, himself being invisible, on the occasion of a wedding feast of theirs. Having rid the Island of Yaksas, Vijaya built a city at the place of his landing. Several of his followers established settlements at various places, which were named after them. These were Upatissagama on the Gambhira river, Anuradhagama on the Kadamba river, Ujjeni, Uruvela and Vijita.

Being satisfied that they had firmly established themselves in a new land of promise, Vijaya’s followers wished to consecrate their leader as king. Vijaya, however, refused to be consecrated until he had a Ksatriya consort to share his throne. Envoys were therefore sent with costly presents to the Pandu king at Madhura, soliciting the hand of his daughter for Vijaya. The Pandu king not only agreed to send his daughter, called Vijayi, to be Vijaya’s consort, but also sent seven hundred maidens as brides for his followers. Moreover, he sent bands of craftsmen and a thousand families of the eighteen guilds to set the new kingdom on its feet. The Pandu princess, with her numerous retinue, landed at Mahatittha. On the receipt of this news, Vijaya requested Kuveni, with her two children by him, to leave Tambapanni and go to her own people. She was reluctant, but was compelled to leave Vijaya and go to the Yaksas at Lankapura, where she was slain by her people for betraying them. The two children, a son and a daughter, were spared and they, it is said, grew up and became the ancestors of the Pulindas (the Veddas of today).

Vijaya was duly consecrated with the Pandu princess as his consort. He established friendly relations with his father-in-law, to whom he sent valuable presents every year. He reigned for thirty-eight years with Tambapanni as his capital, but his Pandu princess did not provide him with an heir. When he saw that his end was nearing, he sent for his younger brother Sumitta in Sinhapura to come to Ceylon and become its king. But Sumitta had already been crowned king of Sinhapura, and had no desire to leave his native land. He, however, sent to Ceylon his youngest son, named Panduvasudeva, whose mother was a princess of the Maddas, a Ksatriya clan in the Punjab. Vijaya passed away before Panduvasudeva arrived in Ceylon, and the government was administered for a year by the purohita Brahmin named Upatissa from the settlement named after him, says Prof. S. Paranavitana in University of Ceylon - A Concise History of Ceylon.     

 

King Panduvasudeva

Panduvasudeva with thirty-two followers, it is said, arrived in Ceylon in the guise of mendicant monks. They landed at the mouth of Mahakandara river, at the port of Gokanna (the modern Trincomalee) according to the commentator of the chronicle. Panduvasudeva arrived at Upatissagama, and after being installed in the throne, governed the kingdom from that place. Tambapanni ceased to be the royal seat. Panduvasudeva’s consort is said to have been a princess named Bhaddakachchana, who was a daughter of a prince of the Sakya clan to which the Buddha belonged. She is said to have been sent adrift in a ship with thirty-two handmaidens of hers, so that her father may escape from the wrath of a number of powerful rulers who all desired to win her. Fate brought her and her companions to this Island, where in the guise of nuns they went from the port of Gonagama to Upatissagama. The princess became the consort of Panduvasudeva and her thirty-two friends were wedded to the companions of the king. Six of Bhaddakachchana’s brothers came to Ceylon and made this Island their home, the places at which they settled being known by their names. Rama founded Ramagona, Anuradhapura was the place of residence of Anuradha, Vijitagama was named after Vijita and Rohana and Dighayu gave their names, respectively, to a province and a town which subsequently became well-known. It should be noted that three of the places Uruvela, Vijita and Anuradha are also said to have been named after three of Vijaya’s followers, says Prof. S. Paranavitana.

 

Myths, Legends and Folklore I

These stories about the origin of the Sinhalese people and how they came to settle down in the Island are overlaid with myths, legends and folklore. The story of a princess mating with a lion to give birth to the eponymous hero is clearly totemistic in origin. The story of Vijaya and Kuveni had parallels in Greek mythology. The subduing of demons by the hero as a preliminary to the winning of sovereignty goes back to Vedic mythology. The protection of the hero by gods bidden to do so by the Buddha and the synchronization of Vijaya’s landing with the Parinirvana must have been features that developed in the tradition after the Sinhalese royal family had become great supporters of the Buddhist faith. It is therefore very difficult to say with certainty whether the personages named in these stories were historical. What can be safely assumed is that the stories, in a general way, confirm what had been inferred from the earliest epigraphical evidence, that is to say that the Island had ben colonized in the two or three centuries before the third century B.C. by an Aryan speaking people from North India, who obviously arrived by the sea route. The name Tambapanni, said to have been bestowed on the Island by Vijaya and his followers, is also the name of a river in South India, noted for pearl banks at its mouth. The name may have been given to the river as well as to the Island by early pioneers who came in search of pearls.

 

In the traditional account of the colonization of Ceylon by the Indo-Aryans are mentioned places in India far removed from one another. Lata in which was Sinhapura where reigned Vijaya’s father Sinhabahu, was the ancient name for Gujarat. But Sinhabahu’s mother is represented as the daughter of a king of the Vanga (Bengal) born of a Kalinga princess. And Sinhabahu is said to have gone from Vanga to Lata and founded Sinhapura there. It is very difficult to believe that a migration of people took place in those early days right across the Indian Peninsula from Bengal to Gujarat, says Prof. S. Paranavitana.