The Anuradhapura Kingdom

The Anuradhapura Kingdom

An Outline of Political History from Saddhatissa to the Cola Conquest The political history of the long and eventful period of ten centuries (from Saddhatissa, the brother and successor of Dutthagamani, to the Coja conquest in the tenth century) reviewed in this part forms a backdrop to the development and expansion of an intricate irrigation system which was the key to the establishment, consolidation and maturation of the Sinhalese civilisation of the dry zone. This theme suffuses these centuries with a unity so powerful and pervasive that it justifies the analysis of its political history on the same extended chronological framework rather than the conventional periodisation imposed by the fluctuating fortunes of the dynasties that vied for power in this period.

Dynastic conflict

At the heart of the political history of the Anuradhapura kingdom over its span of 1,500 years or more was a paradox: how enormous creativity in irrigation technology and the arts, with extraordinary agricultural progress, could have been sustained by a political structure so prone to instability. In no phase of its history was this political system more brittle than in what may be termed the early Anuradhapura period (from Saddhatissa, 137-119 BC, to the accession of Mana vamma, AD 684-718) and during that period productive effort in the economy, inventive genius in technology and inspiration in cultural activity were most memorable.

The first part of this chapter attempts a brief review of the politics of the early Anuradhapura period. It is an anatomy of a political structure at odds with itself, coping at best inadequately with the stresses set up by dynastic rivalries and succession disputes, and generally in the throes of political crises. These latter were in themselves a reflection of a crucial flaw administrative and political structures unable to keep pace with the productive energies of an expanding economy, or for that matter with the political ambitions of rulers who thought in terms of control over the whole island without the administrative machinery which alone could have converted this aspiration into a hard political reality.

The dynasty of Devanampiya Tissa became extinct in the first century AD. We do not know how this happened. One significant feature of the subsequent political history of Sri Lanka was that the right to the throne appeared to lie with one of two powerful clans, the Lambakannas and the Moriyas. By the beginning of the first century AD the Lambakannas were established in power, enjoying by far the most prestige of all the clans. Their claims to this position of primacy did not go unchallenged. The opposition came mainly from the Moriyas, who became in time their chief rivals for power. Their periodic struggles for the throne are a conspicuous feature of the history of this period. The Lambakannas were more successful than their rivals, as the following brief summary of the dynastic history of this period would show.

The first Lambakanna dynasty 1 (established by Vasabha AD 67- 111) retained its hold on the throne at Anuradhapura till the death of Mahanama in AD 428, when the dynasty itself became extinct. In the confusion that followed his death there was a South Indian invasion, and Sinhalese rule such as it was confined to Rohana. The Moriya Dhatusena led the struggle against the invader and for the restoration of Sinhalese power at Anuradhapura. His success brought the Moriyas to power but not to a pre eminence such as that achieved by the Lambakannas in the past few centuries. Indeed Dhatusena (455-73) had hardly consolidated his position when he was murdered by his son Kassapa who usurped the throne at Anuradhapura at the expense of Moggallana I, Kassapa's brother, whom Dhatusena had been grooming as his legitimate successor. There was, for a brief period under Upatissa II (517-18) and his successors, a return of the Lambakannas to power, but Mahanaga (569-71) reestablished Moriya control. His immediate successors Aggabodhi I (571-604) and Aggabodhi II (604-14) managed to maintain the Moriya grip on the Anuradhapura throne but not to consolidate their position, for the Lambakannas were in fact always a formidable threat, and under Moggallana III (614-17) they overthrew Sarighatissa II (614), who proved to be the last of the Moriya kings.

It took nearly six decades of devastating civil war for the Lambakannas to reestablish their supremacy, but having done so they
According to tradition the Lambakannas had come to the island in the time of Devanampiya Tissa with the sacred bo tree. The Tarachchas and Kalingas, two less important clans, apparently came to the island at much the same time as the Lambakannas. During much of this period their rivals the Moriyas were on the retreat, quite often scatterred over various parts of the island and occasionally for instance during the rule of Sabha (1207 AD) as refugees from Lambakanna persecution.maintained their pre eminence once again over a very great length of time. Indeed the second Lambakanna dynasty established by Manavamma gave the island two centuries of comparatively stable government. In the last phase of the dynasty’s spell of power the severest tests that confronted it came from South Indian invaders and not local rivals.

Political instability

Viewed in historical perspective, political instability was the rule rather than the exception in this phase of the history of the Anuradhapura kingdom. How does one account for it? At first glance the age long rivalry between Lambakanna and Moriya would appear to offer much if not all of the explanation. The Moriya challenge to the Lambakannas fizzled out by the end of the seventh century AD and the competition between them was replaced by a Lambakanna monopoly of power. But the comparative political stability of the period of the second Lambakanna dynasty owed less to the disappearance of the Moriya threat to their power than to other factors. Of these latter the most important had to do with the law of succession to the throne.

In the early centuries of the Anuradhapura kingdom there appears to have been no clearly recognised law of succession to the throne. What mattered were the wishes of the ruling monarch who generally chose a favoured member of the royal family, a son or a brother whose title, however, was seldom unchallenged by others who felt they had as good a claim to the throne. With the establishment of the second Lambakanna dynasty, succession to the throne came to depend more on custom and well established practice, and kings followed each other in the succession from brother to brother and on to the next generation. In combination with a stable and accepted mode of succession to the throne, the sanctity that now surrounded the king due to the spread of Mahayanist ideas, in particular the belief that kingship was akin to divinity made it much more difficult for pretenders to the throne and rivals in general to command a politically viable following even when weak kings ascended the throne. Disputed successions rather than dynastic conflicts were thus the root cause of political instability in the Anuradhapura kingdom before the accession of the second Lambakanna dynasty.

The most celebrated of these succession disputes was that between Moggallana and Kassapa, an important feature of which is linked with one other contributory cause of political instability at this time. The reliance of Moggallana (491-508) on an army of Indian (largely South Indian) mercenaries to dislodge Kassapa proved in the long run to be more significant than his victory over the latter. These auxiliaries became in time a vitally important, if not the most powerful, element in the armies of Sinhalese rulers some of whom, notably Aggabodhi III (628, 629-39) and Dathopatissa I (c. 639-50), showed them great in dulgence and favour because they owed their position largely to their support. From serving the strictly limited purposes for which they had been hired fighting on behalf of aspirants to the throne, or sustaining a ruler in power they became in time king makers, a volatile and unpredictable group and a turbulent element who were in themselves, quite often, the greatest threat to the stability of the realm. They were also the nucleus of a powerful Tamil influence in the court.

When Manavamma seized the throne, he curbed the powers of the Tamil army commanders and courtiers, removed many of them from the high positions they held, and in general established a stricter supervision over their activities. He achieved considerable success in his avowed policy of reducing Tamil influence in the affairs of state. His successors sought to continue this policy, but were less effective in this for they could never do without these mercenaries. Indeed a reduction of Tamil pressures on the Sri Lanka polity was impossible in view of the political situation in South India.

These South Indian pressures constitute a fourth and very powerful element of instability in the politics of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The flourishing but vulnerable irrigation civilisation of Sri Lanka’s northern plain was a tempting target for South Indian powers across the narrow strip of sea which separated it from them, and while every so often it came under the influence, if not control, of one or other of them, it could still retain its independence by setting one of them against the other or others, which in effect meant that Sri Lanka was generally wary of the predominant power in South India. Sri Lanka was drawn into political struggles of South India as a necessary result of her geographical position, but her entanglement in them was not always intrinsically defensive in intent.

