The Tamil soldiers swooped in. Bangai Rala – who wanted to protect his master, pulled out his sword and rushed
forward to save Commander Veediya Bandara. He shielded him well. There followed a
terrific battle. Bangai Rala displayed his mastery in warfare. But he could not do it for long. He fell dead from the blow from the sword of a Tamil soldier.
By this time,
Bangai Rala had shown his talent by killing nearly
60 soldiers, within a very short time. Paul Peiris – in his book on the Portuguese period makes mention of this. The worst battle was yet to come. Veediya Bandara was all alone. He killed a number of Tamil soldiers who came to attack him. This time – his fight was not to display his power but to protect his life.
Yet, he knew that he would never be able to escape from them. So this hero decided to kill as many as possible and die in the process. He made up his mind. He wielded his sword at lightning speed. Tamil soldiers began to tumble one upon the other and so they fell dead. Then all the Tamil commanders got together, surrounded Veediya Bandara and began to attack him.
With all this, they were still unable to defeat this Sinhala hero. The fighting went on for a
considerable length of time. One Tamil soldier went behind the tamarind tree and silently climbed up the tree. He attacked our hero with his spear.
How unfortunate! This unparalleled hero, who was such a wealth to the country, fell dead with this blow.
Whatever wealth he
possessed went to King Vagaraja. This Tamil king was greatly saddened by what happened. The wealth inherited from the commander included the Tooth Relic, a few books written on ‘ola’ leaves and 33 lakhs of gold ‘pagodi’. The king who received this, decided to spend it on honouring the great leader. It is mentioned that he erected a temple in
memory of this commander.
The people of Kotte were struck with immense grief, when they heard this sad news. They did
meritorious deeds to confer merit on the dead leader. But the commander’s son King Dharmapala, did not feel sad about the death of his father. He had been under the impression that Veediya Bandara also wanted to grab power in
the Kingdom of Kotte.
As such, he was glad that he died. He now decided to get closer to the Portuguese.
The best way to win the hearts of the Portuguese was to become a Christian he thought. He had already been learning Christianity but had not been converted. He was reluctant to embrace Christianity, as the people of Kotte were dead against it and resisted the new
religion.
King Dharmapala entertained a fear that the people of Kotte would definitely support Mayadunne, if he became a Christian. But on the other hand he had a lot of pressure from the Christian priests.
The priests had been almost
forcing him to embrace Christianity. Thammita Bandara, his uncle too had become a Christian by this time. He was the officer in charge of his stores.
Sri Radha Rakshita Panditha who made a trip to Portugal, had embraced Christianity, some time ago. Most of the fisher folk, who lived along the coastline too had become Christians. King Dharmapala spoke to his queen about his wish to change his religion. |
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