ng been interrupted, and the
deficiency was supplied by bringing qualified Theras from Burma. But
by the time of Parakrama Bahu the old quarrels of the monasteries
revived, and, as he was anxious to secure unity, he summoned a synod
at Anuradhapura. It appears to have attained its object by recognizing
the Mahavihara as the standard of orthodoxy and dealing summarily with
dissentients.[92] The secular side of monastic life also received
liberal attention. Lands, revenues and guest-houses were provided for
the monasteries as well as hospitals. As in Burma and Siam Brahmans
were respected and the king erected a building for their use in the
capital. Like Asoka, he forbade the killing of animals.

But the glory of Parakrama Bahu stands up in the later history of
Ceylon like an isolated peak and thirty years after his death the
country had fallen almost to its previous low level of prosperity. The
Tamils again occupied many districts and were never entirely dislodged
as long as the Sinhalese kingdom lasted. Buddhism tended to decline
but was always the religion of the national party and was honoured
with as much magnificence as their means allowed. Parakrama Bahu II
(c. 1240), who recovered the sacred tooth from the Tamils, is said to
have celebrated splendid festivals and to have imported learned monks
from the country of the Colas.[93] Towards the end of the fifteenth
century the inscriptions of Kalyani indicate that Sinhalese religion
enjoyed a great reputation in Burma.[94]

A further change adverse to Buddhism was occasioned by the arrival of
the Portuguese in 1505. A long and horrible struggle ensued between
them and the various kings among whom the distracted island was
divided until at the end of the sixteenth century only Kandy remained
independent, the whole coast being in the hands of the Portuguese. The
singular barbarities which they perpetrated throughout this struggle
are vouched for by their own historians,[95] but it does not appear
that the Sinhalese degraded themselves by similar atrocities.
Since the Portuguese wished to propagate Roman Catholicism as well as
to extend their political rule and used for this purpose (according to
the Mahavamsa) the persuasions of gold as well as the terrors of
torture, it is not surprising if many Sinhalese professed allegiance
to Christianity, but when in 1597 the greater part of Ceylon formally
accepted Portuguese sovereignty, the chiefs insisted that they should
be a