With the rise of three Hindu powers in South India—the Pandyas, Pallavas and Colas in the fifth and sixth centuries AD, ethnic and religious antagonisms bedevilled relations between them and the Sinhalese kingdom. These Dravidian states were militantly Hindu in religious outlook and quite intent on eliminating Buddhist influence in South India. In time South Indian Buddhism was all but wiped out by this aggressive Hinduism, and as a result one supremely important religio cultural link between South India and the Sinhalese kingdom was severed. Besides, the antipathy of these South Indian states to Sri Lanka, normally whetted by the prospect of loot, was now for the first time sharpened by religious zeal and ethnic pride. One important consequence flowed from this: the Tamils in Sri Lanka became increasingly conscious of their ethnicity, which they sought to assert in terms of culture and religion, Dravidian/Tamil and Hindu. Thus the Tamil settlements in the island became sources of support for South Indian invaders, the mercenaries a veritable fifth column; Sri Lanka, from being a multi ethnic polity, became a plural society in which two distinct groups lived in a state of sporadic tension. (There were never theless, for long periods, harmonious social relations between the Sinhalese and Tamils, and strong cultural and religious ties, and while there may have been a sense of ethnic identity, there was never ethnic 'purity', least of all among the kings and queens of Sri Lanka, and the princes and princesses of its ruling houses.)

Particularism

Rulers of the Anuradhapura kingdom sought to establish a control over the whole island, but generally this was more an aspiration than a reality. The more powerful of them succeeded in unifying the country, but such periods of effective control over the island were rare, and no institutional structure capable of surviving when royal power at Anuradhapura was weakened especially at times of disputed succession was ever devised.

With the passage of time, the number of administrative units within the island increased. By the first quarter of the sixth century, there were already three of these. Silakala (518-31) handed over the administration of two of the provinces of the kingdom to his elder sons, retaining the rest for himself. To his eldest son Moggallana he granted the division to the east of the capital; Dakkhinadesa, which was the southern part of the Anuradhapura kingdom, went to his second son, together with the control of the sea-coast. Within two decades of his death there were four units:

• Uttaradesa &nbsp&nbsp(the northern division)
• Paccimadesa &nbsp&nbsp(the western division)
• Pachinadesa &nbsp&nbsp(eastern division)
• Dakkhinadesa&nbsp&nbsp (southern division)

Of these Dakkhina-desa was the largest in size. From the time of Aggabodhi I its administration was entrusted to the mahapa, or mahayd, the heir to the throne, and so came to be called the Mapa (Mahapa) or Maya (Mahaya) rata as opposed to the Rajarafa (the king’s division). It soon became so important that along with Rajarafa and Rohana it was one of the three main administrative divisions of the island.

In seeking to establish their control over the whole island the Anuradhapura kings confronted formidable difficulties, not the least of which was the particularism (one might even say a well developed sense of local patriotism) which made rulers of outlying regions, in particular Rohana, jealously protective of their local interests and identity. Needless to say, the dynastic and succession disputes and repeated invasions from South India were hardly conducive to the evolution of any administrative machinery for the control of these provinces from Anuradhapura. Dakkhinadesa itself could on occasion pose difficulties, but never on the same scale or regularity as Rohana, and was easier to bring to heel when resourceful and ambitious kings ruled at Anuradhapura.

Particularism then was a perennial issue, and Rohana the home of lost and potentially viable causes, the refuge of Sinhalese kings over thrown by foreign invaders and a bridgehead for a reconquest or the liberation of Anuradhapura from foreign rule was the crux of the problem. During most of the period covered in this section, its rulers behaved as though they were independent potentates, and Rohana's status varied from time to time from that of a mere administrative division of the Anuradhapura kingdom to a principality and a semi independent or independent kingdom. To take one example at random: throughout most of the reign of Silakala (518-31) and his successors, Mahanaga had effective control over Rohana first as a rebel, then as an accredited governor of the province and finally as an independent ruler. When he in turn became king at Anuradhapura (569-70), he united the whole island under his rule. It is likely that under the two Aggabodhis who succeeded him on the throne, Rohana was under the authority of the rulers of Anuradhapura.

But during the troubled century that followed, Rohana appears to have reasserted its independence under local rulers. In the early centuries of the Anuradhapura kingdom, there is little or no evidence of a regular army, except for a small body of soldiers who guarded the palace and the capital city. Though a regular force was established with the passage of time with foreign largely South Indian mercenaries as a component element in it, this was still far from being a standing army which could have been used on a regular basis to impose the will of the 'Central' authority over recalcitrant provinces far from the capital. Nor was the administrative structure adequate for the purpose of serving as an efficient mechanism of control over such provinces from Anuradhapura. The inscriptions of this period reveal the existence of asabhd or council of ministers. It is impossible to determine whether this developed from the earlier institution known as the amati pahaja or whether it was something completely new. Nor have we any clear picture of the functions of this council. In the early centuries of the Anuradhapura kingdom the main officials were few: the senapati (the chief of the ‘army’), the bhanddgdrika (treasurer), a few adhyakfas, mahdmdtras and a purohita. By the tenth century there was a regular hierarchy of officials with a wide and bewildering range of titles. Evidently a complex administrative structure had developed; its writ ran in many parts of the country and affected many aspects of the lives of the people (especially the vital field of irrigation). But it is impossible to reach any firm conclusions about the precise functions of the bulk of these officials, or to assess the nature of their impact on the outlying provinces. Evidently the relationship between Anuradhapura and Rohana was not governed by any formal administrative structures or institutional links but by the more volatile and unpredictable give and take of personal ties.

One important theme emerges from this: the comparative weakness of the central authority vis a vis the outlying provinces under the Anuradhapura kings generally. Thus the Sinhalese kingdom was not a highly centralised autocratic structure but one in which the balance of political forces incorporated a tolerance of particularism characteristic of most feudal polities. This held true for the whole history of the Anuradhapura kingdom and not merely for its first phase.

There is also the position of the paramukhas (Sanskrit ‘pramukha’, chief or notable) or the kulina, gentry closely connected with the clan structure of Sinhalese society. They were clearly people of standing and importance, a social £lite of distinctly higher status than the village headmen (gamika) and others. Kinship ties linked some of them to the ruling elite high officials in the court and elsewhere and in some instances to the royal family itself. Very likely they had special privileges in terms of land, and their claims to 'Proprietary' rights over land and irrigation works go back to the earliest inscriptions. In the political struggles of the Anuradhapura kingdom and in the succeeding centuries when the capital was at Polonnaruva they were a factor to be reckoned with by the rulers of the day and foreign invaders as well. More to the point, they were among the prime beneficiaries of the dynastic conflicts of these centuries, and the struggles for power within the royal family; their bargaining power and influence were thus at a premium and this too militated against the concentration of authority in the hands of the ruler.

