by Waseem Akram

Created on: July 02, 2009

More than two thousand years ago, there lived in Northern India a king whose name was Sinha-bahu. He was so called because his father was said to have been a sinha or lion; which means only that the father was a bold, bad man, of lower rank than the princess whom he married; or that he belonged to a different race. In the same way, we must understand that the vultures, monkeys, bears, and demons spoken of before were only tribes of men so named by a prouder race.

The eldest son of Sinha-bahu was prince Vijaya. As Vijaya was to be king when his father died, he should have been a kind and well behaved prince, but unfortunately he was quite the opposite. His evil deeds gave his father much trouble. He got together a company of seven hundred young men as wicked as him, and with them continually ill-treated the people of the country. The people complained to the king, and more than once the king warned his son that such conduct was dangerous. But Vijaya and his lawless company took no notice of the king's warnings. At last, the people could no longer bear the wickedness of the prince, and company to the king in larger numbers they demanded that Vijaya should be put to death. The king did not wish to do that, but something had to be done; so he took Vijaya and his seven hundred men, had the half of each man's head shaved as a sign of disgrace, and sent them away in a larger ship to go wherever they could find a home away from his country.

As Vijaya sailed southwards along the coast of India, searching for a new place where he could settle, he began to see how foolish it was to live a lawless life. He was afraid to remain long at any town on the Indian coast, because he could not trust his men; their wicked deeds would lead to quarrels and strange people they met would not hesitate to kill them. SO he sailed on till they came to Sri Lanka, where they landed on a wild and lonely spot, near what is now the town of Puttalam. They had a long voyage, and were utterly worn out with sea sickness and the troubles of their journey. It was very pleasant for them now to lie down and rest on firm land again. When they rose form the ground they found that the reddish soil had stained they palms of their hands. For this reason they said to have called the place Tambapanni, copper-coloured.

We may notice here that afterwards the whole island was known by this name, Tambapanni. When the old Greeks and Romans got to know about Ceylon, they

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