Kandy is a major city in Sri Lanka located in the Central Province. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is both an administrative and religious city and is also the capital of the Central Province. Kandy is the home of the Temple of the Tooth Relic, one of the most sacred places of worship in the Buddhist world. It was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1988. Historically the local Buddhist rulers resisted Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial expansion and occupation.
The Kandyan Wars refers generally to the period of warfare between the British colonial forces and the Kingdom of Kandy, on the island of what is now Sri Lanka, between 1796 and 1818. More specifically it is used to describe the expeditionary campaigns of the British Army in the Kingdom of Kandy in 1803 and 1815.
King Rajasinghe II, also known as Rajasingha II, was a Sinhalese King, reigned 1629 – 6 December 1687; third king of the kingdom of Kandy in Sri Lanka. Rajasingha requested Dutch aid to help expel the Portuguese from the island, which they successfully did in 1656. By this time however it had become clear to the Kandyans that the Dutch not only intended to expel the Portuguese but to replace them as the major colonial power on the island. This transfer of power is also believed to be where the Sinhala idiom / figure of speech “ඉඟුරු දී මිරිස් ගත්තා වාගේ” Inguru di miris gaththa wagay was originated - in reference that the Dutch Rule was much more of a menace to the king and cruel to the people in the island than the Portuguese. From 1645 onwards Rajasingha was engaged in sporadic warfare with his erstwhile allies.
Dutch Ceylon was a governorate established in present-day Sri Lanka by the Dutch East India Company. Although the Dutch managed to capture most of the coastal areas in Sri Lanka they were never able to control the Kandyan Kingdom located in the interior of the island. Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 until 1796.
The Nayaks of Kandy were the rulers of the Kingdom of Kandy between 1739 and 1815, and the last dynasty to rule on the island. The term Nayak is derived from the Sanskrit word Nāyaka. Their rise to power came about as a result of the death of Vira Narendrasinha, who left no legitimate heir- the throne passed to his brother-in-law, who was crowned as Sri Vijaya Rajasinha in 1739. They were of Telugu origin, spoke Telugu or Tamil, and used Sinhala and Tamil as their court languages. They are also credited for building various Vishnu temples in Sri Lanka dedicated to their clan deity Vishnu, known as Upulvan in Sinhala. A prominent one of them was the Kandy Vishnu Temple established at their capital Kandy.
Ceylon was the British Crown colony of present-day Sri Lanka between 1796 and 4 February 1948. Initially, the area it covered did not include the Kingdom of Kandy, which was a protectorate, but from 1817 to 1948 the British possessions included the whole island of Ceylon, now the nation of Sri Lanka.
The Kingdom of Kandy was a monarchy on the island of Sri Lanka, located in the central and eastern portion of the island. It was founded in the late 15th century and endured until the early 19th century.
Rajasinghe I was a king of the Kingdom of Sitawaka who was known for his extreme bravery and patriotism against the Portuguese invasion of Sri Lanka. Born as Tikiri Bandara to King Mayadunne of the Kingdom of Sitawaka, he received the name "Rajasinha" after the fierce fighting against Portuguese forces at the Battle of Mulleriyawa. Rajasinha means the King of Lions.
Vimaladharmasūriya I was a king of Kandy from 1590 to 1604. His reputation was built when he successfully repulsed two major Portuguese offensives on Kandy, the Battle of Danture in 1594 and the Battle of Balana in 1602, in both of which the Portuguese were humiliatingly defeated.
Kirti Sri Rajasinha was the second Nayaka king of Kandy. He was a prince from the Madurai Nayak Dynasty and the brother-in-law of Sri Vijaya Raja Singha. He succeeded his brother-in-law to the throne in 1751.
Portuguese Ceylon is the name given to the territory on Ceylon, modern-day Sri-Lanka, controlled by the Portuguese Empire between 1597 and 1658.
The Kandyan Convention was an treaty signed on 2 March 1815 between the British Governor of Ceylon Sir Robert Brownrigg and the chiefs of the Kandyan Kingdom, British Ceylon for the deposition of King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha and ceding of the kingdom's territory to the British Crown. It was signed on 2 March 1815 in the Magul Maduwa of the Royal Palace of Kandy.
