“I will show you my real wealth,” he told his son. “Give me a chariot, and I will take you to it.”

But on his last journey, unlike little Hanuman, Paravana rode in a decrepit ox-cart. The Chronicles record that it had a damaged wheel which squeaked all the way – the sort of detail that must be true, because no historian would have bothered to invent it.

To Kalidasa's surprise, his father ordered the cart to carry him to the great artificial lake that irrigated the central kingdom, the completion of which had occupied most of his reign. He walked along the edge of the huge bund and gazed at his own statue, twice life-size, that looked out across the waters.

“Farewell, old friend,” he said, addressing the towering stone figure which symbolised his lost power and glory, and which held forever in its hands the stone map of this inland sea. “Protect my heritage.”

Then, closely watched by Kalidasa and his guards, he descended the spillway steps, not pausing even at the edge of the lake. When he was waist deep he scooped up the water and threw it over his head, then turned towards Kalidasa with pride and triumph.

“Here, my son,” he cried, waving towards the leagues of pure, life-giving water, “here – here is all my wealth!”

“Kill him!” screamed Kalidasa, mad with rage and disappointment.

And the soldiers obeyed.

So Kalidasa became the master of Taprobane, but at a price that few men would be willing to pay. For, as the Chronicles recorded, always he lived “in fear of the next world, and of his brother”. Sooner or later, Malgara would return to seek his rightful throne.

For a few years, like the long line of kings before him, Kalidasa held court in Ranapura. Then, for reasons about which history is silent, he abandoned the royal capital for the isolated rock monolith of Yakkagala, forty kilometres away in the jungle.