Anuradhapura

Anuradhapura and the city of Polonnaruwa are the vitally important “must visit” twin tourist attractions of Sri Lanka Holidays Cultural Triangle. Anuradhapura, the greatest monastic city of the ancient world that date from the middle of the 5th century B.C. remained the proud seat of kingdom of Sri Lanka until the 11th century A.D. Today Anuradhapura, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is replete with renovated monuments, restored edifices, preserved ruins and historical sites where the archeological excavations are still being continued. Today, Sri Lanka Holidays foreign tourists and local tourists, who tour Anuradhapura, are simply unable to witness everything Anuradhapura has to offer, within the confines of a single day as Sri Lanka Tours have been cram-programmed. However the major attractions of Anuradhapura can be visited in a single day.

Anuradhapura was the cradle of glorious Sinhalese Buddhist civilization. The pride of place inAnuradhapura was taken by the ancient stupas and ancient reservoirs. Towering stupas (dagobas) of stupendous domes, the marvels of ancient civil engineering, were built having taken into the account the effects of lightening on high rise constructions, among numerous other engineering factors. The vast rainwater reservoirs built by crossing rivers with enormous dams and controlling the outlets with “Bisokotuwa” (Sinhala: Queens enclosure-no entry, of course) valve pits (sluice gate), extend lifeline toAnuradhapura district to date.

Among the other tourist attractions at Anuradhapura are magnificent rock carvings of monumental richness and remarkable grace; colossal stone pillars that stand proud amidst the ruins of royal palaces, Buddhist monasteries and temples; magnificent stone cut swimming pools of sophisticated hydrology.

The splendors of ancient Anuradhapura was narrated in great length by Fa-Hien, the famous Chinese Buddhist scholar pilgrim, who spent two years in Anuradhapura copying the Vinaya Pitakaya (Sinhala: Book of Discipline) of Theravada Buddhism at the end of the 4th century. The Roman historian Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 AD – August 25, 79 AD) has recorded the descriptions of the city of Anuradhapura made by Annius Plocamus, who had visited Anuradhapura during the reign of Sinhalese King Sadamuhunu (Chanda-Mukha-Siva) (44 AD- 52 AD).

Sir William Colebrooke narrates of Anuradhapura “I saw here here ornamented capitals and balustrades, and bas reliefs of animals and foliage. I cannot better express my opionion of their elegance thn by saying that, had I seen them in a museum, I should, without hesitation, have pronounced them to be Grecian or of Gracian descent. One semicircular slab, at the foot of a staircase, is carved in a pattern of foliage which I have repeatedly seen in works of Greek and Roman origin.

This flourishing state of art proves wealth and taste; and there are enormous conical buildings of brick, called Dagobas, whose Egyptian diamensions and durability show that they must have been built by a numerous and laborious race. The immense tanks, of which I saw the ruins, and by which the country was irrigated, were the cause of its permanent fertility so long as they were kept in repair.” Colebrooke, Sir William Macbean George (1787–1870), 1832

Life-line: Great Ancient Man-made Lakes (Rainwater Reservoirs)
Renovated Stupas, Ruins of Stupas, Monasteries & Temples.
We mustn't fail to see: Glorious Golden Sand Stupa, Serene Samadhi Buddha Statue, Enormous Jetavana Dagoba, Isurumuniya Rock Temple, Sacred Sri Maha bodhi tree.

Sri Lanka's northwestSri Lanka's northwest (of which Anuradhapura is a major city) also known as the dry zone is arid, rolling, open country coloured in shades of dusty brown earth and golden ripening rice fields. Farming here depends on artificial irrigation, and the countryside is dotted with great ancient artificial reservoirs to retain rainwater and allow crops to thrive through the dry season.

Three great rainwater reservoirs & River MalwatuThe ancient city of Anuradhapura is surrounded by three great man-made lakes, Nuwara Wewa reservoir to the east & Tissa Wewa reservoir together with Basawakkulama Wewa reservoir to the west with two directions of the city being defined by River Malwatu Oya that flows through it. We have Anuradhapura new town to the east of the river & sacred ancient city to the west of the river. It cannot get any better.

History of Anuradhapura (WHS)From the origins as a settlement by Minister Anuradha in the 6th century BC, Anuradhapura was developed at a rapid pace & was made the capital of the island by King Pandukhabaya (437-366 BC), who took a leaf out of the book of King Abhaya (474 BC), the builder of the first rainwater reservoir of Lanka. King Pandukhabhaya commenced the irrigation schemes in a larger scale providing the lifeline to the fledging Aryan civilization of the Sinhalese. By the mid-3rd century BC Anuradhapura's fame for the excellence of its temple art and palace architecture, the ingenuity and skill of its irrigation engineers, noble elephants, precious gems, fine spices and its military prowess had spread as far as the Roman-Hellenistic world.

