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Once upon a
time in Serendip (Sri Lanka) there lived a king whose
favorite pastime was to bring cows from the jungle when
there was a decline in their population in town. He sent
strong people to the jungle who brought the cows under their
control and took the animals back to town.
Meanwhile, in
the countryside of Serendip, there lived a poor couple. The
husband died while his wife was into the third month of her
pregnancy. Six months later, she gave birth to a boy. The
child was barely able to crawl when his mother passed away.
The poor orphan got lost and ended up in jungle while
crawling. He found himself amid a herd of cows. He was
fortunate enough to encounter nursing cow from which he
suckled milk. Quite soon, the boy adopted cow's gait and
started moving about on his four limbs.
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Male' -
the small capital
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One day the
elderly cows instructed the herd to pace forward. The child
also ran as fast as could along with the cows. He heard a
loud noise and saw a huge serpent moving from one part of
the jungle to another.
While the
boy was growing among the cows, the king of Serendip sent
some people to the jungle as the number of cows in the town
decreased. The people were amazed to see the boy living with
the cows and took the boy back with them. It took a year for
the doctors to straighten his limbs. The king then ordered
to teach the boy to converse in the language that the people
used. After another year, the boy was taken to the court of
the king.
The king
asked him whether the boy's parents were alive or not. The
boy replied that the king had brought him while he was
living with his parents. The king then asked if the boy saw
any surprises while in jungle. The boy told the king about
the serpent he had seen. The king, after listening to the
story, said that the boy was like a flower in the jungle.
The king then asked the boy to guide them to the cave into
which the serpent had gone.
The king of
Serendip went with many of his subjects to the mountain that
the boy showed him. However, no one dared to enter the cave,
as they feared the serpent. The boy instructed to fill the
cave with wood and to burn it. Even after setting fire to
the wood, no one dared to go into the cave. The boy went
inside the cow and returned with the sand and stones inside
the cave. To everyone's surprise, the boy had returned with
precious gems and stones. When he told that the cave was
filled with them, there was no one who felt reluctant to
venture into the cave.
Soon the
whole town was full of those gems and they stopped to bring
the stones into the town. The king ordered his ministers and
priests to the court and asked whether the treasure belonged
to him. They replied that the gems were the property of the
young adolescent Jangayyah Male'h Fadha Koi (the boy like a
flower in the jungle). The king sought their advice on the
possibilities of making the treasure his own. Some people
advised that if there were no inheritor the state would
receive the property when one died. Hence, they advised to
kill the young man. Others suggested that if the king offer
his daughter's hand for marriage to the koi (young man) then
the goods would be the kings own.
Hence, the
king's daughter was married off to the koi. But the young
man and the princess lived separately in two orchards. The
priests were concerned about this and told the king that he
did not have any rights over the treasure because of the
existing circumstances. The king brought the koi and asked
him how he could make the precious collection his own. The
young man asked the king to build two ships from the riches
of the collection and fill the ships with the treasure and
assign slaves to the ships. The koi said that if the king do
so then the rest of the collection could belong to the king.
The king of
Serendip agreed to the idea and built two ships. The ships
sailed away with the koi and the princess. They sighted two
little islands and after mooring at one island a tent was
put up and the the royal couple stayed in the tent. The koi
ordered the slaves to go to the next island. The koi named
the island he and his wife stayed as Rasgetheemu. He dubbed
the next island where the crew of the ships and the slaves
lived as Alhugetheemu.
When the
koi had arrived to the island, people lived scarcely in the
neighbouring islands. He invited them to a feast and killed
them all. Thereafter, the ruler of the area was the
Jangayyah Male'h Fadha Koi.
Sometime
later, the koi started digging the earth to make a pool in
Rasgetheemu. The slaves who lived in Alhugetheemu did the
work following the instructions of the koi. Oneday while the
work was going on, the koi saw seven black-naped terns. The
birds cried while flying over the island and then
disappeared. The koi asked to stop the work immediately and
told the slaves to go back to Alhugetheemu. After some days,
the work of making the pool was resumed. This time five
black-naped terns cried while flying over the island and
then went away. When the birds disappeared, the work was
halted again. After a brief interval of a few days the
digging started again. Soon one tern appeared over the
island, cried and then went away. The bird returned, circled
the island, and cried.
The koi
took this as an omen and ordered to stop the work and to
prepare the small batheli (a smaller vessel) of the ship for
sail. Hurriedly, the royal couple and their slaves left the
island following the tern. After several days and nights,
the bird landed on the island of Dhoonidhoo in Malé Atoll.
When the batheliWent near the island, the tern set off again
and landed in the sandbank of Malé. At that time, Malé was a
small island, which could be more appropriately called a
sandbank. There were some people in this island who were
about to go fishing. The koi asked for their permission to
settle in the sandbank. They were surprised that he wished
to live in the small island, which they believed was not
suitable for settlement. The fishermen, who were also from
another island, told that they used to dump the waste of
fish to this island. They said that there were more suitable
islands in the vicinity that could be ideal for settling.
However,
the koi did not agree to settle in any island accept Malé.
He and his companions set foot on the island with the
permission of the fishermen. He then sent the crew to fetch
the two ships in Rasgetheemu. Then he sent a letter to the
king of Serendip requesting to send some people and goods to
start a kingdom. The king of Serendip sent few people who
were of the lion race.
The koi had
seen the king of Serendip practicing Buddhism. Hence, he and
his subjects also adopted Buddhism as their religion and set
up idol temples.
Jangayyah male'h Fadha Koi, after proclaiming this
Kingdom, declared that he was King Koimala. |