The consequences that followed from this weakening of royal authority and from the tolerance of particularism were not always or necessarily harmful: they gave great scope to local initiatives at the district and village level and these appear to have been strong and resilient enough to cope with turmoil during power struggles at the centre, or during foreign invasions. During much of the Anuradhapura period they could be, and were, more enduring than the institutions controlled, if one could use that term, from the centre. It is this which explains the paradox which we referred to at the beginning of the present chapter, that so brittle and unstable a structure could have developed and sustained the magnificent irrigation system that was the glory of the Anuradhapura kingdom. No doubt the maintenance of the system in good repair, quite apart from its expansion, required a sophisticated machinery under some form of central control. But it was the permanent institutions rooted among the people at village level that ensured the survival of the system during the periods of turmoil which were such a regular feature of the Anuradhapura kingdom.

Pressure from Southern India

The political structure whose main features we have analysed above survived the accession of Manavamma and the establishment of dynastic stability in the period of the Lambakanna monopoly of power in the seventh to the tenth centuries. True, the succession disputes which kept the politics of the early Anuradhapura kingdom in a state of semi permanent crisis largely disappeared. True also that there was an enlargement and greater sophistication in the administrative machinery, that royal authority was augmented and that particularism was at a discount when powerful rulers controlled Anuradhapura, as they did with greater frequency in this period. But neither singly nor in combination did these changes amount to a fundamental change in the political system of the Anuradhapura kingdom.

More importantly, one of the factors of instability of the early Anuradhapura kingdom the threat from South India assumed, in time, much more serious proportions, and eventually overwhelmed the Anuradhapura kingdom. It is to this theme that we now turn our attention. We have seen how Manavamma sought to impose restraints on Tamil mercenaries and courtiers. But he himself had seized power with Pallava assistance, and while his accession to the Anuradhapura throne marked the beginning of a long period of dynastic stability the association, if not alliance, with the Pallavas was to bring political perils in its train. When the Pandyans were building their first empire, and in confrontation with the Pallavas for supremacy in South India, Sri Lanka was inevitably opposed to the Pantfyans. By the middle of the ninth century the Panlyans had prevailed over their rivals and set about settling scores with the latter's allies, the Sinhalese kingdom. There was a devastating Pandyan invasion of the island during the reign of Sena I (833-53) under Sri Mara Sri Vallabha (815-60), during which they found ready support from the island’s Tamil popu-lation.

They sacked Anuradhapura and imposed a substantial indem-nity as the price of their withdrawal. Shortly after the Pandyan withdrawal the Sinhalese were afforded an opportunity for intervention in Pandyan affairs. A Sinhalese army invaded the Pandya country in support of a rebel Pandya prince, and during their successful campaign they ravaged the city of Madurai. Meanwhile, thePallavas and their allies harassed the Pandyans on their northern frontier. The result was a distinct weakening of Pandya power, but not to the advantage of the Pallavas, for this occurred at a time the last quarter of the ninth century when the Colas were emerging as a formidable threat to both Pandyans and Pallavas. The latter were the first to be absorbed by the Colas, who then proceeded southward to Pandyan territory.

Confronted by the frightening prospect of a Coja hegemony over South India, the Sinhalese in a remarkable but totally understandable reversal of policy threw their weight behind the Pandyas in a desperate attempt to sustain them as a buffer state between the expanding Cola empire and Sri Lanka. A Sinhalese army was sent to South India in 915 in support of the Pandyan ruler Rajasimha II against the Colas, but to little effect, for Parantaka I (907-55) inflicted a crushing defeat on the Pandyans whose king now fled to Sri Lanka carrying with him the Pandyan regalia. The Cojas never subdued the Pandyan terri¬tories as completely as they had the Pallava kingdom. The Sinhalese now had to face the wrath of the victors, for whom the desire and need to capture the Pandyan regalia was an added impetus to a retaliatory invasion of Sri Lanka. There were other compelling political reasons as well: the Sinhalese kingdom was a threat to the security of the southern frontier of the Coja empire, as a refuge for defeated Pandyan rulers and as a base for potential invasions of the mainland. In short, the consolidation of Coja power in the Pandyan kingdom was incomplete so long as Sri Lanka remained independent. Apart from these, there was the prospect of loot, of control over the pearl fisheries of the gulf of Mannar, and the gems for which the island was famous, as well as its trade.

Up to the middle of the tenth century, the Coja military expeditions to Sri Lanka were in the nature of brief but destructive incursions, and once the immediate objectives of the missions had been achieved the Coja armies withdrew to the mainland. Under Rajaraja the Great (983-1014), however, the Cojas embarked on a more aggressive and ambitious programme of conquest which brought the Sinhalese kingdom under their direct rule: the Rajarafa, the heartland of the Sinhalese kingdom, was attached to the Cola empire. Mihindu V, who ascended the throne in 982, was the last Sinhalese king to rule at Anuradhapura. He was captured by the invading Colas in 1017 and died in captivity in South India. The conquest of the island was completed under Rajaraja’s son Rajendra. The southern parts of the island slipped out of Coja control within a short time, but Rajarata continued to be ruled by the Colas as a mandalam or province of the Cola empire. The mandalam was subdivided into valandus (which were mosdy named after Cola royalty), nadus and urs.

A more significant and permanent change introduced by the Colas was the decision to shift the capital from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruva a move determined, in this instance, by considerations of security. The Mahavali itself afforded some protection to this city. The main threat to the Colas in the Rajarata came from Rohana, and Polonnaruva was well placed to guard against invasions from that quarter since it lay near the main ford across this river which an invading army from Rohana needed to force. Within a few years of Rajendra’s completion of the conquest of the island, Rohana became the centre of a protracted resistance movement against the Colas. There was opposition to them in the Rajarata as well. Early attempts at dislodging the Colas by organising raids from Rohana had foundered badly, partly on account of divisions among aspirants to the Sinhalese throne, and the Colas were able occasionally to recruit support for themselves from among local notables in Rohana. The particularism for which Rohana was notorious was the greatest obstacle to a concerted bid to expel the Colas from the island.

An Irrigation Civilisation 'No people in any age or country had so great practice and experience in the construction of works for irrigation.'Tennent, Ceylon (1859) 'It is possible that in no other part of the world are there to be found within the same space, the remains of so many works for irrigation, which are at the same time, of such great antiquity and of such vast magnitude as in Ceylon.'
In Egypt, Syria, Persia, and in India, there are remnants of far greater works, and in these countries, works of far greater antiquity, as well as magnitude, but probably no other country can exhibit works so numerous, and at the same time so ancient and extensive, within the same limited area, as this Island.. . Bailey, Report on Irrigation in Uva (1859)

Thus did two awe-struck British officials of the nineteenth century view the most distinctive achievement of the people of the Anuradhapura kingdom their masterly organisation and maintenance of an irrigation network spread over the dry zone, which was remarkably attuned to coping with its geological and geographical peculiarities: ‘Problems of intermittent streams, gross yearly variations, undulating relief, high evaporation some 8° from the Equator, poor ground-water resources, indifferent soils and marked seasonal concentration of rain fall with its risk of disastrous floods.J1 The dry zone afforded excellent conditions for the cultivation of rice: the high constant tem¬peratures and received solar radiation, as well as the comparatively gentle relief of the region in contrast to the more rugged terrain of the wet zone of the south west quadrant. But as against this, the rainfall was largely restricted to the period September to January, less reliable and less 'effective' than in the wet zone. The topography of the dry zone with its gently undulating plains, the succession of small shallow stream valleys and low interfluves made irrigation more difficult than in a single great river basin or on a really flat plain. Besides, ‘the irrigation problem is much more formidable in an area with alternately

Murphey, 'The Ruin of Ancient Ceylon', Journal of Asian Studies, XVI (2), !957 wet and dry periods and a vanishing water table than in one with perennial streams and wells and a more even rainfall pattern. The earliest projects were no doubt directed more at conserving than at diverting water on any large scale. But by the first century AD, large scale irrigation works were being built. The construction of tanks, canals and channels which this involved exhibited an amazing knowledge of trigonometry, and the design of the tanks a thorough grasp of hydraulic principles. The tanks had broad bases which could withstand heavy pressures, and at suitable points in the embankment there were outlets for the discharge of water.

