The youth said, “Should you decorate me with the Royal Insignia, and put on me the Crown, and give the Sword into my hands, and place me on the Lion-throne, I will say it.”
Then the King, having caused that youth to bathe, and having decorated him, placed him upon the Lion-throne.
After that, he called the executioners, and said to them, “Aḍē! This one beheaded so many [innocent] people; because of that take him and go, and having beheaded him, cast him out. Behold! That indeed is the work which the King of the world of the Dēvas does,” he said.
Thus, having killed the foolish King, the youth who looked after the goats obtained the sovereignty; and ruling the kingdom together with the Royal Preceptor, he remained there in prosperity.
North-western Province.
The dramatic, and apparently improbable, ending of this Kandian story is founded upon an historical fact. It is recorded in the Mahāvansa, the Sinhalese history (Part I, chapter 35), that King Yasalālaka-Tissa, who reigned in Ceylon from 52 to 60 A.D., had a young gate porter or messenger called Subha, who closely resembled him in appearance. The Mahāvansa relates the story of the King’s deposition by him as follows (Turnour’s translation):—
“The monarch Yasalālaka, in a merry mood, having decked out the said Subha, the messenger, in the vestments of royalty, and seated him on the throne, putting the livery bonnet of the messenger on his own head, stationed himself at a palace gate, with the porter’s staff in his hand. While the ministers of state were bowing down to him who was seated on the throne, the King was enjoying the deception.
“He was in the habit, from time to time, of indulging in these scenes. On a certain occasion (when this farce was repeated), addressing himself to the merry monarch, the messenger exclaimed: ‘How does that messenger dare to laugh in my presence?’ and succeeded in getting the King put to death. The messenger Subha thus usurped the sovereignty, and administered it for six years.”
A variant was related to me by the resident monk at a Buddhist temple to the south of Colombo. Its tenour was as follows:—