The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

286 IIEV!E\V AIITICLE
everywhere entrusted with the protection of Lanka failed to carry
out this protection, there landed a man who held to a false creed,
whose heart rejoiced in bad statesmanship, who was a forest-fire
burJlng down the bushes in the forest of the good-that is generosity
and the like-who was a sun whose actions closed the rows of night
lotus flowers- that is the good doctrine- and a moon destroying
the grace of the groups of the day lotuses-that is of peace­
( a man) by name Magha, an unjust king sprung from the Kalinga
line, in whom reflection was fooled by his great delusion, landed
as leader of four and twenty thousand warriors from the Kalinga
Country and conquered the Island of Lanka. The great scorching
fire-King Magha-commanded his countless flames of fire-his
warriors to harass the great forest--the kingdom of Lanka."
The Culawamsa was written by the Mahavihara Sect, which
supported the Pandyan faction, so the account is distorted. Other
records, such as the Nikaya-sangraha and the Saddharmaratanakara, give
an entirely different picture and it is said that the calamities that befell
the land happened before the arrival of Magha. The History of Ceylon,
page 245, adds:
"The Minipe inscription, referring to the Tamil invasion
four years before Magha, says that the invaders destroyed the
entire social structure and the religious organisation, a succinct
description of the very thing which the Culawamsa, in many words,
attributes to Magha."
Magha's main concern would seem to have been defence against
invasion from India. He set up forts on the northwest and northeast
coasts of the island, which would not only prevent invasion but at the
same keep time open the trade route to the Malay Peninsula, though in
the unsettled conditions prevailing at the time, it is to be doubted whether
very much local produce could be picked up at the ports. The Simhalese
under Parakramabahu II were left to their own device at Dambadeniya
(Jambuddoni) on the southwest coast of the island. This was a fatal
mistake. In. 1236 the Simhalese, probably in conjunction with the
Pandyas, took him by surprise and Magba \vas driven from Polonnaruva.
Apparently his soldiers fell into an ambush laid by the Simhalese. The
Culawamsa gloated"(page 150):