Once upon a time there was a city named Vanga in India. The ruler of this city was King Vanga.
He had a beautiful daughter named Suppadevi. She married a lion and gave birth to a son and a daughter. The son’s name was Sinhabahu while the daughter’s name was Sinhasivali.
Sinhabahu was the next and he was chosen a week after the death of King Vanga.
He took Sinhasivalias his wife and they had two sons. They were Vijaya and Sumitta. Vijaya was evil and because of his misconduct the king ordered that the prince and his 700 followers be half shaved and banished from the kingdom. They were set afloat in a ship.
Prince Vijaya and his followers landed in Sri Lanka on the day of the Buddha’s Parinirvana.
They came to Thambapanni near Mannar. The crew was sent to fetch water and they saw a woman who was from the Yakka tribe and her name was Kuveni. She was spinning thread.
There was a pond nearby and they bathed and drank some water and they took lotus leaves and filled them with water. Then Kuveni said “you are my prey now” and she trapped them.
After a while,Prince Vijaya came looking for them and he saw Kuveni.
He asked her, “Have you seen 700 men walking around here”?
She said, “Prince, what the use of those people”?
The prince immediately knew that she knew something about his colleagues’ disappearance and he pulled Kuveni’s hair and took his sword with his right arm and lightly kept it near her neck.
Kuveni got frightened and begged him not to kill her and said that she will release his colleagues. She said that the prince can rule the Kingdom of Lanka and she will be his wife.
The prince agreed and married Kuveni and they had two children named Jeevahatha and Disala. And he made his followers ministers and named villages after them.
An example is Anuradhapura which was named after the minister, Anuradha.
Tinaya Abedeera
Grade 6
MusaeusCollege
Colombo 7