The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka

A Royal Ruination

THE CEYLON PRESS HISTORY OF SRI LANKA BOOK 18. A Royal Ruination
Sri Lanka & The Madness of Kings
DAVID SWARBRICK
Published by The Ceylon Press, 2026
Copyright The Ceylon Press
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Copyright
2026 David Swarbrick
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“We are all victims in-waiting.”
The Cheshire Cat
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll 1865
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ONE
A Killing in Three
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For almost a third of the 236 years during which the Moriyan kings ruled over Sri Lanka, stability of a kind had been enjoyed. Sure, it had come at the cost of patricide, familicide, and the kowtowing to a global superpower – but 4 kings over a near 70-year period, averaging between them about 18 years apiece, was consistency of a kind. What followed, however, was a sort of royal trench warfare in which around 20 successive kings chalked up an average reign of little more than 8 years apiece, with many falling far, far short of even that. Even to name the period as one of Moriyan hegemony is a rag-tag of a claim for many of the years that followed Kumara Dhatusena’s death in 524 CE, the Moriyan dynasty says itself fighting for power with the previous royal dynasty that they thought they had succeeded – the Lambakanna. Intermarriage made things yet more complicated, and trying to nail down any part of this period by bloodline alone is a task as thankless as guarding an empty room - and almost as pointless. But whoever was king, the wonder of this period is that they collectively managed to hang on for as long as they did, for their patent capabilities evidenced lives lived well beyond their real expiration dates.

New money, old suspicions, religious strife, Persian mercenaries, joined in time by Tamil ones and the grim genie of regicide, now well out of the bottle – all conspired to make the next 167 years look like a battlefield over which no one could claim victory. The years that lay ahead divided into some 4 phases. The first, rapid and remorseless, lasted just 3 years, from 524 to 526 CE, and saw all 3 kings who reigned during that time murdered. A corrective time of stillness came to replace this moment of national trauma. For over 80 years, from 526 to 614 CE, 7 kings reigned, only two of whom were murdered. A killing carousel followed this for 598 to 640 CE, over 42 years, 5 kings reigned, four of whom were murdered, and one of whom won and lost his crown three times before he was murdered. The last phase was a chaotic coda. Over its 41-year stretch 5 kings were to rule as the country plunged further into civil war, a war which claimed the final king as its last murder trophy.

As the corpse of the king Kumara Dhatusena smouldered on its poetic bonfire, a fate the grieving king himself had brought on when he flung himself onto the funeral pyre of his great friend, the poet Kalidasa, he may have falsely hoped that, in the poet’s words.

“Yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today, well-lived, makes
Yesterday, a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow is a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

But it was no new dawn that saw in his successors' reign. The immolated king was succeeded by his son Kittisena in 424, whose nine-month reign ended with brutal brevity when his uncle wielded the knife and took the throne as Siva II. Silva was not a lucky name – the previous Silva, a lover of Queen Anula, had managed only one year before being poisoned, and this second Silva fared no better, being killed by Upatissa II, the brother-in-law of the late king Moggallana. Siva didn’t even manage to last a month, his uncertain path to Nirvana happening just 25 days into his reign in 525 CE.

Upatissa too was an unlucky name: the first Upatissa had reigned for only a year back in 505 BCE, and this second one lasted just twenty-two months until 526 CE. Although Upatissa had Moriyan blood, it is thought that he had yet more Lambakarna blood flowing through his veins, and the remnants of this last dynasty may well have supported his grab for power, which the Moriyans had succeeded in. Whatever the truth of the matter, Upatissa was not the horse to back. Described in the ancient chronicles as “old and blind,” he had little energy to devote to his new job. From the beginning, he seemed fully occupied trying to appease a rival nobleman, Silakala Ambosamanera. Silakala was the self-same ex-monk who had brought the Kesha Dhatu Hair Relic of Lord Buddha to King Moggallana. Despite his Lambakarna blood, Moggallana had promoted him to become his sword bearer.

