The Portuguese, on their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives fully impressed by the traditions of its former extent and partial submersion; and their belief in connection with it, will be found in the narratives and histories of De Barros and Diogo de Couto, from which they have been transferred, almost without abridgment, to the pages of Valentyn. The substance of the native legends will be found in the _Mahawanso_, c. xxii. p. 131; and _Rajavali_, p. 180, 190.] [Footnote 2: The first disturbance of the coast by which Ceylon is alleged to have been severed from the main land is said by the Buddhists to have taken place B.C. 2387; a second commotion is ascribed to the age of Panduwaasa, B.C. 504; and the subsidence of the shore adjacent to Colombo is said to have taken place 200 years later, in the reign of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 306. The event is thus recorded in the _Rajavali_, one of the sacred books of Ceylon:--"In these days the sea was seven leagues from Kalany; but on account of what had been done to the teeroonansee (a priest who had been tortured by the king of Kalany), the gods who were charged with the conservation of Ceylon, became enraged and caused the sea to deluge the land; and as during the epoch called _duwapawrayaga_ on account of the wickedness of Rawana, 25 palaces and 400,000 streets were all over-run by the sea, so now in this time of Tissa Raja, 100,000 large towns, 910 fishers' villages, and 400 villages inhabited by pearl fishers, making together eleven-twelfths of the territory of Kalany, were swallowed up by the sea."--_Rajavali_, vol. ii. p. 180, 190. FORBES observes the coincidence that the legend of the rising of the sea in the age of Panduwaasa, 2378 B.C., very nearly concurs with the date assigned to the Deluge of Noah, 2348,--_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. ii. p. 258. A tradition is also extant, that a submersion took place at a remote period on the east coast of Ceylon, whereby the island of Giri-dipo, which is mentioned in the first chapter of the _Mahawanso_, was engulfed, and the dangerous rocks called the Great and Little Basses are believed to be remnants of it.--_Mahawanso_, c. i. A _résumé_ of the disquisitions which have appeared at various times as to the submersion of a part of Ceylon, will be found in a Memoir _sur la Géographie ancienne de Ceylon_, in the Journal Asiatique for January, 1857, 5th ser., vol. ix. p. 12; see also TURNOUR'S _Introd. to the Mahawanso_, p. xxxiv.]