Despite his personal reputation and authority, Parākramabāhu did not take any steps towards ensuring a smooth succession. One reason offered is the strength of Sri Lankan conventional law, which contained fairly fluid conventions for the replacement of rulers. The chronic instability of the years after his reign undid many of his accomplishments and developed into a crisis that the country never recovered from. The popularity of Parākramabāhu is attested by the fact that no less than seven monarchs adopted his name over the next four centuries, of whom only two or three could lay claim to even a fraction of his successes. His ultimate weakness was the lack of restraint in his spending, taking Sri Lanka to greater heights that it had reached in a long time, but exhausting the island's resources in the process.