 Whatever his pretext however he swiftly lost any potential support amongst the populace by the sheer violence of his invasion.King Chandrabhanu was a straits Malay chief/pirate/king who stormed the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee with Malay foot soldiers from both sides of the straits to get the `tooth` of Buddha to legitimize his claim to a kingdom back in his country.Chandrabhanu was defeated, but then sent for mercenaries from South India and wrestled the northern half of Sri Lanka away from the Sinhalese kings.