Upatissa even gave his daughter in marriage to his rival in the hope of keeping the peace, but the gesture failed. Silakala fled south, raised an army and marched back to Anuradhapura. The city lay under the protection of Upatissa's own son, Giri Kasyapa. Still, the young prince, realising that the forces surrounding him were unstoppable, fled at night, taking with him his elderly parents and the royal regalia. But in this, he failed too and took his own life before being captured, his death apparently soon followed by his father’s, though whether from shock or assassination is impossible now to tell.

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TWO
The Trauma Break
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After a surplus of bloodshed, an incipient civil war, evidently and always only just slightly below the surface, the shattered nation would have pulled Silakala Ambasamanera’s 13-year reign deep into their weary hearts in 526 CE. Having managed the career move from monk to warrior earlier with such success, Silakala proved himself something of a shoo-in for king.

He delegated much to his sons, pushing the two oldest out of the capital and far from its many attendant temptations, with one, Dathappabhuti, sent to administer the south, and the oldest, Moggallana, sent off to manage the east of the country.

Secure in his capital, Silakala Ambasamanera busied himself, irritating his monks – or at least some of them. For this king, unlike the last few, was more inclined towards Mahayana Buddhism, a preference that did not go down well with the majority Theravada Buddhist establishment.

Matters came to a head when a young merchant arrived unexpectedly at court, carrying with him the Lotus Sutra, a document held in the highest esteem by Mahayana Buddhists. Its two main teachings were seen as borderline blasphemous by the Theravadans, for they stated that all Buddhist practices offer ways of reaching Buddhahood, and that the Lord Buddha himself did not pass into final Nirvana but was still alive and actively teaching. The king, said one monk, witheringly, had so little understanding of real doctrine that he was like a "firefly who thinks it is the sun." Nevertheless, the firefly arranged for the sutra to be housed in Jetavanaramaya itself, with an annual festival held to honour it.

The king’s deft hand at government got weaker as he got older. He found himself facing so great a rebellion in the southern province of Ruhuna that he lost control of the region altogether to a Moriyan nobleman called Mahanaga, a man who would, in another twist between the Lambakanna and Moriyan clans, in time become king himself.

Despite these later cheerless clouds, the king still managed to die a natural death in 531 CE. After a brief skirmish among his sons, Upatissa, Dathappabhuti, and Moggallana, he was succeeded by Dathappabhuti – but not for long. Dathappabhuti had eased his way to the succession by killing his brother Upatissa, but he also fatally neglected to kill his older brother, Moggallana.

Inevitably, Moggallana assembled an army and headed off to war. The ancient chronicles say that the two brothers decided on the unusual practice of single combat to determine who would win the day. During the ensuing duel, Dathappabhuti’s elephant was wounded, and the six-month king, seeing that his time was up, put himself to the sword. The war of the three brothers was over, and once again the country settled into a period of stability – for Moggallana II was to rule for 20 years, from 531 to 551 CE.

Although the new king soon gave up on the possibility of winning back Ruhuna, he concentrated his efforts on taking good care of what he actually possessed. The consequences of this decision have since led to his gaining a reputation as one of the country’s best kings. Unlike his father, he did not bait his monks as a pastime. He was regarded as a model Buddhist ruler, erring on the side of the Theravadans, generous with his religious offerings, and eager to ensure that the main texts of the Buddhist canon were properly written out without egregious interpolations.

Even more usefully, he was a builder of resources. Under his direction, the Padaviya Tank was created, which was to become the largest of the ancient tanks in the land, a later British Governor calling it a "most gigantic" and "remarkable work” whose design, incorporating natural rocky outcrops, brought together all the engineering genius of Anuradhapuran water engineering. He is also credited with building the 4,408-acre Nachchaduwa Tank, which supercharged farming across the floodplains of the Malvatu-Oya east of Anuradhapura.

