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South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c8.s3: Special Note: The Date of the Ceylon Invasion

South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c8.s3

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Special Note: The Date of the Ceylon Invasion

c8.s3.2

According to the Mahāvaṃśa Parākramabāhu the Great ascended the throne in A.D. 1164 (Wijesimha’s list). This list makes a correction by subtracting eleven years on the authority of the Polonnorua Inscription which gives his date of accession as A.B. 1743 with the equivalent Christian date August 23, A.D. 1200. Subtracting from this the total of forty-seven years for the reigns from Parākrama to Lilāvatī, the immediate predecessors of Sāhasamalla, Parākramabāhu’s accession would fall in A.D. 1153. This date for the accession of Parākrama is in accordance with the dates ascribed to that event both in the Rajaratnākari (Upham. ii. 86), and the Nikāyasangraha (Epi. Zey. i, p. 123). So Parākrama’s accession took place in A.D. 1153.

c8.s3.3

According to the Mahāvaṃśa Parākrama had ruled for sixteen years before he thought of sending an expedition to Ramañña (Pegu) against its king Arimardhana. This invasion proved a protracted affair and when at last news of its ultimate success reached Parākrama. Parākrama Pāṇḍya’s appeal for help reached him also. He made arrangements and fitted out a large expedition. We may not be far wrong if we assume that the expedition set forward in the year 20 of Parākramabāhu, i.e. that Laṅkāpura started in A.D. 1173, it may be a little earlier.

c8.s3.4

The date of accession of Rājādhirāja II according to the late Dr. Kielhorn is March A.D. 1163 on the basis of his examination of astronomical details in five of his records. According to the same authority the date of accession of Rājarāja II is A.D. 1146. (*Epi. Indica*, ix. 219). The Ekāmbranātha temple inscription (No. 7 of 1893) of Rājādhirāja II states that his eighth year was fifteen years from the nineteenth year of Rājarāja II (*S. Indica Ins.* iii. 207). This will give the latter a reign of twenty-six years at least, and the accession of his successor must have taken place in his twenty-sixth year, i.e. in the year A.D. 1172 (initial year 1146 + regnal year 26). As a matter of fact there is a record of his twenty-seventh year, and this notwithstanding, the date of accession of Rājādhirāja must now be accepted as the year A.D. 1171-2. (*Ep. Rep.* 1904, Sec. 21).

c8.s3.5

The Arpākkam grant of his fifth year (*Ep. Rep.*, 1899, pp. 8-9) and the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu inscription of his twelfth year (465 of 1905) refer to this invasion in some detail. The former of these two refer to the war as of almost contemporary occurrence, describing in particular the circumstances that brought about the Chola intervention in the war. Hence the lower and the upper limits of the war have to be A.D. 1175 and A.D. 1171, respectively.

c8.s3.6

The lower limit of A.D. 1167 as actually fixed by Dr. Hultzsch in *J.R.A.S.*, 1913, p. 519 and quoted by the late Dr. Vincent Smith in his Oxford History of India will have to be given up. The doubts that are discernible in *Ep. Rep.* 1910, Sec. 28 and 1913 Sec. 37, obviously on the assumption of A.D. 1163, Kielhorn’s initial date for Rājādhirāja II, seem inconsistent with *Ep. Rep.* 1904, Sec. 21.

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