CHAPT~.III m NAYAKKAR DYNASTY OF KANDY, GZN;AtCGICAL'tABU - t lInes. Q?_~Y_ Sena saJIIII:l ta tiltruab ahu ( 1&.69-151" ) T .---, DG,ugt.ter •• Kinn.l1. Haha RalahuIT J a7a v1ra BUlda.ra (1511_1552) gals niece brother-1n-lav of the king of' lCotta l r--~~---I J 1 Su sons Dau&hter Karalllyadde Bandara ~bur III Dharmapa.la of' a Galle gaa Halla lott•• (155'-,7) Masin ICasumasa.na DEI"f't a Vi.lll&la !)ban.5uriya I (159<-16Ot) I r~-I T-- l Sun Son Daugbter Daurbter Senarat(1~-'635) cousin ~r V~la I L a :oMrma Surly" I (1) ·IaS1JllllsUla t.Ti II (2) I- -~ -------a (3) Bajaa1.aIb& rI(~635-16S7) I ' VUlala Obarllla. Sa:r1.fa Il(168~_1707) I , Rarendrarllllba, \ 1 iO? -1739 ) Sri V1.1aya RaJas1mh& CtI~the~-1.D-·' lC1lIp;s of' law, of Naz-t,nciras1llb&) , Hayaltkar - I ~rti Sri Rajas1l:1b.a • ::.' III'Lrried-to dynasty.-' I Ra,1ad1 &Jasjllh& I Sri l'!krua P.aj u1IIb& 55 When Sri Vijaya Rajasimha, brother-in-law of Narendras1mha, ascended the throne of Kandy in 1139, he inaugurated a dynasty mainly Indian by blood. He traced his descent from the Nayaks of Madurai. Vijaya Rajasimha (1739-11~1) and his three successors, Kirti Sri RajaSimha (11~7-e2), Bajadhi Rajasimha (1782- 1798) and Sri Vikrama Rajasimba (1198-181S), were the four members of the Nayakltar dynasty. The British 1 exiled the fourth in 1816. Rajasimha II's son and successor, Vimala Dharma Suriya II (1681-1707) devoted himself to religious pur­ suits. It was his son Sri Vira Parakrama Narendrasimha (1107-39) vho brought the Nayakkars on the !Candy- throne to sucoeed hill. As stated earlier, vhen Narendrasillha, the last of the royal Sinhalese line of Vikram&bahu (1~69-1S11) died in 1739, the throne passed on to his chief Queen's brother Sri Vijaya Rajasi.ha, a Bayakkar frOIl Madurai region in South India. It was an old tradition vith the royal houses of Sri Lanka to seek their brides from Madurai. Vijaya, the eponymous founder of the Sinhalese race, who has been ascribed to about the firth century 56 B.C., refused to be consecrated king without a queen of noble rank. Accordingly, so the national chronicle of the Sinhalese, the MahaYamsa, states, his ministers sent envoys "with many precious girts, jewels and pearls and so fourth, to the city of Madura in southern (India) to woo the daughter of the Pandu king for their lord, de­ voted (as they were) to their ruler, and they also (sent to woo) the daughters of others for the ministers and retainers. When the messengers were quicklY came by ship to the ci ty of Madhura they laid the gifts and letter before the king. The king took counsel with his ministers, and since he was minded to send his daughter (to Lanka), he haTing first received also daughters of others for the ministers (of Vijaya), high upon a hun­ dred maidens, proclaimed with beat of drum; 'Those men here who are willing to let a daughter depart for Lanka shall provide their daughters with a double store of clothing and place them at the doors of their houses. By this sign shall we (knOW that we may) take them to ourselves' • When he had thus obtained _ny maidens and had given compensation to their families, he sent his daughter, bedecked with all her ornaments and all that was needful for the journey, and all the maidens whom he had fitted out, according to their rank, elephants 57 withal and horses and waggons, wortby of a king and craftsmen and a thousand families of the eighteen guilds, entrusted with a letter to the conqueror Vijaya. All this multitude of men disembarked at Mahatittha; for that very reason is that landing place known as Maha- 2 ttit~". The Sinhalese "considered it a privilege to intermarry with the Madura dynasty". In the late seven­ teenth century it became a matter of policy for the 3 chief queen or queens of Kandy to have been princess or princesses of Madurai. This mi~t have been due to the tact that there were no other ruling Sinhalese family in Sri Lanka apart trom Kandy, and the Kandy kings insisted on consorts of the Suryavamsa, or the solar lineage, to grace their coronation and also to produce an heir acceptable to the people. Perhaps also, the Kandy kings would not take queens from the noble families of their kingdo. because many of these nobles were hostile to the throne and to marry their daughters would onlY be to strengthen them. They could hope to offset the intrigues or the hostile nobles with a faction of their own. In tact, a contem- 58 porary Sinhalese poem states that Narendrasimha married a lady froll Madurai "in order to quell the power of his rebellious chiefs who were coveting the throne, and also to