INDIAN SHIPPING
coast of the Deccan. Vijaya landed in Ceylon "on the day that the successor of former Buddhas reclined in the arbour of the two delightful Sal-trees to attain Nirvāṇa," approaching the island from southwards, and became the founder of the "Great Dynasty." Vijaya then sent a present of precious stones to the king of Pandya, and caused to be brought a princess whom he took to wife, and also seven hundred women attendants whom his followers married. According to Turnour's Mahāwańso, the ship in which Vijaya's Pandyan bride was brought over to Ceylon was of a very large size, having the capacity to accommodate eighteen officers of state, seventy-five menial servants and a number of slaves, besides the princess herself and seven hundred other virgins who accompanied her. A period of interregnum followed after the death of Vijaya without issue till his nephew, "attended by thirty-two ministers, embarked from the city of Sagal," reached Ceylon, and assumed the reins of sovereignty. There are two further sea voyages[1] mentioned in this connection, the first undertaken by a princess who afterwards became the consort of Vijaya's nephew, and the second by her six brothers, both of which had the same starting-point in the city of Morapura on the Ganges, and the same destination,
- ↑ Upham's Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, i. 71; ii. 177. Turnour's Mahāwańso, 55.
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