The Sinhalese were the 'first inventors of the valve pit (bisokotuva) ,' counterpart of the sluice which regulates the flow of water from a modern reservoir or tank. The engineers of the third century bg or earlier who invented it had done their work with a sophistication and mastery that enabled their successors of later centuries merely to copy the original device with only minor adaptations or changes, if any.3 Sri Lanka owes more to the unknown inventors of this epoch making device than to all but a handful of kings whose virtues are extolled in the Mahdvamsa and Culavamsa. Without the technological break through which the bisokotuva signified, irrigation works on the scale required to maintain the civilisation of ancient Sri Lanka the construction of artificial lakes of outsize dimensions like Minneriya and Kalavava, where vast expanses of water were held back by massive dams would have been all but impossible. Without the agricultural surplus made available by the multitude of irrigation tanks scattered in rich profusion over much of Sri Lanka's dry zone, the enormous investment which the architectural and sculptural splendours of the Anuradhapura kingdom called for would scarcely have been possible.

The first five centuries of the Christian era constitute the most creative and dynamic era in the history of irrigation activity in Sri Lanka. A variety of seemingly intractable technical and physical problems were confronted and overcome, and the skills acquired and experience gained in this period were a rich lode mined by future generations. In the first century AD, the main problem was that the water resources of the Kala and Malvatu oyas, dry zone rivers which dwindled to a mere trickle of water for much of the year if they did not dry up altogether over long stretches, were unequal to the demand for an abundant and dependable supply of water set off by population

Growth in a vigorous civilisation demanding an ever increasing agricultural surplus. This could only be ensured by the diversion of water from rivers like the Mahavali and others closer to the wet zone south of Anuradhapura. The most notable of the irrigation projects of this early period was the Ajahara canal which took the waters of the Ambanganga, a tributary of the Mahavali, to the Anuradhapura region. This canal, first mentioned in the Mahavamsa account of the reign of Vasabha,5 stretched about 30 miles from a weir across the Ambanganga. Its length was testimony to the maturity and competence of the irrigation engineers of ancient Sri Lanka. During the reign of Mahasena (274-301 AD), the Alahara canal became the main source of water supply for the Minneriya tank which he built, and which was by far the largest tank up to that time.

Mahasena is credited with the construction of sixteen tanks and canals, four of which are in the Anuradhapura area, and one in the Puttalam district. Three notable trends in the development of irrigation facilities during his reign were: a resolute endeavour to harness the waters of the Mahavali and the Ambanganga, the most important project being the massive Minneriya tank; the improvement of facilities for water conservation in the north western part of the island; and the attempt to develop the south western part of the dry zone on the periphery of the wet zone. Together they accelerated agricultural development in the vicinity of Anuradhapura, and opened up new areas for cultivation in the east and southwest. All the major irrigation projects initiated by him were achieved by a prodigious investment of labour resources on an unprecedented scale, and they reflect, too, a notable advance in irrigation technology in the island.

A thriving civilisation dependent on irrigation for its sustenance has an insatiable demand for water, and the search for a dependable and permanent supply of water is a never ending one. Breakdowns caused either by some structural fault or by depletion of water supply in periods of drought were inevitable, with the result that not every unit or link in this chain of interconnected tanks and channels was working at peak efficiency (or for that matter working at all) at any given phase of the island's history in these centuries. Quite apart from essential repairs and maintenance, renewal was vitally important, as too were extensions of this irrigation network. Major initiatives in irrigation activity called for a tremendous burst of energy, and these were not very frequent. Most rulers were content with keeping the tanks and channels which formed the country's stock of irrigation works functioning at a reasonable level of efficiency.

The reign of Dhatusena (455-73) matched, if it did not surpass, the achievements of Mahasena and Vasabha in the extension of the island's irrigation network. He is said to have added to the irrigation works in the Mahavali region by building a dam across that river. But the main focus of attention in irrigation activity during his reign seems to have been the development of water resources in the western part of the dry zone. By far the most impressive achievement by this period is the construction of the Kalavava, which tapped the Kala Oya and helped to supplement the supply of water to Anuradhapura and the area round the city.

The Kalavava had an embankment 3.25 miles long and rising to a height of about 40 feet. Its bund was constructed of blocks of dressed granite morticed together to enable a very close fitting. Through a canal 50 miles in length the Jayaganga its waters augmented the supply in tanks at Anuradhapura and its environs such as Tissa, Nagara and Mahadaragatta, apart from irrigating an area of about 180 square miles. This canal was an amazing technological feat, for the gradient in the first 17 miles of its length was a mere 6 inches to a mile. There was also the Yodavava in the Mannar district, attributed to Dhatusena. It was formed by building an embankment about 7 miles long. Fed by a 17 mile canal from the Malvatu Oya, the Yodavava covered a vast area. It was a shallow reservoir, and its efficiency in water storage must have been severely affected by the heat and aridity of the region, but the topography of the area made it impossible to construct a tank with a greater depth without resorting to techniques of lift irrigation. Carefully laid out canals flowing at a low gradient distributed the water from the Yodavava to a multitude of village tanks around it. Together with the Panankulam this tank was a vitally important asset in an area Mannar which records some of the lowest rainfall in the island.

By the end of the fifth century two major irrigation complexes had been developed, one based on the Mahavali and its tributaries, and the other on the Malvatu Oya and Kala Oya. These were elaborated further in subsequent centuries. The two cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva located here were vital centres of cultural activity and these contained the most impressive monuments of Sinhalese civilizations. Anuradhapura was much the larger of the two, and necessarily hence, for during the first ten centuries of the Christian era it was, with brief interludes, the capital of the island. There was a third core of Sinhalese civilisation in the dry zone of the south east in Rohana where the climate was more severe and the rainfall much less reliable.

Rohana was settled by the ancient Sinhalese nearly as early as the Anuradhapura region itself and was just as dependent on irrigation as the latter, with the difference that instead of the large tanks which dominated the landscape of the Rajarata, it had a distinctive irrigation pattern, a multitude of small and medium sized projects, most if not all of which were the product of local initiatives. Apart from a few small tanks in the reign of Dhatusena, and the building of a weir across the Valave river in the ninth century, there is hardly any recorded evidence of kings of the Rajarata devoting as much attention to the development of irrigation in the south-east of the island as they did to the main centres of civilisation in the northern plain.