produce a pure royal line unmixed with the nobility. Therefore, he ignored the royal maidens of Ceylon who were of 'mixed descent' and invited the daughter of It Madura". It was Rajasimha II who, in the late middle , ages, revived the custom of securing brides from Madurai. Interestingly, Rajasimha had also a Kandyan lady of noble birth for wife. To her he gave many gifts. But queenly rank and status was reserved for the Madurai lady. His successor, Vimala Dharma Suriya II, in the words of the Culayamsa, followed his father's example and "as his !;,ggamahesi he took the daughter of the _hesi 6 in the town of Madhura". Some details are available of the way that V1mala Dharma Suriya II made an attempt to have his son and successor, Narendrasimha, married to a lady from Madurai. Early in 1705 the chiefs of Kandy requested the Dutch to grant passage in their ships to two envoys 59 who were going to Madurai to seek a bride tor the heir 1 apparent. The Dutch controlled the seas around the island and held the important ports. Without their consent communications with Madurai were impossible. In 1106 tvo Sinhalese chiefs. PalkUllbure Maho- S ttiyar and Udovita Muhandiram sailed in a Dutch ship from Colombo. The preliminary negotiations for a marriage alliance were in the hands of Venkatapath1 9 Nayakkar and Ramanatha Pillai, two South Indians. Two Tamils who had settled down in Sri Lanka, Chidambaranatha and Adayapp&.n, accompanied the two Kandy 10 envoys as interpreters. On arrival in !uttukudi, the interpreters, the tvo middlemen and a fev Dutch soldiers proceeded to Tiruchirapalli, at that time the capital of the N'ayaks or Madurai. The envoys, who remained in Tuttukudi, left it for Tiruchirapalli in May, 1106. When they arrived Aithin a league of the oit~~ they were placed in charge of a Rangappa Nayakkar. They then en- 12 tered the city to stay with a chief named Raja Tondaman. 60 In July, the envoys held an interview with Rama Nayakkar and Rangappa Nayakkar and an official called in 13 the records, Mutuven Hayyen. The Sinhalese envoys pre- sented three letters, written in Sinhalese, Tamil and Telugu, aSking for the· hand of a Madurai lady for the 1lt !Candy heir apparent. They were told that the king's request would be granted without delay. But nothing was done. The Dutch governor Simons states that even at the time of writing (16, December 170?>, when Vimala Dharma suri~~ too, was dead., nothing had come out of this mission. However, the Kandyan court acknowledged the facilities afforded and the honour done by the Dutch 16 and thanked the Governor. Soon after the heir a pparen t succeeded to the throne on the death of his father on JWle 4, 1?O?, he 17 again turned to Madurai for a queen or queens. In the . 18 words of the CqlAyamsa, the king, "who vas an abode of discernment and manly virtues, in order to protect the royal dignity in Lanka, fetc~ed princesses from the town of Madhura and made them mahes1s". Though the Culayamsa calls these ladies "nrln­ cesses" the evidence available on the point is not un- 61 animous. According to Schrender, the Dutch Governor of the Maritime Provinces from 17,1-1162, the king was married to "a princess of the opposite coast, who was 19 the daughter of one Pitti Nayakkar of the Baddesas caste. It is important to try and settle the status of Naren­ drasimhats consort or consorts from Madurai, for it was a brother of hers or theirs who eventually became the first Nayakkar king in Kandy. ( A Tamil documentJNarrative of the Affairs of 20 Kandidesam~ happens to be the sole South Indian source available so far on the marriage alliances between Madurai and Kandy. It says that the Kandy envoys had an audience of the Nayak of Madurai. When they made their request for a Madurai princess, the Nayak became angr,y and re­ fused to accept their presents and ordered the envoys to leave. He stridt17 commanded his relatives not to offer their daughters to them on behalf of the king of !{andy. Nevertheless, adds this document, a poor man agreed to give his daughter in marriage. The envoys were asked to go to Ramesvaram. There the poor man and his family met them under cover of night. The parties 62 then sailed for Kandy and ti~re the nuptials took place. The consecration of Narendrasimha and the mahesi from Madura ~as celebrated with great magnificance. Hulan­ gamuve Mydaliya, one of the envoys, was given the village of Ambokka as a gift by the king for performing the ser­ vice of gOing to Madurapura to fetch the br1je for the uncom~rable and extremely magnificent ceremony of con- 21 secration".