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

HEVIE\X- AHTICLE 287
"They took all their elephants and horses, as well as their
pearls and costly stones, the royal diadems and all the beauties of
the harem, all ornaments, cloths, mantles, baskets and every kind
of valuables with them in their fear and began to leave the town.
But owing to the action of the King's merit they mistook the regions
of the heavens. They thought it was the eastern gate and marched
out through the western gate and came to Kalavapi where the
army of the Sihalas had set up an entrenched camp. With all
their goods they had alas! also to sacrifice their life by each giving
his to the Sihala warriors, thus carrying out themselves what the
King had only thought. And all the Sihalas taking from them their
accumulated treasures, became from this time onward rich people,
as in ancient times all the dwellers in Mithila who gained the
wealth which the kings, a hundred in number, bad through fear
flung away."
With Magha's defeat the Dambadeniya period in Ceylonese history
started, I will leave the story at this date ( 1236) and come back to it
later. It might be mentioned that another Ceylonese source, the
Pujavaliya, gives Magha a reign of forty years instead of the twenty one
years given by the Culawamsa, that is, from 1215-55. This discrepancy
in the two records will by considered later. Meanwhile two points need
to be mentioned to tighten up the whole story.
In 1225, after Magha had been on the throne for a decade, Chauju-kua,
the Chinese writer, stated that there were fifteen dependencies
ofSan-fo-tsi (Sri Vijaya.) The fifteenth was Si-lan (Ceylon.) Elsewhere
Chau-ju-kua stated that Ceylon was under the Nanpi (Malabar.) These
two records, though seemingly contradictory, when taken together
comprise the fourth of the four irrefutable pieces of evidence in the
story. During the period of twenty years from the death of Nissamkamalla
in 1196 to the advent of Magha in 1215, the island was under the
Kalinga clan for slightly over twelve years, and under the Pandyas for
over seven years. So when the Pandyas were rulers, Chau-ju-kua stated
that the island was under the Nan pi, and when it was under the Kalingas,
as it surely was in 1225, he stated that Si-lan was a dependency of Sanfo-tsi,