In the Rajarata the Mahavali complex provided the more dependable and abundant source of water, and while contributing substantially to the prosperity of the Anuradhapura region its prime function was to nurture the wellbeing of Polonnaruva and the outlying zone in its vicinity. The irrigable land area around Polonnaruva was further extended by Moggallana II by the construction of the Padaviya tank which utilised the waters of the Ma Oya.
Proximity to the Mahavali, the longest river in Sri Lanka, increased the economic potential of this region. Mahasena had built the famous Minneriya tank there, and between the fourth and ninth centuries a number of smaller tanks in the region would have helped sustain a considerable local population producing a substantial agricultural surplus. The economic importance of the region was further enhanced by the development of commercial relations with China and South East Asia, in which the port of Gokanna (modem Trincomalee) would have played a prominent part. Thus the adoption of Polonnaruva as the capital of the Sinhalese kingdom by four kings of the period between the seventh and tenth centuries, and the final abandonment of Anuradhapura in its favour, were determined as much by considerations of economic advantage as by strategic and military factors.

By the tenth century there was a vast array of irrigation works spread over a substantial part of the dry zone of the country. The monumental scale of the large tanks is positive evidence of a prosperous economy and a well organised state which had so great an agricultural surplus to invest in these projects as well as on religious and public buildings designed on a lavish scale. By itself the irrigation network of ancient Sri Lanka was a tribute to the ingenuity of her engineers and craftsmen, and the organisational skills of her rulers. Nowhere else in South Asia does one find such a multiplicity of irrigation works as in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. The scale of comparison is not with the Indian subcontinent, but with the major hydraulic civilisations of the ancient world, the Fertile Crescent of West Asia, and China itself. Despite its diminutive size, Sri Lanka belongs to this super league in regard to irrigation technology and creative achievement in irrigation works, for nowhere else in ‘the pre-modern world was there such a dense concentration of irrigation facilities at such a high technical level.' Ancient Sri Lanka was the example par excellence of a hydraulic civilisation, but it does not figure at all in Wittfogel's massive work on the theme. This was just as well, for Sri Lanka's hydraulic experience, dispassionately reviewed, would have provided a refutation of some of the vital component elements of his theoretical framework.

No part of Sri Lanka’s dry zone conformed to Wittfogel's model of 'full aridity', and while it could be argued that in the two core areas of Sinhalese civilisation in the Rajarata the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva regions transfer of water from a distant locality was an essential prerequisite for the development of agriculture, the other part of the Wittfogelian theorem that 'government led hydraulic enterprise is identical with the creation of agricultural life' has less validity for Sri Lanka. Irrigation projects were among the most important public works undertaken by the state in ancient and medieval Sri Lanka, but despite their crucial importance for economic development they were not 'identical with the creation of agricultural life' in any part of the dry zone. Certainly the role of 'government led hydraulic enterprise' in sustaining agricultural development in Rohana was comparatively minor, and even in substantial parts of the dry zone of the Rajarata outside the two focal points of civilization there, state enterprise in irrigation appears to have been much less significant than local initiatives. Indeed in all parts of the dry zone, while major irrigation schemes were largely matters of state enterprise, such local initiatives communal, institutional (especially monastic) and even individual were responsible for the construction of a multitude of smaller reservoirs and village tanks which conserved water from the seasonal rains for agricultural development in their locality, and which existed concurrently with and independent of the main irrigation complexes.

Nor did the state retain ownership of all the major irrigation works constructed under its direction. Dhatusena ceded half the income of the Kalavava to his brother. The long Alahara canal was granted to a monastery not long after its construction. Monasteries, indeed, often had the resources to maintain irrigation works in their charge or control in good repair. Immunity grants of the Anuradhapura period record the transfer to the monasteries of the control of sections of the population together with the right to exact taxes and coroie labour from them; apart from these fiscal rights, administrative and judicial powers traditionally enjoyed by the King were also delegated to them by such grants. Similar immunities came to be enjoyed by the kulina gentry who claimed proprietary rights over some irrigation works and land.

Lists of officials which occur in inscriptions of the ninth and tenth centuries, when the irrigation network of Sri Lanka was most extensive and highly developed, have been cited as evidence of the existence of a hydraulic bureaucracy. Quite clearly the services of men with a high degree of technical skill were necessary for the construction of large and complex irrigation works, for their maintenance in good repair, and for the regulation of irrigation water to fields. But this is not conclusive evidence of an irrigation bureaucracy on the Wittfogelian model, of a phalanx of technically competent officials who formed the key ingredient in an authoritarian political structure in which power was concentrated in the king and his bureaucracy. On the contrary, hydraulic society as it developed in Sri Lanka was not a centralised despotism, rigidly authoritarian and highly bureaucratic, but had many of the attributes of a feudal society, with power devolving on monastic institutions and the gentry.

The more important state sponsored irrigation works boosted the island's agricultural economy by enabling extension of the area under cultivation and habitation and facilitating more intensive exploitation of agricultural resources without upsetting the balance between land and population. Instead of a single annual crop, large scale irrigation works ensured the production of two or three crops a year, and the resulting agricultural surplus was adequate to maintain a large section of the population not engaged in food production, and to sustain a vibrant and dynamic civilisation. It provides an effective demolition of yet another of the key features of Wittfogelian theory stasis as a characteristic of hydraulic civilisation.

We need to end this brief survey of Sri Lanka's hydraulic civilisation on a more sombre note. Irrigation civilisations by their very nature are critically vulnerable to natural disaster and foreign invaders. For such a society is like a complex machine with an extra ordinarily delicate mechanism. It could function with amazing efficiency but just as easily break down if maintenance were neglected or as the result of some seemingly manageable damage to the mechanism. With increasing complexity, inertia and negligence could be as insidiously detrimental to its smooth functioning as the more palpable threats from natural disaster or foreign invasion.

A Feudal Polity

Two attributes of a feudal polity are of special significance in the Anuradhapura kingdom: the relative weakness of central authority and the resultant political decentralisation; and the importance of land as a determinant of social and economic relations. The Sri Lanka version of feudalism differed significantly from the European especially the English and French varieties in that it lacked large scale demesne farming, a manorial system and the military aspects of feudalism, with the knight's service as its central theme. Again, while relations between some agricultural workers and landholders in Sri Lanka during these centuries could be judged 'feudal', there is as yet no sub stantial evidence of a contractual relationship between lord and 'vassal', or of peasants working as serfs on the lord's estate. However, there was in common with European feudalism an obligation to service as a condition of holding land, whether from secular or religious 'landlords', but with one vital difference in that here the nature of that obligation was, during much of this period, determined by caste as well.

Some questions relating to feudalism in Sri Lanka are easier posed than answered, and one such is the determination of the phases in the development of feudalism in the island when and how it emerged. We can only say that the evidence suggests that during much of the period covered in this chapter the Anuradhapura kingdom from Saddhatissa to the Cola conquest the attributes of Sri Lanka feudalism discussed above were very evident, and that these feudal tendencies were strengthened with the maturation of the island's hydraulic society.

Land tenure

Of the two attributes of Sri Lanka's feudal polity discussed above, we shall review in this chapter only one the obligation to service as a condition of holding land. The other has been treated in some detail in the two previous part.
It is very rare, during the whole of the feudal era, for anyone to speak of ownership, either of an estate or an office... For nearly all land and a great many human beings were burdened at this time with a multiplicity of obligations differing in their nature but all apparently of equal importance. None implied that fixed proprietary exclusiveness which belonged to the concept of ownership in Roman Law.

