Volume 1 / Part 3 — CHAP XI.

THE REIGN OF PRAKRAMA BAHU.

A.D. 1071.From the midst of this gloom and despondency, with usurpation successful in the only province where even a semblance of patriotism survived, and a foreign enemy universally dominant throughout the rest of Ceylon, there suddenly arose a dynasty which delivered the island from the sway of the Malabars, brought back its ancient wealth and tranquillity, and for the space of a century made it pre-eminently prosperous at home and victorious in expeditions by which its rulers rendered it respected abroad.

The founder of this new and vigorous race was a member of the exiled family, who, on the death of Lokaiswara, was raised to the throne under the title of Wijayo Bahu.[1] Dissatisfied with the narrow limits of Rohuna, he resolved on rescuing Pihiti from the usurping strangers; and, by the courage and loyalty of his mountaineers, he recovered the ancient capitals from the Malabars, compelled the whole extent of the island to acknowledge his authority, reunited the several kingdoms of Ceylon under one national banner, and, "for the security of Lanka against foreign invasion, placed trustworthy chiefs at the head of paid troops, and stationed them round the coast."[2] Thus signally successful at home, the fame of his exploits "extended over all Dambadiva[3], and ambassadors arrived at his court from the sovereigns of India and Siam."

A.D. 1126.As he died without heirs a contest arose about the succession, which threatened again to dissever the unity of the kingdom by arraying Rohuna and the south against the brother of Wijayo Bahu, who had gained possession of Pollanarrua. But in this emergency the pretensions of all other claimants to the crown were overruled in favour of Prakrama, a prince of accomplishments and energy so unrivalled as to secure for him the partiality of his kindred and the admiration of the people at large.

He was son to the youngest of four brothers who had recently contended together for the crown, and his ambition from childhood had been to rescue his country from foreign dominion, and consolidate the monarchy in his own person. He completed by foreign travel an education which, according to the Mahawanso, comprised every science and accomplishment of the age in which he lived, including theology, medicine, and logic; grammar, poetry, and music; the training of the elephant and the management of the horse.[1]

A.D. 1153.On the death of his father he was proclaimed king by the people, and a summons was addressed by him to his surviving uncle, calling on him to resign in his favour and pay allegiance to his supremacy. As the feeling of the nation was with him, the issue of a civil war left him master of Ceylon. He celebrated his coronation as King of Pihiti at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1153, and two years later after reducing the refractory chiefs of Rohuna to obedience, he repeated the ceremonial by crowning himself "sole King of Lanka."[1]

There is no name in Singhalese history which holds the same rank in the admiration of the people as that of Prakrama Bahu, since to the piety of Devenipiatissa he united the chivalry of Dutugaimunu.

A.D. 1155.The tranquillity insured by the independence and consolidation of his dominions he rendered subservient to the restoration of religion, the enrichment of his subjects, and the embellishment of the ancient capitals of his kingdom; and, ill-satisfied with the inglorious ease which had contented his predecessors, he aspired to combine the renown of foreign conquests with the triumphs of domestic policy.

Faithful to the two grand objects of royal solicitude, religion and agriculture, the earliest attention of Prakrama was directed to the re-establishment of the one, and the encouragement and extension of the other. He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, restored the monuments of religion in more than their pristine splendour, and covered the face of the kingdom with works for irrigation to an extent which would seem incredible did not their existing ruins corroborate the historical narrative of his stupendous labours.

Such had been the ostensible decay of Buddhism during the Malabar domination that, when the kingdom was recovered from them by Wijayo Bahu, A.D. 1071, "there was not to be found in the whole island five tirunansis," and an embassy was bent to Arramana[1] to request that members of this superior rank of the priesthood might be sent to restore the order in Ceylon.[2]

A.D. 1155.During the same troublous times, schisms and heresy had combined to undermine the national belief, and hence one of the first cares of Prakrama Bahu was to weed out the perverted sects, and establish a council for the settlement of the faith on debatable points.[1] Dagobas and statues of Buddha were multiplied without end during his reign, and temples of every form were erected both at Pollanarrua and throughout the breadth of the island. Halls for the reading of bana, image rooms, residences for the priesthood, ambulance halls and rest houses for their accommodation when on journeys, were built in every district, and rocks were hollowed into temples; one of which, at Pollanarrua, remains to the present day with its images of Buddha; "one in a sitting and another in a lying posture," almost as described in the Mahawanso.[2]

In conformity with the spirit of toleration, which is one of the characteristics of Buddhism, the king "erected a house for the Brahmans of the capital to afford the comforts of religion even to his Malabar enemies." And mindful of the divine injunctions engraven on the rock by King Asoca, "he forbade the animals in the whole of Lanka, both of the earth and the water, to be killed,"[1] and planted gardens, "resembling the paradise of the God-King Sakkraia, with trees of all sorts bearing fruits and odorous flowers."

