Friday, December 22, 2017

Stones thrown, Sri Lanka.

Vesak Nannayakaara in his very informative book ‘Return to Kandy’, relates an incident during the days of the reign of King Kirthi Sri Rajasinghe. The King had a feudal Lord who was his friend. The feudal Lord while on his death-bed, sent a prophetic message to the King, through an associate. The following was a translation of the message.
“Far away I see a hornets nest gather. It is a ‘Yak Debera’ (Devil Hornets). Tell the King not to throw stones at it”.
When Pilimathalawa Adigar went to see the British Governor with a plan to capture King Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe, the Governor inquired whether he wanted to betray his King and refused to see him. Later the British changed their view, when Ehelapola Nilame defected to them.
‘The stone thrown at them’ was when the King arrested a few British Merchants in Kandy, when he heard about the treason of Ehelapola. They took this as a reason to invade Kandy. The so far unconquerable Kingdom fell, when the British were given an imitation resistance, with the cooperation of the Chiefs of the Kingdom, to come into Kandy
‘Throwing stones’ at powerful enemies has brought ruin to us in the past.
1. The Cholas invaded to capture the Pandyan King and his Crown Jewels when Rajasimha Pandya fled to Ceylon with the crown jewels, during the reign of Dappula IV (924-935). They did not succeed. A second Cholian invasion occupied the Rajarata, from 1017 to 1070 AD. They were successful in retrieving the Pandyan crown jewels this time and capturing the king of Sri Lanka at that time, Mahinda.

https://www.google.com/…/column-the-imperial-cholas-con…/amp
2. During the Presidency of Athikaru J R Jayawardena, his quip ‘Mehe Amma mehe Putha, Ehe Amma ehe Putha’ The ‘Mother here and the Son here’ - referring to Sirimavo Bandaranayake and Son and ‘The Mother there and Son there’ referring to Indira Ghandhi and son Rajeev, was another time 'a stone was thrown' at a powerful neighbor and we all know the consequences of that.
3. The construction of the Hambanthota and Colombo Port is another ‘stone thrown’. Only the future will tell us what will happen.

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