pretension to renown. His family were unequal
to sustain or extend the honours he had won, and his nephew[1], a pious
voluptuary, by whom he was succeeded, was killed in an intrigue with the
daughter of a herdsman whilst awaiting the result of an appeal to the
Buddhist sovereign of Arramana to aid him in reforming religion. His
murderer, whom he had previously nominated his successor, himself fell
by assassination. An heir to the throne was discovered amongst the
Singhalese exiles on the coast of India[2], but death soon ended his
brief reign. His brother and his nephew in turn assumed the crown; both
were despatched by the Adigar, who, having allied himself with the royal
family by marrying the widow of the great Prakrama, contrived to place
her on the throne, under the title of Queen Leela-Wattee, A.D. 1197.
Within less than three years she was deposed by an usurper, and he being
speedily put to flight, another queen, Kalyana-Wattee, was placed at the
head of the kingdom. The next ill-fated sovereign, a baby of three
months old, was speedily set aside by means of a hired force, and the
first queen, Leela-Wattee, restored to the throne. But the same band who
had effected a revolution in her favour were prompt to repeat the
exploit; she was a second time deposed, and a third time recalled by the
intervention of foreign mercenaries.[3]

[Footnote 1: Wijayo Bahu II., killed by Mihindo, A.D. 1187.]

[Footnote 2: Kirti Nissanga, brought from Calinga, A.D. 1192.]

[Footnote 3: Of the very rare examples now extant of Singhalese coins,
one of the most remarkable bears the name of Leela-Wattee.--_Numismatic
Chronicle, 1853. Papers on some Coins of Ceylon, by_ W.S.W. Vaux,
_Esq_., p. 126.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1211.]

Within thirty years from the decease of Prakrama Bahu, the kingdom was
reduced to such an extremity of weakness by contentions amongst the
royal family, and by the excesses of their partisans, that the vigilant
Malabars seized the opportunity to land with an army of 24,000 men,
reconquered the whole of the island, and Magha, their leader, became
king of Ceylon A.D. 1211.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 256.]

The adventurers who invaded Ceylon on this occasion came not from Chola
or Pandya, as before, but from Calinga, that portion of the Dekkan which
now forms the Northern Circars. Their domination was marked by more than
ordinary cruelty, and the _Mahawanso_ and _Rajaratnacari_ describe with
painful elaborat