Anuradapuraya

Anuradhapura, according to legend, 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 Baswak .Kulam.

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 DAGABA, and the mighty Brazen Palace, nine stories high he presented to Mahasanga (order of monks). But, the RUWANVELI DAGABA, 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 Valagama (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 Dagaba 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.

» THE SRI MAHABODHI TREE (Ficus religiosa) It is hard to believe - but there is no shadow of doubt at all - that this small tree with limbs so slender that they must be supported on iron crutches, is the oldest historically authenticated tree in the world (2,250 years). A branch of the very Bodhi beneath which - at Buddha Gaya in North India - the prince siddharta himself found Enlightenment. It was brought to Sri Lanka in the 3rd Century B.C. by the Princess/religious Sanghamitta, a sister of the saint Mahinda. It has never since been without its hereditary attendants and the care, to the very end, of the country's kings. As lately as the reign of the last of them (Sri Wikrama Rajasingha) whom the British captured and deported, a wall was built by royal command to repair the platform on which it grows. In 1966 it was enclosed in a golden railing.

» THE BRAZEN PALACE A roof of copper over this primordial skyscraper bestowed upon it its name. This work of Duttha Gamini is known to have burned down only 15 years after its building; which leads, to the surmise that it was largely a wooden structure. The 1,600 pillars (in 40 rows) that now mark the site are historically ascribed to king Parakrama Bahu l (1153 - 1186 A.D) of Polonnaruwa. The original building was of 9 stories and is said to have been 100 cubits square at ground level and 100 cubits high.

» THE THUPARAMA DAGABA This most ancient of Sri Lanka dagaba's was built by King Devanampiya Tissa to enshrine the Buddha's collar bone. Originally of the "paddy - heap" shape, its present "bell" shape dates to reconstruction in the 1840s. The graceful monolithic pillars surrounding it once upheld a circular roof making the shrine a Vata Dage (Circular - Relic - house) a characteristically Sinhala architectural feature.

» THE ABHAYAGIRI MONASTERY A World Heritage Site and Fahian Tissa Mugalan King Valagamba built the ABAYAGIRI DAGABA (1 st century B.C) This is the second highest dagaba in Sri Lanka. ABAYAGIRI MONASTERY which was developed up to an international university in the 5th - 8th Century AD

» THE SAMADHI BUDDHA This 4th Century (c) AD statue of the Buddha in meditative posture is acknowledged world - wide as a masterpiece.

» THE KUTTAM POKUNA (TWIN PONDS) Among the chastest and handsomest works of Anuradhapura ashlar are these Twin Ponds belonging to the Abhayagiri establishment.

» THE MIRISAVATI DAGABA King Duttha Gamini celebrated the seventh day after his victory with a water festival at the Tissa tank. Nearby on the shore he planted his spear (the King's spear, generally containing a Relic of the Buddha, was the royal standard in battle) and laid his clothes. Here he built his first Dagaba, enshrining in it his spear with its Relic-in expiation, as he himself explained, of his impiety in having once eaten a relish (miris) "without a thought of the Brotherhood". The Vahalkadas (frontispieces) are particularly striking.

» ISURUMUNIYA located in a beautiful settings, impressionable sculptures including famous Isurumuniya Lovers could be seen.

» MUSEUMS Museums have been established by the Department of Archeology and Cultural Triangle Project. 1. Archeological museum on the Ruwanweliseya Road. 2. Jethawana Museum - in Jetawana monastery complex 3. Fahian Tissa Museum - at the Aboyagiri monastery complex