Prince Vijaya

Prince Vijaya (Sinhalese: විජය කුමරු) was a legendary king of Sri Lanka, mentioned in the Pali chronicles, including Mahavamsa. He is the first recorded King of Sri Lanka. His reign is traditionally dated to 543–505 BCE. According to the legends, he and several hundred of his followers came to Lanka after being expelled from an Indian kingdom. In Lanka, they displaced the island's original inhabitants (Yakkhas), established a kingdom and became ancestors of the modern Sinhalese people.

Sources and variations of the legend

Broadly, there are four distinct versions of the legend that explains the origin of Sinhalese people. In all the versions, a prince comes to the island of Lanka, and establishes a community that gives rise to the Sinhalese race. The Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa name the prince as Vijaya, while the other two legends have different names for the prince.

The Mahavamsa version, the most detailed of the above-mentioned versions, is described below.

Ancestry

The king of Vanga (present-day Bengal) married a princess (named Mayavati in some versions) of the neighbouring Kalinga (present-day Odisha). The couple had a daughter named Suppadevi, who was prophesied to copulate with the king of beasts. As an adult, Princess Suppadevi left Vanga to seek an independent life. She joined a caravan headed for Magadha, but it was attacked by Sinha ("lion") in a forest of the Lala (or Lada) region. The Mahavamsa mentions the "Sinha" as an animal, but some modern interpreters state that Sinha was the name of a beastly outlaw man living in the jungle. Lala is variously identified as an area in the Vanga-Kalinga region, or as a part of the present-day Gujarat.