that in IIO B.C., when thousands of Cingalese were carried away captive. Maha Sena, mentioned above, was an "apostate king" who encouraged heretic sects to the discomfiture of the monks of the Maha Vihara, who had held their position unchallenged from the time of Tissa. Turnour's version of the Mahawansa includes and goes beyond Maha Sena, telling the tale of the kings up to Kasyapa I, the tenth Cingalese king of the Suluwansa. But in the time of the eighth king of this class, Mitta Sena (A.D. 433), the Tamils acquired such ascendancy that they actually reigned for five and twenty years. Then Dhatu Sena (A.D. 459) succeeded in freeing the land from them, and held the sovereignty for the next quarter of a century.

He was a good king, but came to a most unhappy end. He had a daughter, whom he loved dearly, and gave in marriage to his nephew, who was also his chief general. This man flogged her "on her thighs with a whip," and the king, furiously angry, caused the nephew's mother, presumably his own sister, to be burnt. The nephew made common cause with the king's son, Kasyapa, and rose against him. Another and older son, Moggallana, thereupon fled for safety, leaving his father a prisoner.

The nephew, desirous of revenge, suggested to his cousin Kasyapa that the old king was concealing treasure in order that he might give it to Moggallana. Therefore again and again Kasyapa sent demanding of his father to tell him where the treasures were concealed. The old king was longing to bathe once more in Kalawapi tank

(called by the Cingalese Kala-Wewa), which he had made, and he thought that by means of a ruse he might accomplish his desire and see his friend the thero, or monk, there, so at last he replied to his son, "If ye will take me to the Kalawapi tank, I shall be able to tell where the treasures are," and so he was allowed to go. The thero met him with pleasure, making a meal of "grain mixed with meat," or, as Wijesinha has it, "a rich meal of beans with the flesh of water-fowl" for him, and sat and talked to him, and when it was finished the old king went down to the tank, "diving into and bathing delightedly in it," and when he had finished he said quietly to Kasyapa's guards, who stood impatiently awaiting him, "Oh, friends, this is all the treasure that I possess." They hurried him back to Anuradhapura and told the story to the usurping king, who, furious at being thus deluded, seized his father and threw him into a cell.

The general (his nephew) clothed himself in his richest garments and walked up and down before the poor captive king, who weakly tried to conciliate him, but he would have none of it. Then he stripped the king naked, and bound him with chains inside the wall (of his prison) with his face to the east, and caused it to be "plastered up with clay."

But we are told that the king's terrible end was only justice, for, when many years before, in the days of his prosperity, he was building the great tank, he saw a priest sitting there meditating, and in his impatience he could not wait until the man recovered from his absorption, but

ordered earth to be heaped over him, and had him buried alive!

The wretch Kasyapa knew no peace, for he was frightened of the vengeance of his brother, and, having failed to kill him by sending his groom and cook for that purpose, he himself fled to the strong rock of Sigiri. "He cleared it round about, and surrounded it by a rampart and built galleries in it (ornamented) with figures of lions, wherefore it took its name of Sihagiri (the lion's rock)," and he built a palace there. We shall meet Kasyapa again.

In the middle of the ninth century A.D. there was a great Tamil invasion by the king of Pandy (Madura), and though one of the Cingalese princes made a valiant stand at Abhayagiri vihara (or temple) single-handed, he had to fly at last. Then the Pandyan king took all the valuables of Anuradhapura, including the jewels in the king's palace, the golden image set up in it, the jewelled eyes of another statue, the golden coverings of Thuparama, and the golden images in the different viharas, and laid waste the "beautiful city."

After this time the place now called Polonnaruwa became the real capital, though it never attained the sacredness of Anuradhapura, and the king (Sena I) returned again to the wasted city when the Tamils had withdrawn.

Polonnaruwa is quite a modern name and is never mentioned in the Mahawansa. There the town is referred to as Pulatthi and another ancient name is Pulastipura.

The relations of the Pandyans with the Cinga

lese after this are much mixed, because we find the king's successor and grandson Sena II (date A.D. 866 as given by Wijesinha) going to India to help a prince of Pandy who had quarrelled with his father, and the combined forces penetrated to the capital and even recovered many of the things which had been previously carried away from Ceylon.

At last, in the reign of Mahinda V (A.D. 1001), disaster overwhelmed the Cingalese. The kings had been in the habit of maintaining armies of Malabars as mercenaries, but this king, being a mild man, did not enforce the collection of revenue, and had no money to pay them, so they revolted, and he fled by a secret passage (he was at that time at Anuradhapura) and escaped to Rohuna. So the invaders had everything their own way; and, hearing how it was, more enemies came over from India and took all the spoil from the relic houses of Anuradhapura, and "like unto demons who suck up blood, they took to themselves all the substance that was also therein," and they carried the king himself away captive.

Wijaya Bahu I, grandson of Mahinda, ascended 1065 (almost the date of our own William the Conqueror); he reigned for seventeen years in Rohuna, holding together the remnant of his people, and then he attacked Polonnaruwa still held by the Tamils. The Tamils sallied forth, but were driven back into the city, whereupon they shut the gates and manned the walls; but after six weeks they had

1 From this point the dates in the text are taken from Wijesinha's version as Turnour's text goes no further than Kasyapa I.

to give in, and the king became lord of the throne of his ancestors and went up to be crowned at Anuradhapura, but he lived at Polonnaruwa.

He built round Polonnaruwa "a strong wall of great height, and ornamented it with plasterwork, and protected it with towers built thereon, and with a deep moat round about it of great length and breadth, so that the enemy could not easily break through it."

Wijaya Bahu reigned for fifty-five years, he was a great poet among other things, and his good deeds were notorious; even "to well-born women that were helpless by becoming widows he gave land and food and raiment according to their necessities." His brother succeeded him, reigning only one year, and then came his son, Wikrama Bahu (A.D. 1121), who was an unfaithful king, and gave away the precious relics to his followers, and apparently also to buy off insurrectionists, so the priests took the sacred Toothrelic and Alms-bowl relic while they were safe and fled to Rohuna with them. The king managed, however, to retain his throne for twenty-one years and handed it on to his son, Gaja Bahu II (A.D. 1142), who reigned twenty-two years, but was defeated and succeeded by the great hero Parakrama Bahu, who ascended in 1164 (according to Wickremasinghe, 1153). He was the son of Princess Ratanavali, daughter of Wijaya Bahu I, of whom he was therefore a grandson. Parakrama's life is interwoven with Polonnaruwa, and most of the existing buildings there owe their origin to him, so his story, which reads like that of one of the old Greek heroes, will be told in connection