Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c6.47

c6.47

Arrival of In the beginning of the sixteenth century (A.D. 1506) the Portuguese first landed in the Portu- Ceylon; those who observed their arrival reported to the king, Parākrama Bāhu VIII., guese "there is in our harbour of Colombo a race of people fair of skin and comely withal. They don jackets of iron and hats of iron; they rest not a minute in one place; they walk here and there" (Rājāvaliya).† They obtained permission to erect a factory; and fortified their position. But the Portuguese proved unwelcome visitors; they were "cruel and hard of heart; they entered into fruitful provinces and laid waste fields and gardens, and burned houses and villages, and ravished women of rank, and so troubled the Sinhalese. They broke into towns and temples and image-houses, and destroyed bo-trees and images of Buddha and the like sacred objects. And they destroyed the country and the religion thereof, and built forts in divers places, and maintained continual warfare" until, indeed, their final expulsion by the Dutch in A.D. 1658. In 1587 they destroyed the magnificent Viṣṇu Dēvāle at Devundara. According to the Portuguese account ‡ "Thomé de Sousa gave it over to the soldiers to do their work. They then proceeded to destroy the idols, of which there were more than a thousand of diverse shapes, some of clay, some of wood, some of copper and several of them gilt. After this they proceeded to overthrow the whole of the infernal machinery of the Pagoda, pulling down their domes and cloisters and breaking everything to pieces. They then sacked the store-rooms, in which they found a large quantity of ivory, fine cloth, copper, pepper, sandalwood, jewels and precious stones, and the ornaments of the Pagoda; everyone took what he liked best and the rest was thrown into the fire.”