The Mahâ Dissâvas was a Great Officer in the Amātya Mandalaya, or Sinhalese Council of State, in the Sinhalese Kingdoms of monarchical Sri Lanka. Like many of the existing high offices at the time it had combined legislative and judicial powers and functioned primarily equivalent to that of a Provincial governor. The office of Dissava was retained under the successive European colonial powers, namely the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch East India Company and the British Empire. A Dissava was the governor a province known as a Disavanies. With his province, the Dissava held both executive and judicial authority.
The Danture campaign comprised a series of encounters between the Portuguese and the Kingdom of Kandy in 1594, part of the Sinhalese–Portuguese War. It is considered a turning point in the indigenous resistance to Portuguese expansion. For the first time in Sri Lanka a Portuguese army was essentially annihilated, when they were on the verge of the total conquest of the island. A 20,000-strong Portuguese army, led by Governor Pedro Lopes de Sousa, invaded Kandy on 5 July 1594. After three months, severely depleted by guerilla warfare and mass desertions, what remained of the Portuguese army was annihilated at Danture by the Kandyans under King Vimaladharmasuriya. With this victory, the Kingdom of Kandy emerged as a major military power; it was to retain its independence, against Portuguese, Dutch, and British armies, until 1815.
The Kandyan naval raid was a series of commerce raidings by the Kingdom of Kandy against the Portuguese empire from 16 May 1612 to 6 March 1613. With the help of Dutch envoy Marcellus de Bochouwer, King Senarat of Kandy commissioned a fleet of 3 war galleys and 3 yachts under the Admiralty of a nephew of Kuruvita Rala, the prince of Uva. They sailed from Koddiyar bay and managed to engage and inflict losses on Portuguese shipping around Ceylon and along the coast line from Cape Comorin to Calicut.
The Siege of the Portuguese fort Santa Cruz de Gale at Galle in 1640, took place during the Dutch–Portuguese and Sinhalese–Portuguese Wars. The Galle fort commanded 282 villages, which contained most fertile cinnamon lands in southern Sri Lanka It was also an important strategic coastal defense of Portuguese Ceylon. The Dutch, who were in an alliance with the Kingdom of Kandy, landed an expeditionary force under Commodore Willem Jacobszoon Coster of Akersloot, at the Bay of Galle, on 8 March 1640. After bombarding the fort for four consecutive days, Dutch troops stormed the fort and secured a victory on 13 March 1640. The Portuguese garrison, led by Captain Lourenço Ferreira de Brito, mounted a stiff resistance and unexpectedly high casualty rates among Dutch troops gave rise to the proverb “Gold in Malacca, lead in Galle”. With this victory the Dutch gained access to a large port which they later used as a convenient naval base to attack Goa and other South Indian Portuguese defenses. They also gained access to the Sri Lankan cinnamon trade and gained a permanent foothold on the island.
The Sinhalese–Portuguese War was a series of conflicts waged from 1527 to 1658 in Sri Lanka between the native Sinhalese kingdoms against the Portuguese Empire. It spanned from the Transitional to the Kandyan periods of Sri Lankan history. A combination of political and military moves gained the Portuguese control over most of the island, but their invasion of the final independent kingdom was a disaster, leading to a stalemate in the wider war and a truce from 1621. In 1638 the war restarted when the Dutch East India Company intervened in the conflict, initially as an ally of the Sinhalese against the Portuguese, but later as an enemy of both sides. The war concluded in 1658, with the Dutch in control of about half the island, the Kingdom of Kandy the other half, and the Portuguese expelled.
Balana Fort was built by the Kingdom of Kandy near Alagalla Mountain Range, Sri Lanka. It was a strategic rock fortress and an outpost for the kingdom. When the English established themselves in Kandy, colonizers raised tea and coffee plantations near the Colombo-Kandy railway line.
The Kandyan period covers the history of Sri Lanka from 1597–1815. After the fall of the Kingdom of Kotte, the Kandyan Kingdom was the last Independent monarchy of Sri Lanka. The Kingdom played a major role throughout the history of Sri Lanka. It was founded in 1476. The kingdom located in the central part of Sri Lanka managed to remain independent from both the Portuguese and Dutch rule who controlled coastal parts of Sri Lanka; however, it was colonised by the British in 1815.
Kuruvita Rala was a Sri Lankan rebel leader and prince of Uva, who served as regent in the kingdom of Kandy. He was also a relation of Dona Catherina, Queen of Kandy and the guardian of her children.
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