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Gamini Abhaya or Dutte GaminiKing Dutugamunu(c.191 - 137 B.C.E.) ruled Sri Lanka from 161 B.C.E to 137 B.C.E. He ruled from Anuradhapura . Abhaya means "feedom or lberty" and Dutte means "the evil " accordingly it means freedom from evil.This is the sanscrit version but the sinhalese version gives similer meaning as king emporer or monarch free from evil Image File history File links Stop_hand. ... Events Serapion of Antioch becomes Patriarch of Antioch. ... For other uses, see number 137. ... Events March 7 - Roman emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by co-Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. ... For other uses, see number 137. ...

Predecessor

Ellaalan, the just a Tamil king, ruled from 205 B.C.E. to 162 B.C.E. He was the younger brother of the Chola king Ellagan . He conquered Sri Lanka after Ellagan came to the throne, and set up his own kingdom. He had put the Sinhala king Asela to death. His son was punished as a means of providing justice to a mother cow . Ellaalan( c. ... Events Births Plotinus, according to his student Porphyry. ... Events Lucius Verus begins a war with the Parthians, due to the invasion of Syria and Armenia by Vologases III of Parthia. ... Sinhala (also Sinhalese, formerly Singhalese) is the language spoken by the Sinhalese, the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). ...

In 161 B.C.E. the then son-less seventy four year old Tamil king was called for an one-to-one battle by the young strong native prince Gamini, and was defeated.The native prince DUTUGAMUNUbecame the King of the whole country which was called three sinhalaya(the three parts of the sinhalese kingdom Ruhuna,Maya and Pihiti)his son saliya married a low caste girl Asoka from chandala caste and was outcaseted.From their cohabitation a new sinhalese caste emerged as Rodi.After the death of the king Dutugamunuhis brother sadhathissa became the king this dynesty prevailed for 563 years.

Parents

At this period there were branches of the sinhalese royal family established at Kelaniya and at Magama in the present Digamadulla District. In 270 B.C.E. , the queen of Devanampiya Tissa (Tittan in Tamil is transliterated into Tissa in Pali) tried to poison her brother-in-law, the sub-king Mahanaga, who thereupon fled towards Ruhuna. On the way his wife gave birth to a son, Tissa, at the Yatthala Vihara, whence, proceeding to Ruhuna, he established himself at Magama. The site of Tissa's birthplace usually is identified with a temple near ampara, but it is clear from the narrative that it was not in present Ruhuna: possibly it was the vihara of the same name in digamadulla District in the present eastern province(old kingdom of ruhuna). The earliest chronicles The Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa say that, before the migration of the Indo-Aryans, tribes of naga, yaksha, deva & raksha inhabited the island. ...

Tissa is said in the Pujavaliya to have built the Kelani Dagaba: he, his son Gothabhaya, and his grandson Kakavanna Tissa (KavanTissa, `Crow-colour Tissa') succeeded to the government of the principality or kingdom of Magama; the last named ruler's wife was the daughter of Tissa, king of Kelaniya. The queen of this king Tissa had carried on an intrigue with her brother-inlaw, who on being detected fled and corresponded with her by a messenger disguised as a priest. The man attached himself to the attendants of the chief priest who was visiting the palace, and catching the eye of the queen dropped his master's letter. Unfortunately the palm-leaf missive made a noise in falling; the correspondence was detected, and the king in his fury slew not only the messenger but the chief priest, whose complicity he suspected. Thereupon the sea, which according to the Rajavaliya was then about seven gaus (some fifteen miles) from Kelaniya, overwhelmed the land, submerging many towns and villages (probably a tsunami). To put an end to this the king placed his daughter Devi in a golden vessel and launched it into the sea: she was carried southwards and east ashore near a temple (vihara), when she became the queen consort of Kakavanna Tissa under the name of Vihara Devi. Their sons were Gamini Abhaya, the future hero, and Tissa. Some legends say that Kakavanna Tissa, holding on to the island's common Tamil ancestory , was dejected at his sons' violent attitude, renounced the throne and left for the Pandyan kingdom in his later years. He was a Tamil scholar and an ardent devotee of God Siva . He was received well and loved by the saints of Pothigai and was turned into a Sittar. Another legend says that he was the master of the great Tamil saint Thiruvalluvar . This article is about the Hindu God. ... In old Tamil, Siththu means of Siva, thus Siththar refer to the disciples of God Siva . Legend says that God Siva and Lord Muruga prescribed the sciences of the study of the eternal mind and the perfection of health, and the science of Tamil traditional medicine, to their beloved disciple... Tiruvalluvar was one of the greatest Tamil poets. ...

