of the Malabars, and "having
purified both the orthodox dharma[1], and the religion of the
vanquisher, he died, after reigning eighteen years, signalised by acts
of piety."[2] This story as related by its eye-witness, Mahanamo, forms
one of the most characteristic, as well as the best authenticated
episodes of contemporary history presented by the annals of Ceylon.

[Footnote 1: The doctrines of Buddha.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxix. Manuscript translation by TURNOUR.
TURNOUR, in his _Epitome_, says Kasyapa "committed suicide on the field
of battle," but this does not appear from the narrative of the
_Mahawanso_.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

Such was the feebleness of the royal house, that of the eight kings who
succeeded Mogallana between A.D. 515 and A.D. 586, two died by suicide,
three by murder, and one from grief occasioned by the treason of his
son. The anarchy consequent upon such disorganisation stimulated the
rapacity of the Malabars; and the chronicles of the following centuries
are filled with the accounts of their descents on the island and the
misery inflicted by their excesses.

CHAP. X.

THE DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS.

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

It has been already explained that the invaders who engaged in forays
into Ceylon, though known by the general epithet of Malabars (or as they
are designated in Pali, _damilos_, "Tamils"), were also natives of
places in India remote from that now known as Malabar. They were, in
reality, the inhabitants of one of the earliest states organised in
Southern India, the kingdom of Pandya[1], whose sovereigns, from their
intelligence, and their encouragement of native literature, have been
appropriately styled "the Ptolemies of India." Their dominions, which
covered the extremity of the peninsula, comprehended the greater portion
of the Coromandel coast, extending to Canara on the western coast, and
southwards to the sea.[2] Their kingdom was subsequently contracted in
dimensions, by the successive independence of Malabar, the rise of the
state of Chera to the west, of Ramnad to the south, and of Chola in the
east, till it sank in modern times into the petty government of the
Naicks of Madura.[3]

[Footnote 1: Pandya, as a kingdom was not unknown in classical times,
and its ruler was the [Greek: Basileus Pandion] mentioned in the
_Periplus of the Erythraean Sea_, and the king Pandion, who sent an
embassy to Augustus.--PLINY, vi. 26; PTOLEMY, vii. 1.]