The easy success of the first usurpers encouraged the ambition of fresh aspirants, and barely ten years elapsed till the first regular invasion of the island took place, under the illustrious Elala, who, with an army from Mysore (then called Chola or Soli), subdued the entire of Ceylon, north of the Mahawelli-ganga, and compelled the chiefs of the rest of the island, and the kings of Rohuna and Maya, to acknowledge his supremacy and become his tributaries.[1] As in the instance of the previous revolt, the people exhibited such faint resistance to the usurpation, that the reign of Elala extended to forty-four years.  It is difficult to conceive that their quiescence under a stranger was entirely ascribable to the fact, that the rule of the Malabars, although adverse to Buddhism, was characterised by justice and impartiality.  Possibly they recognised to some extent their pretensions, as founded on their relationship to the legitimate sovereigns of the island, and hence they bore their sway without impatience.[2]

[Footnote 1:  TURNOUR’S Epitome, p. 17; Mahawanso, ch. xxi. p. 128; Rajavali, p. 188.]

[Footnote 2:  See ante, p. 360, n.]

The majority of the subsequent invasions of Ceylon by the Malabars partook less of the character of conquest than of forays, by a restless and energetic race, into a fertile and defenceless country.  Mantotte, on the northwest coast, near Adam’s Bridge, became the great place of debarcation; and here successive bands of marauders landed time after time without meeting any effectual resistance from the unwarlike Singhalese.

The second great invasion took place about a century after the first, B.C. 103, when seven Malabar leaders effected simultaneous descents at different points of the coast[1], and combined with a disaffected “Brahman prince” of Rohuna, to force Walagam-bahu I. to surrender his sovereignty.  The king, after an ineffectual show of resistance, fled to the mountains of Malaya; one of the invaders carried off the queen to the coast of India; a third despoiled the temples of Anarajapoora and retired, whilst the others continued in possession of the capital for nearly fifteen years, till Walagam-bahu, by the aid of the Rohuna highlanders, succeeded in recovering the throne.

[Footnote 1:  TURNOUR’S Epitome, p. 16.  The Mahawanso says they landed at “Mahatittha.”—­Mantotte, ch. xxxiii. p. 203.]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 515.]

The third great invasion on record[1] was in its character still more predatory than those which preceded it, but it was headed by a king in person, who carried away 12,000 Singhalese as slaves to Mysore.  It occurred in the reign of Waknais, A.D. 110, whose son Gaja-bahu, A.D. 113, avenged the outrage by invading the Solee country with an expedition which sailed from Jaffnapatam, and brought back not only the rescued Singhalese captives, but also a multitude of Solleans, whom the king established on lands in the Alootcoor Corle, where the Malabar features are thought to be discernible to the present day.[2]