A man who had much to teach the later European Renaissance kings, Moggallana was something of a poet, too, his works earning him the title Dalimugalan, or Poet Moggallana, though his verses have sadly not survived. But, as ever, even with the best of monarchs, his Achilles' heel was his family. And the last years of his reign were, apparently, marked by the sudden suspicious dying of various close relatives, as his wife, a lady of poisonous determination (and whose name has escaped the ancient chronicles), made sure that no one was left to stand in the way of her son, Kithsirimegha, succeeding to the throne. Despite her chemical expertise, it appears she spared her husband, and the king died naturally in 551 CE, a feat rarely achieved by any of his successors.

Moggallana was succeeded by his Kithsirimegha, a prince whose path to power, the ancient chronicles said, had been greatly smoothed by his determined mother. Quite how long the king reigned is a matter of acrimonious academic debate, though the available options are capacious, ranging from under a month to 19 years.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the reign was not a successful one. It became a byword for institutionalised corruption, with the king’s mother, it seems, the one who pulled all the strings from behind her son’s ever less proficient throne. Bribery led to lawlessness and then to open rebellions. Taxation failed, and sometime around 569 CE, depending on which date for the ending of the king’s reign you wish to select, Mahanaga, the Moriyan nobleman who had seized the southern state of Rhuahna during the reign of Silakala Ambasamanera, rode up to Anuradhapura with his army, killed the king and took over. Job done. The Moriyans were back where they believed they belonged.

Little, if anything, is known about what the new king actually did during his reign. Coming to power in his old age, Mahanaga was to reign for just three years, but they seemed to have been peaceful ones – ones wisely occupied by the doing of great deeds, the king of merit, that might give him the best possible chance of reaching Nivana. He delegated some of the work to his nephew, Aggabodhi, whose job it was to keep the south safely in royal hands, and when he died – naturally - in 571 CE, Aggabodhi came to the throne without so much as a tremor. The new king was to be the first of 9 Aggabodhis, 4 of them Moriyan – nut none so commendable as he.

Reigning for a colossal 34 years, the new king, however, was the last king since Silakala Ambasamanera to enjoy the luxury of a more-than-decent reign. He was a man who seemed to understand power. There is some evidence in his recategorization of royal titles that Persian influence had begun to decline as the distant Persian state itself faced its own backdoor troubles, forced to face a resurgent Byzantine threat which – combined with several other local irritants – was to cause the collapse of the empire altogether by 637 CE. Feeling perhaps a freer hand in matters of power than his predecessors, Aggabodhi granted his eventual successor the title of Yuvaraja, a title common in India for the crown prince of a maharaja, and, on his marriage to his daughter Datha, promoted him still further to Mahadipada.

He took confident charge of religious disputes and the Culmavasha Chronicle, that most monastic of accounts, has only complimentary things to say of him, despite his preference for the Mahavihara tradition of Buddhism, nothing that his aspiration was the attainment of the highest enlightenment. The new king was generous with his religious patronage, building and repairing temples, awarding land grants, and taking the lead in settling disputes between the Mahavihara and the Abhayagiri orders. His long rule also stimulated the country's poets to get back to work, and at least twelve are noted in the various accounts that speak of this being the great age of Singhala poetry. Sadly, the works of most, if not all, of them - including Demi, Bebiri, Kithsiri, Anuruth, Dalagoth, Dalasala, Dalabiso, Puravadu, Sakdamala, Asakdamala, and Suriyabahu - have yet to be included in any credible anthology.

Aggabodhi also funded multiple water projects – the most significant of which was the Minipe Dam. This massive hydro-engineering feat compelled the vast Mahaweli River itself to rise a level, thereby feeding a monumental new canal that carried water all the way to Polonnaruwa. His death in 604 CE was followed by the kind epilogue of his nephew's succession to Aggabodhi II, who ruled for ten years as a treasured continuity king. The great building projects continued with the construction of yet more massive dams, improved canal systems, and new reservoirs in places such as Kantale, Giritale, Elahera, and Hattota. The calm, ordered, authoritarian, and respectful form of government that his uncle had created continued throughout the rule of this second Aggabodhi. But it was the dynasty’s last great moment. With his death around 614 CE, the age of the 2 Aggabodhis ended, and with it the critical space they had added to that created earlier by Silakala, Mahanaga and Moggallana. The trauma brake was over, and t the disorderly gates of hell creaked open once more.

