The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History c8.49

c8.49

He was a very powerful monarch. He is said to have made an expedition to the north. He is also said to have dammed the Kāvērī and constructed irrigation channels—a great work of which we find an echo in the Sinhalese *Rajavaliya*, which says that, in the reign in Ceylon of Vankanāsika Tissa, father of Gajabāhu I, 12,000 Sinhalese had been carried off to the mainland by the Chōḷa King—possibly as labourers. It states that prince Gajabāhu, accompanied by only one man, who however was a giant went to the Chōḷa king and by threats induced him to send these men back to the island. At the same time Gajabāhu carried back to Ceylon a number of treasures including the begging-bowl of Buddha which had been carried off from the island 200 years earlier in the time of Vattagāmini Abhaya.