King Upatissa
BC 505 - BC 504
Assigned
King Panduvasdeva
BC 504 - BC 474
Ageing
King Abhaya
BC 474 - BC 454
 
King Panduvasdeva

House of Vijaya | Upatissa Nuwara - (BC 504 - BC 474)

Prince Panduvasudeva arrived accompanied by thirty two noble youth. Princess Buddhakachchana, daughter of a King named Panda, from an ancient Royal family, a cousin of the Buddha also arrived from Vijaya’s homeland with thirty two female attendants. Prince Panduvasudeva and Princess Buddhakachchana were married and duly concesrated as the second King and Queen of Lanka. The king gave his thirty two noble men in marriage to the queen’s thirty two attendants.
 
The King had ten sons, the eldest named Abhaya, and one daughter names Ummadha Citta.
 
A court Brahimn (learned astrologer) predicted that the son who will be born to Princess Citta will destroy his uncles. The sons of King Panduvasudeva held a meeting led by the second son Tissa and planned to kill their sister, Princess Citta. The eldest son, Abhaya, did not approve of such an extreme and cruel action, and with the consent of his father, the King, ordered her to be placed in solitary confinement. She was placed in a chamber adjoining the King’s own private chamber and the Queen’s personal maid, Cetiya, was entrusted with the task of taking care of the infant princess.
 
As the years went by Princess Citta grew into a beautiful woman. Shortly after her sixteenth year she was looking down at the garden from her chamber window and saw her brother Prince Tissa talking to a stranger under a tree. She asked Cetiya, her maid, who this man was and was told that he was Prince Dighagamini, the ruler of a neighboring state. The princess expressed her desire to meet this Prince and the maid Cetiya arranged this and a meeting took place between them. Soon, it was discovered by Citta and Princess Cetiya that the Princess was pregnant. Princess Citta confided this situation to her brother Prince Abhaya and he then learned that the person responsible was his own cousin Prince Dhigagamini.
 
Abhaya told his father the story and persuaded him to marry the princess to Prince Dhigagamini. The King agreed. Abhaya next told his brothers who were all furious with anger. Tissa proclaimed that if Citta’s child was a boy he would kill him immediately. Citta, in her attempt to protect her child should he be a boy, planned to substitute a female newborn child in the place of hers if her child was a boy which was the case. Her new born son was smuggled out of the palace and a new born female child was substituted in his place. Her mother the Queen and the maidservant Cetiya, both, agreed to help in this caper. The newborn son was spirited away into the safe and secluded territory of the Ruhuna (south of the Island). A female newborn child was substituted in his place by the side of Citta. The King was overjoyed at the birth of his granddaughter and named her Canna, after her grandmother.
 
The boy, now growing up in distant Ruhuna, was named Pandukabhaya, a combination of the names of Citta’s father, Panduvasudeva, and her eldest brother Abhaya, who had been her lifelong friend and savior. The reservoir, Abhaya Wewa, was built during their reign in the year 505 BC. The King died after a peaceful ad prosperous reign of thirty years. His sea of government, during this reign, was Vijitapura.
 
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