and burst in the gate. It took the warrior four months to demolish the fortifications of Wijito, and another four months to overcome Mahelo. Then he started out for Anuradhapura. Elala was quite ready for him, having heard of the fate of his outposts, and came out to meet him.

Dutugemunu gave command that no one but himself was to attack Elala, and, mounting on the faithful Kandulo, he approached the southern gate of the city. Elala accepted his challenge and met him there, beginning by hurling his spear at this audacious youth. Gemunu evaded it, and made his elephant charge with his tusks the other elephant, and at the same time hurled his javelin at Elala, so that both rider and mount were slain.

This Homeric combat took place 161 B.C., and the details are full of vivid actuality. We can stand near the spot where the mighty joust was played and conjure up the scene. Wonderful to say, Dutugemunu was not deficient in chivalry. He called together the foe, who had submitted on the death of their leader, and held a festival in honour of the dead king.

The corpse was burnt at a funeral pile on the spot where the king fell, a tomb was built over it, and Dutugemunu ordained that it should receive honour, as the Mahawansa says: "Even unto this day, the monarchs who have succeeded to the kingdom of Lanka, on reaching that quarter of the city, whatever the procession may be, they silence their musical band."

And these honours continued to be paid to the

tomb of Elala up to the period of the British occupation. As late as 1818, when the Kandyan chief, Pilamé Talawé, the second of that name, was escaping, after having unsuccessfully organised a revolt against the British, he got down from his litter on approaching the spot and walked for a long way, though weary and ill, until he was quite sure he had passed the precincts, for he was not certain of the exact situation of the tomb. Dutugemunu reigned twenty-four years, and was succeeded by his brother Tissa, for his only son had married a low-caste (Chandala) woman and renounced the succession.

The line of Cingalese sovereigns is divided into two distinct classes: the kings of the Mahawansa, or superior dynasty, which includes all the names up to that of Maha Sena (A.D. 275-302), and the Sula-wansa, or inferior race, who followed, and held the throne down to the occupation of the island by Europeans. But this division is not a question of blood or race, for the king who succeeded Maha Sena was his own son, Kitsiri Maiwan, who, with many of an altogether different race, is included in the Sula-wansa. The distinction

is rather one of power.

There were numerous deeds of violence and murder, numerous usurpations. The kings succeeding Tissa seem to have had as their chief occupations, keeping down the quick growth of jungle, repelling Tamils, and rebuilding shrines and repairing tanks after their incursions. The second great recorded invasion of Tamils was that in 104 B.C., which drove Walagambahu I, or Watagemunu, to Dambulla caves, and the third

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