s the more remarkable, where the usurpers were of the lower grade, as
in the instance of Subho, a gate porter, who murdered King Yasa Silo,
A.D. 60, and reigned for six years (_Mahaw._ ch. xxxv. p. 218). A
carpenter, and a carrier of fire-wood, were each accepted in succession
as sovereigns, A.D. 47; whilst the "_great dynasty_" was still in the
plenitude of its popularity. The mystery is perhaps referable to the
dominant necessity of securing tranquillity at any cost, in the state of
society where the means of cultivation were directly dependent on the
village organisation, and famine and desolation would have been the
instant and inevitable consequences of any commotions which interfered
with the conservancy and repair of the tanks and means of irrigation,
and the prompt application of labour to the raising and saving of
produce at the instant when the fall of the rains or the ripening of the
crops demanded its employment with the utmost vigour.]

[Footnote 2: In theory the Singhalese monarchy was elective in the
descendants of the Solar race: in practice, primogeniture had a
preference, and the crown was either hereditary or became the prize of
those who claimed to be of royal lineage. On reviewing the succession of
kings from B.C. 307 to A.D. 1815, _thirty-nine_ eldest sons (or nearly
one fourth), succeeded to their fathers: and _twenty-nine_ kings (or
more than one fifth), were succeeded by brothers. _Fifteen_ reigned for
a period less than one year, and thirty for more than one year, and less
than four. Of the Singhalese kings who died by violence, twenty-two were
murdered by their successors; six were killed by other individuals;
thirteen fell in feuds and war, and four committed suicide; eleven were
dethroned, and their subsequent fate is unknown. Not more than
two-thirds of the Singhalese kings retained sovereign authority to their
decease, or reached the funeral pile without a violent death.--FORBES'
_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. ch. iv. p. 80, 97; JOINVILLE,
_Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon; Asiat. Res._ vol. vii. p.
423. See also _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 201.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 119.]

One source of royal contention arose on the death of Dutugaimunu; his
son, having forfeited his birthright by an alliance with a wife of lower
caste, was set aside from the succession; Saidaitissa, a brother of the
deceased king, being raised to the throne in his stead. The priests, on
the death of Saidaitis