This quotation from Marc Bloch's Feudal Society brings out a point which is of crucial importance for the understanding of Sri Lanka's feudal polity, namely that the medieval European concept of owner ship in land was strikingly similar to that of Sri Lanka in these centuries. Recent research has demolished one of the hardiest theories regarding land tenure in ancient and medieval Sri Lanka of the king as sole 'owner' of land in the kingdom. No doubt he had certain claims over most of the land in his kingdom, but this did not amount to anything approaching 'fixed proprietary exclusiveness'. Implicit in the land grants of these centuries is the recognition of the 'rights' of individuals with regard to land. In none of these grants is there mention of the king's prior consent being a condition to alienation of land by individuals, while on the contrary some inscriptions provide evidence of kings actually buying 'property' for the purpose of subsequent donation.

The direct relationship between taxation and the protection afforded by the king to his people could not have been unknown in Sri Lanka in ancient times. This service would have entitled him to a portion of the produce of land in the kingdom in return and also quite naturally put him in a position to exercise some control over land. The limits of this control would depend on his own sense of what was right, and above all on the customs and traditions of the kingdom. Income producing irrigation units, such as tanks and canals, and the fields fed by them paid a tax bojakapathi probably paid in kind. This the king sometimes granted to individuals as remuneration for services rendered to the state. Such grants were also made to the sangha. In a society in which irrigation was of such crucial significance, water was treated as a precious commodity which could be bought and sold as it passed through the tanks, the canals and fields, with the 'owners' of tanks (vapi-hamika) imposing a charge for the water that passed through and in turn paying for the water that came in. Because he had the largest of the tanks as his special preserve, and a controlling interest in the whole irrigation system, the king was the prime beneficiary of this levy on water. Until the beginning of the seventh century AD, this payment was called dakapathi. It was paid to the king as well as collected by private 'owners' of small reservoirs and canals. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the payment for the share of water made to the king was called diyadedum, and it was termed diyadada in the time of the Polonnaruva kings.

In addition to the right to dakapathi, the king claimed a share of the produce from all occupied and cultivated land. Unoccupied waste, both fallow and cultivable, was regarded as being in the king's 'possession', and over these forests and waste lands, cleared and cultivated he could grant virtually complete 'proprietary' rights to any individual or institution, if he so wished. Waste land and land newly developed by the state became royal property, as there was no antecedent right of a private individual. The king's prerogative of laying claim to waste or jungle land must have served a number of purposes including the vitally important one of developing new areas, or extending those already settled; another was the rehabilitation of settlements deserted or devastated by war invasions and civil wars and natural disasters such as droughts and floods. Abandoned and ownerless land, it would appear, belonged to the king; that is to say, where land was not cultivated or occupied, the king had prior rights to forests and timber, animal life for the chase, natural resources such as mines and gem pits, and treasure troves in such lands. This did not necessarily mean, however, that the people had to 'buy' land from the king to open up new cultivation.

With the maturing of Sri Lanka's hydraulic civilisation, 'private' property rights seem to have become more conspicuous. Inscriptions, mainly after the ninth century AD, contain references to a type of tenure known as pamunu or paraveni, which in the context of the land tenure system of that time conveyed the meaning of heritable right in perpetuity. Religious and charitable institutions received pamunu property through royal and other benefactors. Individuals could acquire pamunu property in at least three ways, namely royal grant, purchase and inheritance (inheritance of land was normally within a framework of kinship). The king also granted pamunu rights to individuals, usually as rewards. Pamunu were subject to no service except in cases where the king stipulated at the time of the grant that a comparatively small payment shall be made to a religious or charitable institution.

Here we come up against the crucially important question of how The inscriptions refer to the owners of tanks (vdpi-hamika) as well as to the practice of donating water charges from tanks to the sangha. officials in the king's service were paid. No firm answer is possible, but it would seem that during much of the period covered by this chapter they were permitted, in return for their services, to retain part of the revenue they collected. This is not to suggest that revenue was farmed or that these officials became hereditary revenue collectors with overt political power, but only that the system of land tenure was used to eliminate to a large extent the payment of emoluments in cash, an important consideration since specie was in short supply. Because there was no binding linkage between the revenue allotted to them and their official duties as administrators of a unit of territory, the king's officials had few opportunities for an independent political role. The result was that while the corps of officials in the bureaucracy and in the court kept increasing in number, they did not, for much of the period of the Anuradhapura kings, develop into a baronial class, a feudal aristocracy with very large areas of the country's agricultural land parcelled out among them.

By the ninth century, however, this picture begins to change. The inscriptions of this period refer to a form of tenure known as divel property granted to officials or functionaries in the employment of the state or of monasteries. (A divel holding from a monastery would be no more than the grant of the revenue of the land allotted to a functionary.) Divel holdings were, in effect, property rights bestowed on an individual as subsistence in return for services rendered to the grantor, and were terminable on the death of an employee or at the will of the granting authority. The recipient of a divel holding got the revenue which the king or a monastery had enjoyed earlier.

ad As for the king's officials, the size of their divel holdings varied with their status the higher they were in the hierarchy, the larger the holding. The revenues enjoyed from such land holdings were significant enough in terms of their implications, not only for the economic strength bestowed on these officials but for other considerations as well, for over and above this revenue from land there could also quite often be the grant of the services of the people living on it, and transfer of land revenue to the king's officers carried with it unavoidably some administrative power over these plots of land or villages. Besides, rights held on land in consideration for services to the king could be transferred by individuals who held them. (The transfer of land, however, did not entail transfer of services. These latter had to be continued by the original recipient of the grant.) Divel tenure was thus doubly significant; it marked a strengthening of rights to private property, and the emergence of a trend towards feudal rights, and of a class of landlord officials who became a powerful group of intermediaries between the cultivators and royal authority. Since the office by virtue of which divel was held could often in time become j hereditary, the relationship between divel holders and their tenants, though inherently deferential on the part of the latter, could well develop into one of mutual respect and cordiality, and when the connection remained unbroken for several generations there could also be a strong sense of attachment and loyalty.

This discussion of divel tenure brings us to another facet of incipient feudalism in the Anuradhapura kingdom: compulsory services, or what came to be known in later centuries as rajakariya, service for the king. The inscriptions of the ninth century and after offer us a glimpse of this system of compulsory services. There is very little evidence, however, on how rajakariya worked in the Anuradhapura kingdom. There was a close link between compulsory services and divel holdings, and between the former and caste: the duties performed were dependent on an individual's caste. We are not certain whether every layman in the country (unless specially exempted) was bound to turn out for service in the militia in times of war, and in general to perform gratuitous services on public works such as the construction of roads, bridges and tanks, which was the key feature of the rajakariya system in its maturity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There is more evidence, however, about exemptions from compulsory services. Temple lands were generally exempt from royal service, and as in later centuries, those whose land holdings were not liable to service tenure were generally exempt from the demands of the rajakariya system. Inscriptional evidence from the ninth century and after reveals that one of the immunities granted to some lands and villages was that royal officials could not exact various types of labour from people living in them.

