Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c9.63

c9.63

The Ceylonese chronicles have preserved an interesting account of two invasions of Ceylon by a king of Jāvaka, called Chandrabhānu, about A.D. 1236 and 1256. In an inscription, dated 1264 A.D., Jaṭāvarman Vīra-Pāṇḍya, king of the Pāṇḍya kingdom in South India, claims to have defeated and killed the Śāvaka king, and in another inscription, dated the next year, the king of Kaḍāram is said to have been defeated by him. The Śāvaka is no doubt the same as Jāvaka or Zābag, and its ruler is probably the same as that of Kaḍāram and to be identified with Chandrabhānu. Chandrabhānu, who was powerful enough to have led two expeditions to Ceylon, thus met with a tragic end, for which his ill-conceived expeditions to Ceylon were perhaps mainly responsible.