The Second King of Sri Lanka

Sinhalese: The second king Panduvasudeva and his consecration.
Written on June 13, 2013
By Jay Hettiarachchy

According to the great chronicle of Sri Lanka, Vijaya, the first king of the Sinhalese people did not have a son to succeed him as the king of Lanka. Therefore he sent a letter to his brother Sumitta in Bengal in northeast India asking him to come and take over the kingdom of Lanka after his death. Before his brother could respond to the letter, Vijaya died and Lanka was without a king for one year. Vijaya’s brother was too old to accept the invitation of his brother to go to Lanka but wanted one of his three son's born from his wife from Madras to accept Viyaya’s invitation to take over the kingdom and rule Lanka. The third son Panduvasudeva accepted the invitation and went to Lanka and accepted the kingdom. 

When the time came for Panduvasudeva’s consecration his ministers wanted a maiden from the Sakya family of kings who had now migrated to another area of Ganges river basin due to the destruction of the original kingdom established by Sakyas from whom the Buddha descended.

According to this story, seven royal families in India wanted to marry this Sakya king’s daughter Bhaddakaccana because she was very beautiful. Her father was very fearful of displeasing any of the contenders. Therefore he sent her into the sea by ship proclaiming that whosoever rescued her could marry her. As the story goes, Bhddakaccana landed in Lanka with many other maidens in the guise of mendicants. She was consecrated as the queen of Panduvasudeva the second king of Lanka.
 

Analysis:

This episode is surrounded by many unbelievable sooth sayings and predictions. These were left out in our above summary as they do not have a place in history or reality. 

Surprisingly, Vijaya’s brother Sumitta too married a queen from Madras (Madda) and her third son's name was Panduvasudeva showing that he had a Pandyan (a south Indian clan of rulers) affiliation in the name given to him. The story is convoluted to such an extent that no historical facts regarding the real genealogy of the earliest Sinhalese kings could be squeezed out of the available story as it is recorded in the Mahavamsa about Panduvasudeva, his queen Bhaddakaccana and his consecration as well as most other predictions that were uttered by soothsayers before the events actually took place.

The only trace of information that may be gathered is the matrimonial relationship that may have taken place between south Indian royal families and the rulers of Lanka during the time of the writing of the great chronicle of Sri Lanka (Mahavamsa). The Mahavamsa author may have naturally recorded what was happening between the royal families in Lanka and South India in trying to reconstruct a history of an island about which no one had any clear idea or reliable evidence. However, the tradition continues on in Sri Lanka in the form of lullabies even to this day. Following is one I have heard during my child hood in Sri Lanka.

තව්සෙකුසේ ඇඳ පැලඳා
පඬුවස්දෙව් මහනිරිඳා
මාකඳුරින් ගොඩබටදා
මගුලක්විය ලක මුලුදා

එදා පටන් මෙසිරිලකේ
සම්මා සමබුදු මැණිකේ
දම් එළියෙන් අඳුර මැකේ
මිසදිටු විස කටු නොරැකේ