Birth and early life

Gamini Abhaya at an early age showed signs of an adventurous disposition, and in particular resented the confined limits of his father's kingdom , which was Magama on the southernmost coast of the island and very far away from the River Mahaweliganga . The young prince surrounded himself with a chosen band of companions, finally asked permission of his father to fight the Tamils. Kakavanna who still considered himself and all the people of the island as of Tamil origin irrespective of their tongue, refused to disturb the peace and prosperity of Ellaalan's land. So the prince Gamini fled in anger to the hills, thus earning by his conduct the surname of `Duttha` or the bad. After his father left for Tamil Nadu, Duttha Gamani (or Dutte Gamini), as we must now call him, succeeded to the kingdom, though not without an armed struggle with his brother, with whom he was finally reconciled. He was said to have lamented over his inherited kingdom which was then only a few square kilometres on the southern coast .

Battle for the crown

Dutte Gamini was now free to open his campaign against Ellaalan . Advancing through the hills on his famous state elephant Kandula (Kadol), he commenced operations at Mahiyangana, and gradually fought his way down the Mahaweliganga river. The Tamils at last threw themselves into Vijitapura, the siege of which took four months. This town usually is identified with the place now called by this name near Kalavewa: but, as it was garrisoned by those Tamils `who had escaped the slaughter along the bank of the river,' it seems more probable that it was in the neighbourhood of the later Polonnaruwa, a suburb of which in the twelfth century still went by the name of Vijita. This place undoubtedly is better situated than Kalavewa for the next operation, the reduction of Girilaka, if this be Giritale. Duttha Gamani then advanced to the Kasa mountain or Kahagala, fifteen miles south-west of Anuradhapura, where he fortified himself and awaited the onset of Ellaalan . In the battle which ensued Tamil forces retreated back towards the capital . Duttha Gamani called on Ellaala for a one-to-one clash with him and the king was slain by him in single combat close to the southern gate of the city. His body was burnt with royal honours, and such was the respect in which he was held that succeeding kings of Lanka silenced their musical instruments when passing his tomb in procession. The so-called Elala Sohona or Tomb of Elala at Anuradhapura does not mark his burial-place, but is the Dakkhina Thupa or Southern Dagaba built by the secular Ellaala for the Buddhists in 200 B.C.E. Ellaalan( c. ... Ellaalan( c. ... The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia with a recorded history going back more than two millennia. ...

The coronation

Duttha Gamani (161 B.C.E. ), having disposed of reinforcements which arrived from India under his nephew, was now sole monarch of Lanka, and kept the feast of his coronation. On the seventh day thereafter he celebrated an aquatic festival at Tisa-veza or Tittan vizha ( a Mazhai vizha ). At its conclusion he found, that he was unable to take up his spear, into which a relic had been inserted, from the ground, and, considering this a miracle, began the building of the Mirisveti Dagaba on that spot, in penance for his failure to share with the priesthood a ripe chilly-pod (miris). Events March 7 - Roman emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by co-Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. ... The ancient Tamil country of the classical era extended from River Krishna to the Cape Comorin(Kanyakumari). ...

Administration

He could never alter his distaste for his Tamil Hindu ancestors and the Tamil people of his country . He continued his evil deeds against the Tamils massacring them in huge numbers . This made even Sinhala people of his time now began acknowledging his title the bad or the evil .

He constructed the Brazen Palace, so called from its tiles being of brass: this also is attributed to Devanampiya Tissa. His chief work of piety, however, was the great Ruwanweli Dagaba or Maha Thupa, erected upon the site where Buddha had stayed on his third visit to Lanka. The huge mass was still unfinished and lacking the spire when Duttha Gamani fell sick. His younger brother, Saddha Tissa, having covered the dagaba with white cloth and crowned it with' a spire of bamboo, the king was brought out and died, his eyes fixed on his masterpiece. He had reigned twenty-four years. Duttha GamaniKing Dutu gamunu, as seen by later generations, too well acquainted with Dravidian conquerors, became the heroic figure of Sinhala history, the expeller of the foreigner and the restorer of the national religion.

He was later succeeded by Saddha Tittan in 137 B.C.E. . For other uses, see number 137. ...

References:

• [1] A short history of Lanka by Humphry William Codrington.
• [2] The Great Chronicle of Lanka -Translated from Pali , by Wilhelm Geiger " The Mahavamsa " 6th Century BC to 4th Century AD
• Mahavamso
• SriLankan chronicle
• Sri Lanka