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THREE
The Killing Carousel
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With the death of Aggabodhi II, the knives of regicide were sharpened anew, ready for a bout of king slaying like no other. Over a period of almost 30 years, five kings, most of them with tenuous links to either the Moriyan or Lambakanna clans, would come to rule – and all but one of them got themselves murdered. The see-saw of succession, as noble power bases saw off one another, erupted throughout the period, creating the sense of an almost eternal civil war.

First up with Sangha Tissa II, Aggabodhi II’s sword bearer, who may or may not have been related to Aggabodhi’s wife. With such poor biological credentials, the new king was immediately faced by a rebellion in the southern state of Ruhuna, fronted by Moggallana, an angry ex-General. The disgruntled warrior led an army to Mahagallaka near Kurunegala, then on to Kadalihava, defeating royal forces at both places. The two armies met again at Pacinatissapabbata, where the king was betrayed by his own commander-in-chief. Fleeing the battlefield, the king and his supporters were captured and taken to execution at Sigiriya.

Sangha Tissa II had barely lasted a year, but Moggallana III’s 6-year stint was no real improvement. He took immediate pains to soothe the religious establishment, repairing temples and granting donations to many monasteries, but he never really outgrew his violent tendencies. Suspicious to the end, he had his own general, Datha, executed for suspected treason – triggering his own special Groundhog Day moment. For Datha’s son, Silameghavanna, thought to be a Lambakarnan, fled south to Rohana, mobilised an army and killed Moggallana III in battle in 614 CE.

Longevity, however, was not to be a gift the new king was to enjoy, for his reign lasted barely 10 years – a decade of Sturm und Drang as he unwisely took it upon himself to sort out the rising tide of religious differences between various Buddhist sects and purify the various orders by expelling and further punishing any monk he deemed corrupt or insolent. Needless to say, this did not go down well with the various sections of the Buddhist Sangha, who, in a rare moment of unity, objected especially strongly to the king’s demand that they observe the Uposatha rites together.

These rites had the age-old purpose of cleansing impure minds through meditation. Still, there was little meditative quality to their response, and they forcefully turned the king down, who immediately reacted with a barrage of insults. With understandable smugness, the ancient Culavamsa chronicle noted that shortly afterwards, Silameghavanna fell ill, the illness a karmic consequence of his disrespect for the Buddhist Sanga. The king was to die, naturally at least, but all the same, an example to anyone who was so unwise as to unite all the Buddhist orders against him.

His son succeeded him as Aggabodhi III, and rarely was there a monarch so ill-fated as this, with civil war dogging his every move with the tenacity of a terrier with bubonic plague. Barely had he taken his seat on the Lambakanna throne in 626 CE, when he faced a rebellious army led by Jettha Tissa, the son of the recently murdered Moriyan king Sangha Tissa II. Although Jettha Tissa's father and brother had been executed at Sigiriya following their defeat at Pacinatissapabbata, Jettha Tissa himself had managed to get away and, for many years, hid in the no-go lands of the Sri Lankan uplands. Jettha Tissa managed to unseat Aggabodhi, driving him into exile in India – but only for a year.

Aggabodhi soon returned – at the head of a band of Tamil mercenaries and as the tide of the ensuing battle turned against Jettha Tissa III in 629 CE, the upstart killed himself whilst still in battle mounted on his elephant – his death earning him a place as a great tragic Romantic figure of this latest phase of the Lambakanna-Moriya civil war.

For the next 12 years, Aggabodhi III clung on to an ever more frail peace. But by 641 CE, it all broke down again. Finding that his own brother Mana had cuckolded him, he put the sibling to death. Given that Mana was also the commander-in-chief of the armies, this was a rather reckless move. Divisions ripped out across the land, leaving it divided, just in time to see a new invasion, this time from a general called Dathopa Tissa, a relation of Jettha Tissa III, who had arrived from India at the head of a large band of new Tamil mercenaries.

