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]

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 406, n.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 41; _Mahawanso_, lxxiv.;
_Rajaratnacari_, p. 87; _Rajavali_, p. 254.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvi. I am not aware whether the Tamil
historians have chronicled this remarkable expedition, and the conquest
of this portion of the Dekkan by the king of Ceylon; but in the
catalogue of the Kings appended by Prof. WILSON to his _Historical
Sketch of Pandya_ (Asiat. Journ. vol. iii. p. 201) the name of "Pracrama
Baghu" occurs as the sixty-fifth in the list of sovereigns of that
state. For an account of Dipaldenia, where he probably coined his Indian
money, see _Asiat. Soc. Journ. Bengal_, v. vi. pp. 218, 301.]

"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]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxviii]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 91.]

CHAP. XII.

FATE OF THE SINGHALESE MONARCHY.--ARRIVAL OF THE PORTUGUESE, A.D. 1501.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1155.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1186.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1187.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1192.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1196.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1197.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1202.]

The reign of Prakrama Bahu, the most glorious in the annals of Ceylon,
is the last which has any