collected as many Singhalese followers as enabled him to recover a
portion of the kingdom, and establish himself in Maya, within which he
built a capital at Jambudronha or Dambedenia, fifty miles to the north
of the present Colombo. The Malabars still retained possession of Pihiti
and defended their frontier by a line of forts drawn across the island
from Pollanarrua to Ooroototta on the western coast.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxx. lxxxii.; _Rajaratnacuri_, pp. 94,
94; _Rajavali_, p.258.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1266.]

Thirty years later Pandita Prakrama Bahu III, A.D. 1266, effected a
further dislodgment of the enemy in the north; but Ceylon, which
possessed

"The fatal gift of beauty, that became A funeral dower of present woes
and past,"

was destined never again to be free from the evils of foreign invasion;
a new race of marauders from the Malayan peninsula were her next
assailants[1]; and these were followed at no very long interval by a
fresh expedition from the coast of India.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, pp. 256, 260. A second Malay landing is
recorded in the reign of Prakrama III., A.D. 1267.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxii.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1303.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1319.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1347.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1410.]

Having learned by experience the exposure and insecurity of the
successive capitals, which had been built by former sovereigns in the
low lands, this king founded the city of Kandy, then called
Siriwardanapura, amongst the mountains of Maya[1], to which he removed
the sacred _dalada_, and the other treasures of the crown. But such
precautions came too late: to use the simile of the native historian,
they were "fencing the field whilst the oxen were within engaged in
devouring the corn."[2] The power of the Malabars had become so firmly
rooted, and had so irresistibly extended itself, that, one after
another, each of the earlier capitals was abandoned to them, and the
seat of government carried further towards the south. Pollanarrua had
risen into importance in the eighth and ninth centuries, when
Anarajapoora was found to be no longer tenable against the strangers.
Dambedenia was next adopted, A.D. 1235 as a retreat from Pollanarrua;
and this being deemed insecure, was exchanged, A.D. 1303, for Yapahu in
the Seven Corles. Here the Pandyan marauders followed in the rear of the
retreating sovereign[3], surprised the new capital, and carried off the
dalada relic to