Even in the 15th century just before the arrival of the Portuguese, the North was still a land of the Sinhalese Buddhists after Sapumal Kumaraya s 17 year rule there. For example, the Kokila Sandesaya which describes several places on the route to Jaffna in detail, mentions the huge Natha Devale
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva worship
at present day Chavakachcheri, which John Clifford Holt in his intensive study on Avalokitesvara worship concludes, was the result of Javanese Buddhist occupation of these parts from the time of Chandrabhanu s invasion and that even by the 15th century this influence was very much in evidence. Holt excludes the possibility of the Natha Devale there having been the work of non-Buddhist Ariya Cakravarttis. Even though there is evidence in Yalpana Vaipava Malai that alien Ariya Chakravartti rulers suppressed the Buddhist in the peninsula, they had to continuously contend with a Buddhist Sinhalese majority who were raising revolt against them with the support of Vanniyas. Since the Vanniyas were installed by the Sinhalese king with Suriya Damana of the Ariya Vamsa family as the first to be assigned to the Jaffna Peninsula
see Royal Asiatic Society Journal, Sp. No 1996
they continued to show their allegiance to the Sinhalese. For example, when the Dutch prepared land Tomboes the Jaffna Vanniyas who claimed these lands by virtue of grants by the Sinhalese king protested and left the peninsula avowing not to return except with a Sinhalese army, which shows how close the relations between the Vanniyas and the Sinhalese were as against that with alien Ariyacakravarttis who were maintained in power by the Tanjore army. These are recorded facts of history.