The closest approximation in ancient times to absolute ownership of 'private property', i.e. property not belonging to the state, were monastic holdings and estates with their proclivity for expansion unhampered by fragmentation. Monastic wealth accumulated gradually but steadily through donation and exchange as well as by purchase. Inscriptional evidence of the fourth and fifth centuries AD shows that monasteries could purchase property. Property held by religious establishments could not be alienated by sale, and no villages or land belonging to them could be mortgaged or gifted away. By about the ninth century AD, monasteries had come to own, apart from movable possessions, a vast extent of property in estates, irrigation works and even salterns, some of them situated at considerable distances from the institution that owned them. While monasteries held land under a variety of tenures, they had over certain plots of land in particular grants made by kings out of their private land holdings and the donations of plots held by individuals under pamunu tenure the most unrestricted rights of ownership possible within the tenurial system. In most cases a grant to the sangha would mention the monastery for which the donation was intended. Some grants were more specific than this, and indicated a particular institution within a monastery such as an image house or a pirivena as the beneficiary. Lands granted to individual monasteries belonged to them alone and not to the sangha as a body, a fact brought into focus by the not infrequent boundary disputes between some of the most renowned and powerful monasteries of ancient Sri Lanka.

Religious establishments used in their landholdings a form of service tenure similar to that of the king: a share of the produce from the plots of land permanently held by them was given to those who worked for and in the monasteries. Some of the temple lands, however, were cultivated by serfs or slaves belonging to the monasteries, and there was no tenurial contract between such serfs and slaves and the monastery. Most of the inscriptions which recorded immunities granted by the king to religious establishments show that the peasants cultivating such lands were not expected to provide services to the king the grant of immunities from services due to the king implied that these obligations were to be performed for the monastery instead. Service in temples took three main forms occasional, continuous and periodical. It seems likely that land was given for maintenance mainly in consideration for continuous and periodic services.

We need to consider, at this stage, the implications of these developments. A form of monastic landlordism evolved, and the monasteries themselves developed into largely self sufficient economic units, their lands cultivated by tenant farmers while a multifarious assortment of craftsmen provided specialised services in return for land allocated to them. Some of the labour on monastic lands was performed by slaves but this was of limited scope and significance. In terms of the development of feudalism, much the most conspicuous of the immunities enjoyed by certain monastic properties was brahmadeya status. The increase in income which inevitably followed from this was less significant than the fiscal and judicial authority over the tenants of such properties, and the virtual exclusion of royal officials from them. As a result, such monasteries enjoyed 'the most complete property rights known in early medieval Sri Lanka . . .'; while there are instances of similar transfers of authority to the laity, these were rare.

Caste

The significance of caste in relation to land tenure, and in particular service tenure, has been referred to earlier in this chapter. As with almost everything else, caste was of Indian origin but developed its own peculiar characteristics in this island. One great difficulty that confronts us in our efforts to trace the evolution of a caste system in Sri Lanka is that terms such as jati, kula and gotra used so frequently in inscriptions and the chronicles have a multiplicity of meanings. They could no doubt refer to caste groups, but they could also mean family, tribe or ‘race’. There is no record of any caste system in Sri Lanka in the period before the conversion of Devanampiya Tissa and the rapid spread of Buddhism in the island.Nevertheless it would seem that many if not all the elements that were to constitute the caste system in later times were there in some form. Buddhism in the early years of its expansion may well have, for some time at least, retarded if not arrested the growth of caste in Sri Lanka, but still could not prevent it from eventually becoming the basis of social stratification in Sinhalese society.

While most castes had a service or occupation role, the distinctive feature of the Sinhalese caste structure in contrast to its Indian proto¬type was that there was no religious sanction from Buddhism for caste. Thus while caste endogamy and taboos of caste avoidance also existed, these latter did not cover the whole range of social relations, and significantly there was no category of ‘untouchables’ in Sinhalese society except the numerically insignificant rodi.
Brahmanism was the religion of the ruling elite groups before the conversion of Devanampiya Tissa to Buddhism changed the situation. Despite the rapidity with which the new religion spread in the island in the next few centuries, and despite its status as the official religion, the tolerant atmosphere of a Buddhist society ensured the survival of Hinduism with only a marginal loss of influence. Brahmans retained much of their traditional importance in society both on account of their learning and their near monopoly over domestic religious practices.

There is little or no evidence of a pure kfatriya varna in the island in proto historical and early historic times. In later centuries the Sinhalese royal families declared themselves to be k$atriyas and claimed descent from the so called solar and lunar dynasties. It seems most unlikely that any of Sri Lanka's rulers in the pre historic period were scions of a recognised North Indian kfatriya clan. But they were de facto rulers; in the island the ruling families sought to maintain themselves as a distinct group, and royal princes and princesses were given the titles Aya and Abi. The general vaisya varna, however, had its counterpart in Sri Lanka in the general body of the peasantry organised in families and in the specialised professions and trades. These latter, in the early centuries of the Anuradhapura civilisation, were incipient 'occupational' groups. The only evidence we have of a sudra varna in the early centuries of the Anuradhapura kingdom is the reference to canddlas who lived just on the outskirts of Anuradhapura and did the scavenging work of that city. We do not know whether or not the canddlas were aboriginal people who had been degraded to sudra status.

In Sri Lanka as in India the emphasis was on the vocational and service aspects of caste much more than ritual ones. Caste groups were brought into a service system in which an individual's role and function depended on birth status. The higher castes and those considered to be low in caste status had their mutual obligations, but the more onerous of these were quite obviously those of the latter towards their caste superiors. Tenurial obligations to the king and the state were also determined by caste status, and so for that matter were those of the various groups of functionaries, craftsmen and others in the service of monasteries. Thus, as in European feudalism, there was a connection between landholding and service obligations to both sec¬ular and religious authorities, with the fundamental difference, however, that in Sri Lanka caste status was an additional consideration or factor in the determination of these services. Caste services, however, were not always attached to land. They were tied to landholdings only in relation to certain services performed for the king or his officials and for religious and charitable institutions. In other cases members of lower castes received some payment, mostly in kind but sometimes in cash, from those of higher castes in return for their services or caste obligations.

Trade

One other feature of the island’s socio economic structure in the period covered by this chapter is relevant to a study of the development of feudalism the role of trade and money in the economy. It would be true to say that neither would be of vital importance in the basically agrarian economy of a feudal society. And so it was in the Sri Lanka of this period. This is not to say that trade was of no significance at all, only that it was not fundamentally important to the economy. It would appear that from very early times merchants were at-tracted to the island by the prospect of trade, and they would have taken back with them reports of its potential in this regard. Very likely the earliest settlements on the north west coast were trade settlements, with pearls from the north west coast, gems from the south west interior, and ivory and other articles forming the principal items in their trade. The early attempts of Dravidian adventurers to seize power men like Sena and Guttika, EJara and Bhalluka and those in the time of Vattagamani may well have had control of this trade as one of their objectives. The island’s trade with South India was always of crucial importance; it formed part of the latter's commerce with the Roman Empire. Traders from the Mediterranean world were content to receive the island's products in South Indian ports, and did not come to the island themselves. This state of affairs changed in the fifth century when Sri Lanka, according to Cosmas, became an entrepdt for the trade which moved across the Indian Ocean. The testimony of Cosmas finds confirmation in the works of the Roman Procopius, his near contemporary. Sri Lanka’s rulers of this period would have siphoned off a portion of the revenue from trade into their own coffers so that the attractions of trade would not have been limited to foreign adventurers seeking political domination. But the point is that at no stage in the island's early history was its economy based on trade and, more important, this did not change with the growth in power and wealth of the Anuradhapura kingdom.

