Gokarna in Trincomalee, Mantota in Mannar and Dambakolapattuna in Jaffna, among other sea-ports of Sri Lanka, had been great ports of ancient Three Sinhala since 543 B.C. Trincomalee or Gokanna or Gokarna or Siri Gonamala as the ancient sea-port town was recorded in the historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, is the harbor where Prince Panduvasudeva, King Vijya’s nephew sailed into Sri Lanka from Sinhapura, India. “Badda Kachchayana who later became the queen of King Panduwasdeva (505-474 B.C.) with her party of royal maidens too landed in Siri Gonamala harbor. She was a sister of Prince Digha, the founder of Dighavapi.In an essay entitled, Aryan settlements and early kings, published in the Concise History of Ceylon by Sri Lanka’s foremost historian a pre-eminent archeologist Dr. Senarath Paranavithana writing about the king who ruled Ceylon (Sri Lanka) after the first king Vijaya said, “Panduvasdeva with thirty two followers, it is said, arrived in Ceylon in the guise of mendicant monks. They landed at the mouth of the Mahakandara River at the port of Gokanna, the modern Trincomalee according to the commentator of the chronicle (Mahavamsa)”.
