370 - 455 CE   “The exclamation mark (!), known informally as a bang or a shriek, is used at the end of a sentence or a short phrase which expresses very strong feeling.”  University of Sussex Guide to Punctation Buddhadasa’ death in 370 CE left his son, Upatissa I, a most secure throne to sit upon. Little is known about his reign except two things.  It lasted a long time – 42 years.  And it was to end in disaster, its terminus foretelling the implosion of the dynasty itself in just a few...

254 – 370 CE   “Peace and love, peace and love!” Ringo StarrGathabhaya, the third of the three Lambakarna family plotters, seized the kingdom in 253 or 254 CE.  For 14 years he ruled it with the proverbial rod of iron.  A man of deeply conservative religious beliefs, he was unimpressed by the Vajrayana movement, a form of tantric Buddhism that was making slim but noticeable appearances into his kingdom.  The movement was closely aligned with Mahayana Buddhism and seen by many as incompatible...

193 - 253 CE   “Where's Papa going with that axe?”  Charlotte's Web After 126 years so stable and propitious as to suggest they might never end, the Lambakarnas settled down to that great pastime of the late Vijayan kings – regicide. The preoccupation would test the very stability of the kingdom they has so assiduously built. On Kanittha Tissa’s death in 193 CE, his son, Cula Naga assumed power, only to be assassinated by his bother Kuda Naga in 195 CE. Nothing is known about the murder, but...

67 CE – 193 CE   Go buy us pizza. With extra cheese, Richie Rich."  Maggie StiefvaterOvercaution, on behalf of the last (albeit fraudulent) Vijayan king, propelled the new Lambakarnan dynasty and its first king to the throne. The soothsayers had been busy whispering appalling forecasts into the ear of Subharaja, the reigning Anuradhapuran king, foretelling of his certain destiny with death at the hands of someone called Vasabha. Herod-like, the troubled monarch ordered the execution of...

67 CE   “We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.” Lyndon B. JohnsonIn 1929, as Wall Street crashed and the roaring twenties came to an abrupt end, archaeologists digging in faraway Trincomalee uncovered the remains of a once-lofty temple, built a stone’s throw from the Indian Ocean, sometime after 307 CE. Beneath earth, trees, and jungle, stretching out to the shores of a great lake, the Velgam Vehera’s many scattered ruins were brought back to sight for...

21 CE – 66 CE    “By blood a king, in heart a clown.”  Alfred Lord Tennyson King Amandagamani Abhaya's ascent to the throne in 21 CE was both fair and orderly.  Even so, the dynastic DNA had long before morphed into a penchant for regicide, and in 30 CE this fatal habit was to reappear, heralding the dynasty’s final moments – ones that not even the most sensational or improbable soap operas could ever hope to emulate. There was little if any warning.  It all just happened.  Kanirajanu Tissa,...

77 BCE – 21 CE   “Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”  Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler It took over barely 40 years for the penultimate Vijayan kings to lay out the full and final road to oblivion, years that made the mafia tales of the Prohibition era or a Shakespearean tragedy appear tame.  But travel them they did – and with unforgettable horror. History hints that the Valagamba’s succession may not have been entirely orderly; if...

103 BCE – 77 BCE   “And then there were none”  Agatha Christie With the murder of Khallata Naga, the Anuradhapuran Kingdom made the leap to regularizing regicide as if it was no more unusual than brushing one’s teeth.  Valagamba – the rightful heir and son of King Saddha Tissa – had first to defeat and kill Kammaharattaka, Khallata Naga’s nemesis, before he himself could take what he clearly saw as his rightful place at the head of things.  This he seems to have achieved with reasonable...

161 BCE – 103 BCE    “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”  Adam Smith For a glorious, albeit extended moment, it seems as if the Vijayan good times had returned. Dutugemunu's nature, clear from his early childhood, was naturally geared to dominate, take control, and direct.  Not for nothing does island history remember him as “the great”.  Certainly, his victory in 161 BCE left him ruling nearly the whole of the island – more territory by far than even that of the great king, Pandu...

205 BCE – 161 BCE “The sword of justice has no scabbard.”  Antione De Riveral Invaders are rarely liked and often forgotten.  But the 44 year reign of the Tamil king, Ellalan, merits much more than a modest footnote in the island’s story.  Unlike almost all other conquerors before or since, Ellalan cherished his kingdom as much as any man might his own home.  He came to rule – not rape and pillage. In the northern Tamil city of Jaffa stands a curious white clock tower, with Italianate...

367 BCE – 205 BCE    “What goes up must come down”  Isaac Newton    The death of Sri Lanka’s visionary king, Devanampiya Tissa, ushered in a period of unnerving calm.  All seemed fine with the state – and yet something, somewhere, was going fatally wrong, leaving it wide open to invasion. If there was a serious shortcoming in the reign of Devanampiya Tissa, it was his apparent lack of children; and in the 30 years that followed two of his brothers and possibly even an uncle took up the royal...

367 BCE - 205 BCE    “When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you.”  Kevin Costner     A modest mystery immediately greets the hard pressed historian on encountering the death of Sri Lanka’s first and possibly greatest king, Pandu Kabhaya.  His impossibly long reign – some 70 years ( - and that following an extended youth tormenting and eventually killing his uncle)  – defies all reasonable expectation of life expectancy at the time.   Some scholars,...

5 - The Kingdom Maker 437 BCE – 367 BCE   "It was the nearest thing to heaven."  An Affair to Remember Barely 100 years into their first royal dynasty, Sri Lanka had the great good fortune to encounter Pandu Kabhaya’s  - one of its greatest kings.  Inheriting, at best, a kinglet, he passed onto his successors a fully functioning kingdom that for over 200 years became a byword for opulence, sophistication, and progress.   Pandu Kabhaya’s (improbably long) 70 year reign (437 to 367 BCE ) would...

4 - Rough Weather 505 BCE – 437 BCE   “No matter how rough the sea, I refuse to sink.”  Unknown Prince Vijaya’s greatest achievement, apart from surviving, was less what he did than what he left behind – a dynasty that ran (ignoring regnal interruptions) for over 600 years, putting it comfortably ahead of Mings and Moguls, Valois, French Bourbons, German Hohenzollerns, Tudors, Stuarts, and Aztecs.      The very earliest foundation stories of the Sinhala nation start with him, covering 47...

3 - The Time of Kings  543 BCE – 505 BCE  “All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances.”  Mark Twain  The country’s first recorded king was to found a dynasty that would last 600 years – though its first 100 years were anything but plain sailing. Expelled from either Bengal or Gujarat (scholars argue, as scholars do) by his father, Prince Vijaya, the founding father of an eponymous royal family, arrived on the island in 543 BCE, his landing kicking off the start of recorded...

2 - Travellers From The North  1,500,000 BCE to 543 BCE   “Wide open and unguarded stand our gates.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich Adam’s Bridge was a bridge crying out for repair, even before the great storm of 1470 shattered it forever.  Unpredictable, and uneven, sailing had long been the better option.  But for Sri Lanka’s first settlers – who had still to master boats – a short walk from India was all it took.     And walking was what the island’s first settlers did: Palaeolithic and later...

1 - PROLOGUE 1470 ”Storms make trees take deeper roots.”  Dolly PartonA no-nonsense prologue to Sri Lanka’s story might carefully begin 1.5 million years ago.  But 1470 offers a much more iconic, and intriguing date.  The year is laden with symbolism; and symbolism, like cricket, is something the country does with ease. As years go, 1470 was actually a rather modest year, the world over: little that would matter later, happened then. But for Sri Lanka, it was the year of the Great Storm – a...