Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎494v] (113/238)

326 The Age of Mdnikka Vdfagar.
by many centuries. He could not therefore have lived so
late as the later Gajabahu (1142). There is only one
Karikala Chdla, he says, known to Tamil literature, and
therefore the King of Ceylon with whom the King of that
name was contemporary must be, he considers, the first
Gajabahu of 113 a.d.
I regret that I cannot follow the argument. It seems to
me that the Karikala Ch 61 a of Tamil literature need not
have been the earliest KarikHa.
Mr. Tirumalai Kolundu appears to have been misled by
a consideration of the memorial verse prefixed to Kambar’s
Ramayanam, which we have already seen is not genuine,
and does not contain an authentic statement of the date of
the poem or the age of Kambar.
We seem to be tied down to one of two dates (113 a.d.
or 1142 a.d.) for the invasion of the Ceylon King Gajabahu.
The expedition was to revenge an invasion of Ceylon by
the Cholas. In the Dynastic Lists compiled from the
Mahawansa we find that from 103 b.c. to 90 b.c. there were
Tamil usurpers in Ceylon. But the close of this period is
203 years prior to 113 a.d. Could the desire for reprisals
have continued so long ? It seems very improbable that it
should. But apart from this there is the further considera
tion : Could the Chbla kings have invaded Ceylon at this
early date ? It is scarcely conceivable that they could have
undertaken ar invasion of Ceylon until they had absorbed
the Pdndya country. To invade Ceylon they would
probably have to pass through the Pandya territory, and
they would certainly have to denude their own territory of
a vast number of troops, and so lay it open to attack by
their powerful P^ndya neighbours, who were their inveterate
and ever-watchful enemies.
In connection with this question it is necessary to
remember that the Ceylon chronicle had no existence
before about 460 a.d.,* so that in its very commencement it
The Mahavansa, the earliest chronicle of Ceylon, was commenced by
one Mahanama between 457 and 477 a.d.