Yapahuwa

Yapahuwa served as the capital of Sri Lanka in the latter part of the 13th century (1273–1284). Built on a huge, 90 meter high rock boulder in the style of theSigiriya rock fortress, Yapahuwa was a palace and military stronghold against foreign invaders.

The palace and fortress were built by King Buvanekabahu I (1272–1284) in the year 1273. Many traces of ancient battle defences can still be seen, while an ornamental stairway, is its biggest showpiece. On top of the rock are the remains of a stupa, a Bodhi tree enclosure, and a rock shelter/cave used by Buddhist monks, indicating that earlier this site was used as a Buddhist monastery, like many boulders and hills in the area. There are several caves at the base of the rock. In one of them there is a shrine with Buddha images. One cave has a Brahmi script inscription. At the southern base of the rock there is a fortification with two moats and ramparts. In this enclosure there are the remains of a number of buildings including a Buddhist shrine. There is also a Buddhist temple called Yapawwa Rajamaha Vihara built during the Kandyan period.

Anuradhapura

Anuradhapura was first settled by Anuradha, a follower of Prince Vijaya the founder of the Sinhala race. Later, it was made the Capital by King Pandukabhaya about 380 B.C.According to the Mahavamsa, the epic of Sinhala History, King Pandukabhaya's city was a model of planning. Precincts were set aside for huntsmen, for scavengers and for heretics as well as for foreigners. There were hostels and hospitals, at least one Jain chapel, and cemeteries for high and low castes. A water supply was assured by the construction of tanks, artificial reservoirs, of which the one called after himself exists to this day under the altered name of Baswakkulam.

It was in the reign of King Devanampiya Tissa (250 - 210 B.C.) that the Arahat Mahinda, son of the great Buddhist Emperor Asoka, led a group of missionaries from North India to Sri Lanka. With his followers he settled in a hermitage of caves on the hill of Mihintale - whose name derives from Mahinda's own.

The new religion swept over the land in a wave. The King himself gave for a great monastery in the very heart of the city his own Royal Park - the beautiful Mahamegha Gardens.

The Buddhist principality had had but a century to flourish when it was temporarily overthrown by an invader from the Chola Kingdom of South India. The religion, however, received no set-back.
At this time far away on the southeast coast, was growing up the prince who was to become the paladin of Sinhala nationalism: Dutugamunu (161 - 137 B.C)

For all his martial prowess, King Duttha Gamini must have been a man of singular sensibility. He built MIRISAVETI DAGOBA, and the mighty Brazen Palace, nine stories high he presented to Mahasanga (order of monks). But, the RUWANVELI DAGOBA, his most magnificent gift he did not live to see actually completed.

Two more, at least, of the Anuradhapura Kings must be mentioned - if only because some of the greater monuments are indisputably attributable to them.

The earlier of these was Vattagamani Abhaya (Valagamba) (103 & 89-77 B.C.) in the first year of whose reign Chola invaders again appeared and drove him temporarily into hiding. For fourteen years, while five Tamil Kings occupied his throne, he wandered often sheltering in jungle caves. It is recorded that as in his flight he passed an ancient Jain hermitage, an ascetic, Gin called and taunted him. "The great black lion is fleeing!" Throughout his exile the gibe rankled. Winning the Kingdom back at last, he razed Giri's hermitage to the ground building, there the ABHAYAGIRI Monastery. The name is a wry cant on his own name and the tactless hermit's as well as (meaning mountain of fearlessness) a disclaimer of his cowardice!

Next came the heretic king Mahasena (274 - 301 A.D) who built the Sri Lanka's largest Dagoba JETAWANARAMA (World Heritage Site) much complicated irrigation system and 16 vast reservoirs (tank) like MINNERIYA, even today which irrigate thousands of acres of paddy land.

Anuradhapura was to continue for six hundred years longer the national capital. But as the protecting wilderness round it diminished with prosperity and internecine struggles for the royal succession grew, it became more and more vulnerable to the pressures of South Indian expansion; and the city was finally abandoned and the Capital withdrawn to more secluded fastnesses.

But the monuments of its heyday survive, surrounded by such beauties as become the past: the solemn umbrage of trees, the silence of cold stone, and the serenity of the sheltering sky.