the bowl-relic which had been carried off in the time of king Valagamba; and admonishing the king not to act thus in future, departed. In contrast the mentions of Gajabahu in the Tamil sources represent a much more cordial visit by the Sri Lankan king. The Silapathikaram mentions him twice. On the first occasion he is with the Chera king Senguvuttan, offering sacrifices to the goddess Kannagi in an introductory passage. Later he is in the Chera king's company again, and on very good terms. It has been suggested that this mention does not necessarily preclude a military campaign; after all it is entirely possible that Gajabahu and Senguvuttan offered joint sacrifices as a way of securing a freshly concluded peace. On the other hand, the versions presented in the Mahavamsa and Silapathikaram do not mention any violence at all, despite being the major sources for this period. Furthermore, the reliability of the entries in the Silapathikaram has been questioned, and it has been suggested that the meeting between Gajabahu and Senguvttan is the result of a certain amount of 'poetic licence' on the part of the compiler Significance Gajabahu is regarded in modern Sri Lanka as an archetype of the mighty Sinhalese monarch, who avenged humiliation by the Cholas and took the sporadically fought wars between Rajarata and Chola to Indian soil. The Sri Lanka Army has an infantry regiment, Gajaba Regiment, named after the warrior king, and the Sri Lanka Navy had named a ship named after the king, the SLNS Gajabahu. To students of Indian history his reign is important as it provides the 'Gajabahu syncretism' which is used to date many rulers of the ancient Chola and Chera. Trade There have been a series of archaeological excavations in recent years at the ancient port Godavaya (= Godawaya, Gothapabbata), situated around a huge rock overlooking the Indian Ocean, close to the gem mining area of the Lower Sitracala Wewa and the inland shipping route of the Walawe Ganga. The archaeologists have found that Godavaya's was an important stop on the maritime Silk Route, in the early centuries of the Common era with excavations and research revealing connections from China to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. A stone inscription in Brahmi, dating to Gajabahu I's reign, orders that part of the customs collections at the Godavaya Port at Ambalanthota be donated to the nearby Godapawath Temple. There