[Footnote 2: See an _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, by
Prof. H. H. WILSON, _Asiat. Journ._, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 3: See _ante_, p. 353, n.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

The relation between this portion of the Dekkan and the early colonisers
of Ceylon was rendered intimate by many concurring incidents. Wijayo
himself was connected by maternal descent with the king of Kalinga[1],
now known as the Northern Circars; his second wife was the daughter of
the king of Pandya, and the ladies who accompanied her to Ceylon were
given in marriage to his ministers and officers.[2] Similar alliances
were afterwards frequent; and the Singhalese annalists allude on more
than one occasion to the "damilo consorts" of their sovereigns.[3]
Intimate intercourse and consanguinity, were thus established from the
remotest period. Adventurers from the opposite coast were encouraged by
the previous settlers; high employments were thrown open to them,
Malabars were subsidised both as cavalry and as seamen; and the first
abuse of their privileges was in the instance of the brothers Sena and
Goottika, who, holding naval and military commands, took advantage of
their position and seized on the throne, B.C. 237; apparently with such
acquiescence on the part of the people, that even the _Mahawanso_
praises the righteousness of their reign, which was prolonged to
twenty-two years, when they were put to death by the rightful heir to
the throne.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii. p. 53; the _Rajarali_ (p. 173) says
they were 700 in number.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 253.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxi. p. 127.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 515.]

The easy success of the first usurpers encouraged the ambition of fresh
aspirants, and barely ten years elapsed till the _first_ regular
invasion of the island took place, under the illustrious Elala, who,
with an army from Mysore (then called Chola or Soli), subdued the entire
of Ceylon, north of the Mahawelli-ganga, and compelled the chiefs of the
rest of the island, and the kings of Rohuna and Maya, to acknowledge his
supremacy and become his tributaries.[1] As in the instance of the
previous revolt, the people exhibited such faint resistance to the
usurpation, that the reign of Elala extended to forty-four years. It is
difficult to conceive that their quiescence under a stranger was
entirely ascribable to the fact, that the rule