Kalinga Magha’s conquest of Polonnaruwa

01The chronicle’s account

The Culavamsa, chapter 80, describes Magha as a king of unjust ways from Kalinga, who landed with a great army of Keralas and Tamils. He captured the ruling king, Parakrama Pandya, had his eyes put out, and seized the treasury. The chronicle accuses his soldiers of plundering monasteries and of forcing the people to change their ways. Magha ruled from Polonnaruwa for about twenty-one years, while Sinhala princes held out in the hills and the south-west.

02The drift of the capitals

Magha’s rule broke the old heartland of the island. The Sinhala king Vijayabahu III set up his court at Dambadeniya, and the capitals of later centuries, Kurunegala, Gampola and Kotte, all lay in the south-west, far from the great tanks of the dry zone. Many historians link Magha’s rule with the origins of the separate Tamil kingdom of Jaffna in the north, though that link is debated.

Dynasty · c. late 13th century–1619 CEAryachakravarti kings of JaffnaA Tamil Shaiva kingdom in the north of Lanka whose kings, descended by tradition from Brahmin warriors of Rameswaram, ruled from Nallur for over three centuries until the Portuguese took it in 1619.Read →