In that year a mission from China, sent with incense and offerings to the shrine of the tooth, was insulted and waylaid, and with difficulty effected an escape from Ceylon.[1] According to the Ming-she, or History of the Ming Dynasty, "the Emperor Ching-tsoo, indignant at this outrage on his people; and apprehensive lest the influence of China in other countries besides Ceylon had declined during the reign of his predecessors, sent Ching-Ho, a soldier of distinction, with a fleet of sixty-two ships and a large military escort, on an expedition to visit the western kingdoms, furnished with proper credentials and rich presents of silk and gold. Ching-Ho touched at Cochin-China, Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Siam, and other places, proclaiming at each the Imperial edict, and conferring Imperial gifts." If any of the princes refused submission, they were subdued by force; and the expedition returned to China in A.D. 1407, accompanied by envoys from the several nations, who came to pay court to the Emperor.
1: Se-yĭh-ke foo-choo, b. xviii. p. 15. This Chinese invasion of Ceylon has been already adverted to in the sketch of the domestic history of the island, Vol. I. Part IV. ch xii. p. 417.
In the following year Ching-Ho, having been despatched on a similar mission to Ceylon, the king, A-lee-ko-nae-wah, decoyed his party into the interior, threw up stockades with a view to their capture, in the hope of a ransom, and ordered soldiers to the coast to plunder the Chinese junks. But Ching-Ho, by a dexterous movement, avoided the attack, and invested the capital[1], made a prisoner of the king, succeeded in conveying him on board his fleet, and carried him captive to China, together with his queen, his children, his officers of state, and his attendants. He brought away with him spoils, which were long afterwards exhibited in the Tsing-hae monastery at Nankin[2], and one of the commentaries on the Si-yu-ke of Hiouen Thseng, states that amongst the articles carried away, was the sacred tooth of Buddha.[3] "In the sixth month of the year 1411," says the author of the Ming-Shè, "the prisoners were presented at court. The Chinese ministers pressed for their execution, but the emperor, in pity for their ignorance, set them at liberty, but commanded them to select a virtuous man from the same family to occupy the throne. All the captives declared in favour of Seay-pa-nae-na, whereupon an envoy was sent with a seal to invest him with the royal dignity, as a vassal of the empire," and in that capacity he was restored to Ceylon, the former king being at the same time sent back to the island.[4] It would be difficult to identify the names in this story with the kings of the period, were it not stated in another chronicle, the Woo-hëŏ-pëen, or Record of the Ming Dynasty, that Seay-pa-nae-na was afterwards named Pu-la-ko-ma Ba-zae La-cha, in which it is not difficult to recognise "Sri Prakrama Bahu Raja," the sixth of his name, who transferred the seat of government from Gampola to Cotta, and reigned from A.D. 1410 to 1462.[5]
1: Gampola.
2: Sŭh-Wan-hëen tung-kaou, book ccxxxvi p. 12.
3: See [note at the end of this chapter.]
4: Ming-shè, b. cccxxvi. p. 5. M. STANISLAS JULIEN intimates that the forthcoming volume of his version of the Si-yu-ki will contain the eleventh book, in which an account will be given of the expedition of Ching Ho.—Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales, tom. i. p. 26. In anticipation of its publication, M. JULIEN has been so obliging as to make for me a translation of the passage regarding Ceylon, but it proves to be an annotation of the fifteenth century, which, by the inadvertence of transcribers, has become interpolated in the text of Hiouen-Thsang. It contains, however, no additional facts or statements beyond the questionable one before alluded to, that the sacred tooth of Buddha was amongst the spoils carried to Pekin by Ching Ho.
5: Woo-hëŏ-pëen, b. lxviii p. 5. See also the Ta-tsing yĭh-tung, a topographical account of the Manchoo empire, a copy of which is among the Chinese books in the British Museum. In the very imperfect version of the Rajavali, published by Upham, this important passage is rendered unintelligible by the want of fidelity of the translator, who has transformed the conqueror into a "Malabar," and ante-dated the event by a century. (Rajavali, p. 263.) I am indebted to Mr. De Alwis, of Colombo, for a correct translation of the original, which is as follows: "In the reign of King Wijayo-bahu, the King of Maha (great) China landed in Ceylon with an army, pretending that he was bringing tribute; King Wijayo-bahu, believing his professions (because it had been customary in the time of King Prakrama-bahu for foreign countries to pay tribute to Ceylon), acted incautiously, and he was treacherously taken prisoner by the foreign king. His four brothers were killed, and with them fell many people, and the king himself was carried captive to China." DE COUTO, in his continuation of DE BARROS, has introduced the story of the capture of the king by the Chinese; but he has confounded the dates, mystified the facts, and altered the name of the new sovereign to Pandar, which is probably only a corruption of the Singhalese Banda, "a prince."—DE COUTO, Asia, &c., dec. v. lib. i. c. vi. vol. ii. part i. p. 51. PURCHAS says: "The Singhalese language is thought to have been left there by the Chinois, some time Lord of Zeilan."—Pilgrimage, c. xviii. p. 552. The adventures of Ching Ho, in his embassy to the nations of the Southern Ocean, have been made the ground-work of a novel, the Se-yung-ke, which contains an enlarged account of his exploits in Ceylon; but fact is so overlaid with fiction that the passages are not worth extracting.
For fifty years after this untoward event the subjection of Ceylon to China appears to have been humbly and periodically acknowledged; tribute was punctually paid to the emperor, and on two occasions, in 1416 A.D., and 1421 A.D., the kings of Ceylon were the bearers of it in person.[1] In 1430 A.D., at a period of intestine commotion, "Ching-Ho issued a proclamation for the pacification of Ceylon," and, at a somewhat later period, edicts were promulgated by the Emperor of China for the government of the island.[2] In 1459 A.D., however, the series of humiliations appears to have come abruptly to a close; for, "in that year," says the Ming-shè, "the King of Ceylon for the last time sent an envoy with tribute, and after that none ever came again."
1: Ming-shè, b. vii. pp. 4, 8.