Losing out in battle yet again, Aggabodhi III fled back to India, and for the next ten years or so, it was almost impossible to guess which of the two was in power, if indeed either it really was. Aggabodhi III returned from India with fresh troops, and a murderous ping-pong war continued between himself and Dathopa Tissa I. Sri Lanka was a land awash with mercenaries. Anuradhapura changed hands multiple times. Relic chambers were broken open to pay the armies, and monasteries and temples were looted. Even though so, it is said that the gold umbrella for the Ruwanwelisaya itself was melted down. Anything and everything that had value was appropriated or stolen as civil war engulfed the land. Aggabodhi III eventually retreated to Ruhuna, dying there in 644 CE, leaving Dathopa Tissa I to carry on until he too was killed in battle in 650 CE by Kassapa II, Aggabodhi III’s brother.

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FOUR
The Chaotic Coda
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Kassapa II’s succession after decades of civil war allowed the country a moment of recovery, and for the next 41 years, it looked as if life had returned to normal. But, as Thomas Fuller noted in 1650, “it is always darkest just before the Day dawneth". And the day that was eventfully to dawn, though 4 decades away, was to end once and for all the Moriyan-Lambakanna conflict, with the ascent of the Lambakanna dynasty, aided by Tamil mercenaries. Although this was yet to come, Tamil mercenaries were now a fixed point in the land - always ominously but reliably on hand to ensure that royal succession and even day-to-day government could not progress without reference to their own complex short-term interests.

Kassapa II was to reign for just 10 years until 659 CE, but he packed a great deal of good into his short term. He repaired the fortress in the north to fend off any further Tamil invasions better. Irrigation systems, dams, and tanks were repaired, and agriculture was rebooted. Even some of the many ruined temples and monasteries were restored. It was all very far from all that was needed to put things right – but at least it went in the right direction. And the king was to die an unusually ordinary death, though passing on a cursed succession, which gave his nephew, not his son, Manavanna, the throne, as Dappula I.

With the bypassed son fled to India, Dappula I attempted to consolidate his power base, but facing a sudden Tamil mercenary insurgency led by Hatthadatha (who would himself later become a king), fled south to set up his own safer kingdom in Rohana. And there he stayed, the island now effectively divided into two warring states - Ruhuna and Anuradhapura.

As Anuradhapura itself fell into the ever-changing hands of mercenaries, Dappula I managed a most natural death in 664 CE and was succeeded by his brother, Dathopa Tissa II, who ruled until his own natural death in 673. He was succeeded by his brother, Aggabodhi IV, in 673. Little is known of what was happening up north in Anuradhapura at the time, and when Aggabodhi IV died in 689 or 691 CE, Ruhana itself fell into the hands of warring Tamil mercenaries, one of whom, Poththakutta, placed Hatthadatha on the throne. But only for a year. For by now the powerful Lambakanna clan had found itself a far more formidable champion, in the form of Manavanna, a son of Kassapa II. Coming from India with his own band of mercenaries, the new king put an end once and for all to the Moriyan–Lankbranaka conflict, thereby terminating any future trace of Morian rule.

The dynasty had ruled the land on and off for 236 years. Under it, the country had soared to unequalled heights of artistic excellence as evidenced at Sigiriya. Under them, great poets and remarkable engineers had made extraordinary contributions to the state. Wealth had flooded the nation. New ideas and philosophies had flourished. Some of their kings had even demonstrated a knack for governing that few others would later equal. And yet – overall – their rule had been, in the last analysis, disastrous.

“Murder,” remarked Stephen King, “is like potato chips: you can't stop with just one.” Nor could the Moriyans. Patricide and regicide characterised their leadership, a government made worse by the internecine warfare between the Moriyan and Lambakanna clans, which plunged the country into repeated civil wars, aided and extended by foreign powers from Persia and mercenaries from India. “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye / I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye / Goodbye!” Despite a promising start, liberating the country from the Pandyan invaders, the Moriyans had demonstrated at almost every opportunity how little they knew about kingship. Few of their much put-upon subjects would have looked back on the times with fondness. It was time for the island to press once more a major reset button and get back to the serious business of government.