A.D. 1155.For the people the king erected almonries at the four gates of the capital, and hospitals, with slave boys and maidens to wait upon the sick, superintending them in person, and bringing his medical knowledge to assist in their direction and management.

Even now the ruins of Pollanarrua, the most picturesque in Ceylon, attest the care which he lavished on his capital. He surrounded it with ramparts, raised a fortress within them, and built a palace for his own residence, containing four thousand apartments. He founded schools and libraries; built halls for music and dancing; formed tanks for public baths; opened streets, and surrounded the whole city with a wall which, if we are to credit the native chronicles, enclosed an area twelve miles broad by nearly thirty in length.

By his liberality, Rohuna and Pihiti were equally embellished; the buildings of Vigittapura and Sigiri were renewed; and the ancient edifices at Anarajapoora were restored, and its temples and palaces repaired, under the personal superintendence of his minister. It is worthy of remark that so greatly had the constructive arts declined, even at that period, in Ceylon, that the king had to "bring Damilo artificers" from the opposite coast of India to repair the structures at his capital.[1]

A.D. 1155.The details preserved in the Singhalese chronicles as to the works for irrigation which he formed or restored, afford an idea of the prodigious encouragement bestowed upon agriculture in this reign, as well as of the extent to which the rule of the Malabars had retarded the progress and destroyed the earlier traces of civilisation. Fourteen hundred and seventy tanks were constructed by the king in various parts of the island, three of them of such vast dimensions that they were known as the "Seas of Prakrama;"[1] and in addition to these, three hundred others were formed by him for the special benefit of the priests. The "Great Lakes" which he repaired, as specified in the Mahawanso, amount to thirteen hundred and ninety-five, and the smaller ones which he restored or enlarged to nine hundred and sixty. Besides these, he made five hundred and thirty-four watercourses and canals, by damming up the rivers, and repaired three thousand six hundred and twenty-one.[2]

The bare enumeration of such labours conveys an idea of the prodigious extent to which structures of this kind had been multiplied by the early kings; and we are enabled to form an estimate of the activity of agriculture in the twelfth century, and the vast population whose wants it supplied, by the thousands of reservoirs still partially used, though in ruins; and the still greater number now dry and deserted, and concealed by dense jungle, in districts once waving with yellow grain. Such was the internal tranquillity which, under his rule, pervaded Ceylon, that an inscription, engraved by one of his successors, on the rock of Dambool, after describing the general peace and "security which he established, as well in the wilderness as in the inhabited places," records that, "even a woman might traverse the island with a precious jewel and not be asked what it was."[1]

A.D. 1155.In the midst of these congenial operations the energetic king had command of military resources, sufficient not only to repress revolt within his own dominions, but also to carry war into distant countries, which had offered him insult or inflicted injury on his subjects. His first foreign expedition was fitted out to chastise the king of Cambodia and Arramana[1] in the Siamese peninsula, who had plundered merchants from Ceylon, visiting those countries to trade in elephants; he had likewise intercepted a vessel which was carrying some Singhalese princesses, had outraged Prakrama's ambassador, and had dismissed him mutilated and maimed. A fleet sailed on this service in the sixteenth year of Prakrama's reign, he effected a landing in Arramana, vanquished the king, and obtained full satisfaction.[2] He next directed his arms against the Pandyan king, for the countenance which that prince had uniformly given to the Malabar invaders of the island. He reduced Pandya and Chola, rendered their sovereigns his tributaries, and having founded a city within the territory of the latter, and coined money in his own name, he returned in triumph to Ceylon.[3]

"Thus," says the Mahawanso, "was the whole island of Lanka improved and beautified by this king, whose majesty is famous in the annals of good deeds, who was faithful in the religion of Buddha, and whose fame extended abroad as the light of the moon."[1] "Having departed this life," adds the author of the Rajavali, "he was found on a silver rock in the wilderness of the Himalaya, where are eighty-four thousand mountains of gold, and where he will reign as a king as long as the world endures."[2]