The Polonnaruwa Kingdom - IV

The Polonnaruwa Kingdom - IV

Contiued with part three   here to go privious one

The range of Sri Lanka's political and cultural links with Indian states was not limited to South India. As we have seen, the Sinhalese kingdom had very close ties with Kaliriga in the Orissa region, but surprisingly there is little or no Indian evidence bearing on this. On Sri Lanka’s ties with the Calukyas of the Deccan, some information is available. There was indeed a natural convergence of political in¬terests between Sri Lanka and the kingdoms of the Deccan, prompted by the common desire to keep the Cojas in check. An examination of the foreign relations of the island under the Polonnaruva kings reveals an excitingly new dimension: political links with South-East Asia, in particular with Burma (then known to the Sinhalese as Ramanna) and Cambodia. Because of her strategic position athwart the sea route between China and the west, there had been from the very early centuries of the Christian era trade links between the island and some of the South East Asian states and China. Very likely, religious affinity a Buddhist outlook, Theravada or Mahayanist would have strengthened ties which had developed from association in trade, but up till the eleventh century, the cohesion which comes from strong diplomatic and political ties was still lacking. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, at a time of unusual ferment in the politics of the South East Asian region, with many kingdoms then engaged in a self-conscious search for a new identity, and reaching out for new political ties, formal political relations were established between some of these states and Sri Lanka. The Polonnaruwa rulers responded eagerly to these initiatives for they relished the new and attractive vistas in politics and trade which links with South East Asian kingdoms held out. For Vijayabahu I, engaged in a grim struggle against the Cojas, there were immediate advantages from this in the form of economic aid from Anauratha, the Burmese king. The alliance with Burma appears to have continued after the expulsion of the Cojas, and it was to Burma that Vijayabahu I turned for assistance in reorganizing the sangha in Sri Lanka, thus underlining the connection between political ties and a common commitment to Buddhism.

But just as important in the development of political relations between Sri Lanka under the Polonnaruva kings and South East Asia was the commerce of the Indian Ocean. Under Parakramabahu I, conflicting commercial interests drew Sri Lanka and Burma apart. Intent on expanding his country's stake in the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean, Parakramabahu I sought to establish close ties with the powerful Khmer kingdom of Cambodia, thus arousing the suspicions of the Burmese king Alaungsithu, who viewed this development as potentially a serious threat to Burma's own maritime trade. To protect this latter, he resorted to a policy of obstructing Sri Lanka's trade in South East Asia, resulting in strained relations between Burma and Sri Lanka, and eventually war. Parakramabahu I despatched an ex¬pedition to lower Burma. But once this indecisive encounter was over there was a speedy restoration of friendly relations between the two countries.

Between the death of Parakramabahu I and the collapse of the Polonnaruva kingdom there are only two instances of Sri Lanka rulers seeking political links or contacts with South East Asia. These were Vijayabahu II and Nissarika Malla; the first maintained friendly relations with Burma, and the latter with Cambodia as well. But Nissanka Malla's claims in this regard are a matter of some controversy. In a curious way, all these various strands which made up the politics of the island in the last days of the Polonnaruva kingdom were linked together by the only recorded South-East Asian invasion of Sri Lanka. The invasion, which occurred in 1247 when Parakramabahu II (1236-70) was the Sinhalese king ruling at Dembadeniya, was led by Chandrabhanu of Tambralinga, a petty kingdom in the Malay peninsula which had established itself as an independent state in the last days of the Sri Vijaya empire in the thirteenth century.5 Parakramabahu's forces defeated Chandrabhanu, who fled to the Jaffna kingdom, then under Magha. There he succeeded in securing the throne for himself (how he did so we do not know for certain) and was the ruler of Jaffna at the time of the Pandyan invasion.

This latter stemmed from Pandyan rivalry with the Colas, who supported Magha's regime in Sri Lanka. Indeed Magha, as the ruler of the northern kingdom, was no more than a satellite of the Cojas. When, by the middle of the thirteenth century, the Pandyas had established themselves as the dominant power in South India, they were inclined to support the Sinhalese kings against the newly established kingdom in the north of the island. Their intervention in the affairs of Sri Lanka, if more restrained in its objectives than that of the Cdjas, was however no less governed by considerations of realpolitik. They invaded Jaffna and forced Chandrabhanu to submit to Pantfya power, but at the same time, there was no inclination on their part to permit the Sinhalese to reestablish their control over Jaffna. Chandrabhanu was allowed to remain on the throne at Jaffna as a tributary of Pandya. It became evident that one of the limitations imposed on him was that there could be no disturbance of the balance of political power in the island at the expense of the Sinhalese ruler. When Chandrabhanu embarked on a second invasion of the Sinhalese kingdom, and Parakramabahu II appealed to Pandya for help, an expeditionary force was despatched to bring the Javaka ruler to a realization of the limits of his power. The combination of Pandya and Sinhalese forces won an overwhelming victory and Chandrabhanu himself was killed in the confrontation. Instead of handing over control of the Jaffna kingdom to Parakramabahu II the Pandyas preferred to install a son of Chandrabhanu as ruler of Jaffna. When he, in turn, became a threat to the Sinhalese, the latter once more sought the help of the Pandyas, who intervened with decisive effect; but Sinhalese control of the Jaffna kingdom was still equally unacceptable to the Pandyas, and so Aryacakravarti, the leader of the Pandyan army of invasion on this occasion was installed as ruler of Jaffna under their overlordship. When the Pandyan empire, in turn, collapsed as a result of Muslim inroads into South India, Jaffna became an independent kingdom under the Aryacakravartis.