Page:Origin and spread of the Tamils.djvu/102

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NOTES TO LECTURE II 91 Gaya, taking about six months for their journey, the alternative route for them being a sea voyage to Tamra-lipte in Bengal. Brahmans, evidently from South India, were mentioned as colonists living apart in villages. The frequent Tamil invasions and usurpations after Parākramabāhu disorganized the Buddhistic church of Ceylon; and Kalikāla Sāhitya Pandita Parākramabāhu who reigned at Dambedeniya about the middle of the thirteenth century restored the Church. He is said to have brought over monks from the Soli country in South India and to have established inonasteries and parivenas and encouraged learning. This shows that Buddhism had not become altogether extinct in that epoch in the Tamil country. 14. Rise and Growth of a Tamil kingdoin in North Ceylon : Ibn Batuta visited North Ceylon in 1344 and found the north of the island, including the port of Puttalam, in possession of Arya Cakravarti; king of Jaffna. The kingdom came into being as an independent state about the thirteenth century and its rulers, known as Arya Cakravartis, claimed to be of the Ganga-vamsa. They were very powerful in the second half of the fourteenth century, but soon afterwards became tributary to Vijayanagar. The Jaffnese rulers of the mediaeval period had the titles, Pararājasekharan and Segarājasekharan, alternatively in the order of their accession like the Pāņdyas of the second Empire who called themselyes Jațāvarman and Māravarman of their accession and like the Colas alternating the titles Parakesari and Rājakesari. Valentyn, the Dutch traveller, mentions an invasion of the kingdom of the Canarese who were probably the Vijayanagara people. In 1591 the king of Jaffna came under Portuguese control; in 1619 the ruling dynasty was deposed, though futile attempts were made to revive it in the two following