Sri Vikrama Rajasinha

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Sri Vikrama Rajasinha (1780-January 30, 1832) was the last monarch of the kingdom of Kandy in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka. He came to the throne in 1798 after the previous king, Sri Rajadi Raja Singha, died childless. He was eventually deposed by the British following his defeat in the Kandian Wars.

His accession was facilitated by Pilimitalava, the chief minister or adigar of Kandy. However, the Sinhalese adigar regarded the king - who was of south Indian ancestry - as an interloper and began to intrigue against him. He manipulated the king into beginning a military conflict with the British, who had gained a strong position in the coastal provinces. War was declared and on March 22, 1803 the British entered Kandy with no resistance, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha having fled. The adigar massacred the British garrison in Kandy in June and restored the king to the throne. Pilimitalava plotted to overthrow the king and seize the crown for himself, but his plot was discovered and he was executed.

The disgraced adigar was replaced by his nephew, Ehelepola, who soon came under suspicion of following his uncle in plotting the overthrow of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. The king reacted harshly; Ehelepola was dismissed, his lands confiscated and his wife and children imprisoned and executed. According to a Sri Lankan account,

“ The eldest boy, who was eleven years old, clung to his mother terrified and crying; her second son, nine years old, with all the inspiration of martyrdom, heroically stepped forward and bade his brother not to be afraid – as he would show him the way to die. By one blow of a sword his head was severed and thrown into a rice pounding mortar where the pestle was put into the mothers hand and she was ordered to pound it. One by one, the heads of all the children were cut off and, one by one, the mother had to pound them in the mortar. The mother was later drowned in the King's ornamental Bogambara Lake. [1] ”

Many others fell victim to the king's paranoia. According to Horace Hayman Wilson, "the King's fury was insatiable; executions were incessant, no persons were secure, and even the chief priest of Buddha, a man of great learning and benevolence, fell a victim to the tyrant's thirst for blood. A general sentiment of fear and detestation pervaded both chiefs and people, and the whole country was ripe for revolt." The king was noted for the cruelty of the punishments that he exacted, crushing by elephant being a favourite method of execution.

Ehelepola himself fled to British-ruled territory, where he persuaded the British that Sri Vikrama Rajasinha's tyranny deserved a military intervention. The pretext was provided by the seizure of a number of British merchants, who were detained on suspicion of spying and were tortured, killing several of them. An invasion was duly mounted and advanced to Kandy without resistance, reaching the city on February 10, 1815. On March 2, the kingdom was ceded to the British under a treaty called the Kandyan Convention. Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was captured and imprisoned by the British in Vellore fort in southern India. He died there on January 30, 1832, aged 52 years, bringing to an end the royal line of Kandy.

[edit] Sources

  • Kings & Rulers of Sri Lanka
  • The Last King
  • Robert Binning, A Journal of Two Years' Travel in Persia, Ceylon, etc. Volume 1. (Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1857)
  • Horace Hayman Wilson, The history of British India, from 1805 to 1835. (James Madden, 1858)
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