Anuradhapura itself, as the capital city, became increasingly important as a commercial centre. There was from very early times a colony of Yavanas (Greeks) and by the fifth century AD a colony of Persian merchants too. Fa Hsien refers to the imposing mansions of the resident merchants, and states that one of them probably had the office of 'guild lord'. There were also colonies of Tamil merchants in the city. This, of course, was apart from the indigenous merchants. The only other towns of commercial importance were the ports of the north west, in particular Mahatittha. Trade in all these centres, it would appear, was mainly in foreign luxury goods.
There is a gap in our sources on the island's trade with South India in the period from about the fifth century AD to the seventh. Perhaps the traditional pattern of trade continued. From the seventh century onwards till the Cola occupation these commercial ties assumed ever- increasing importance on account of the profits available from the island’s foreign trade, and the importance of Mahatittha in the trade of the Indian Ocean.

Up to the eve of the Coja invasions of the tenth century, internal trade at least had been largely in the hands of Sinhalese merchants who dominated the main market towns and were granted special charters by the kings. During the period of Coja rule in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Indian merchant alliances displaced these Sinhalese merchants, especially along the principal trade routes of the Rajarata. But their ascendancy was of limited duration and did not survive the restoration of Sinhalese power.
Trade, as it touched the mass of the people, was of a humbler kind: the exchange by barter, or by a limited use of currency (kahavanu and purdnas or eldlings), of the surplus grain at their disposal, and of manufactured goods and services. This internal trade in the early Anuradhapura period was well organised. Among the donors of caves in the early inscriptions are guilds (pugiyana) and members (jete and anujete) of such guilds. There are occasional references in the Mahavamsa to caravan traffic to and from the central highlands in search of spices and articles such as ginger. Such caravans consisted of wagons and pack animals. Apart from these there must have been some limited local trade in cloth, salt and a few luxury articles.

By the end of the fifth century the economic activity of these indigenous traders was so far advanced that there was a system of commerce in grain, in particular seed grain which came to be deposited as capital on which interest was charged. The grant of some of this grain for religious purposes the performance of the Aryavamsa festival was recorded in inscriptions which show that at the gates of Anuradhapura and some of the other towns was an important business centre, the niyamatana. There merchants received grain to be deposited as capital (gahe) to be lent not sold to cultivators, who had to return the capital with interest (vedha) added. The interest, which was taken periodically by the depositor or the person to whom the donation had been made, was usually specified, and varied with the type of grain. The people who engaged in this activity namely the merchants, who stored and lent grain were bankers of a sort, evidence no doubt of increasing sophistication in economic activity, but of peripheral significance nonetheless in the economy as a whole.

A Buddhist Civilisation

Buddhism1 was, to use modern parlance, the 'established' religion of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The conversion of Devanampiya Tissa was the momentous event from which this link between state and religion emerged, and thereafter over the centuries it became formalised or institutionalised, with Buddhism and royal authority supporting each other and drawing strength from their association. Of the formal obligations of the ruler to the established religion, three were of special importance. First of all there was the provision, by the state and its citizens, of the wherewithal for the maintenance of the sangha. Secondly, there was the use of part of the country’s agricultural surplus for the construction of religious edifices and monuments, with the architectural and sculptural embellishments associated with these a theme reviewed in detail in the second part of this chapter. And thirdly there was the king's duty to protect the established religion. This obligation taxed the ruler's resources of statesman ship to the full because of the need to steer a wary course between the defence of Buddhism and an entanglement in the doctrinal disputes of the day and in the prolonged struggle between the orthodox Theravada school and its persistent Mahayanist rivals. Closely linked with the obligation to defend the established religion was the onerous responsibility, which devolved on the ruler of the day, of overseeing if not initiating a purification of the sangha when increasing wealth and luxury inevitably led to corruption and indiscipline among bhikkhus. However, monarchical intervention to cleanse the sangha proved to be rarer in the period covered by this chapter than thereafter.

According to the vinaya rules which governed the lives of the sangha, its members were expected to live on the charity of the people but The most comprehensive work on Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the Anuradhpura period is the Rev. Walpola Rahula's History of Buddhism in Ceylon (2nd edn, Colombo, 1966). I have relied on it greatly in this chapter, as well as on S. Paranavitana's chapters on Buddhism in UCHC{\). See also E. W. Adikaram, Early History of Buddhism in Ceylon (Colombo, 1946), and S. Paranavitana, Sinhalayo (Colombo, 1967). with the rapid increase in the number of bhikkhus this became increasingly precarious and unrealistic as a source of sustenance. Thus from the beginning monasteries became dependent on the state for their maintenance, and pious kings regarded it a sacred duty to divert part of the resources and revenues at their command for the maintenance of the sangha. As a result, monasteries came to own vast temporalities and in the course of time they became the biggest land-holders in the kingdom. The social and economic implications of the emergence of monastic landlordism have been discussed in earlier chapters. Suffice it to say, at this point, that the wealth they controlled afforded the sangha a lasting and sustained protection of their own interests and existence, quite apart from increasing their authority over the community at large.

We turn next to a review of the king's role as protector of the established religion. This theme can only be analysed in terms of and against the background of the sectarian squabbles within the sangha which erupted in these centuries. Inevitably this discussion will take us beyond the narrow confines of the study of the ruler's role as protector of the established religion into the wider theme of the evolution of Buddhist doctrine and practices in the Anuradhapura kingdom. The teachings of the Theravada school were marked by a remarkable blend of clarity, simplicity and compassion. There was an emphasis on the uniqueness of the Buddha, the enlightened one, who showed the way to salvation; and a stress on individual effort as the means to this end: one reached salvation by one's own efforts. A bhikkfuiy for instance, would attain nirvana by a single minded dedication to the demands of his chosen vocation as a disciple of the Buddha, and the ideal set for him was the status of an arahdnt, one who achieves nirvana and is not rebom thereafter.

Theravada doctrine had the defects of its virtues: clear, simple, compassionate and restrained, it was at the same time a trifle too abstract and lacking in emotion, passion and vehemence if not enthusiasm. At the core of Mahayanist teaching was its conception of the bodhisattva, a compassionate figure who forgoes nirvana to work for the salvation of all beings. A bodhisattva seeks enlightenment to enlighten others, continues in the cycle of re-births, and uses his piety and spiritual attainments to guide all living things in their quest for salvation. Theravada sensibilities were offended by the Mahayanist contention that the status of a bodhisattva was a more altruistic ideal to strive for than the attainment of nirvana for oneself.
Through their cult of the bodhisattva, the Mahayanists provided Buddhism with a new mythology. More significantly the Buddha him self came to be regarded and worshipped as a god, and was placed in a cosmic view in which a succession of Buddhas was distributed through infinite time and space. In Mahayanist teaching the accumulation of merit through one's own endeavours and spiritual attainments, although essential in the quest for salvation, was not the only means to this end. There was also the emotional aspect of devotion and divine grace through the worship of heavenly saviour Buddhas and bodhisattvas; and a central feature of Mahayanist religious practice was the worship of images of the Buddha and later of bodhisattvas. The greatest name associated with these new developments in Buddhist thought was Nagaijuna and his principal disciple, Aryadeva. The latter, an original thinker himself, is believed to have been a scion of the Sinhalese royal family. And this brings us to the point that Mahayanist doctrine was soon preached in Sri Lanka. The Mahavihara bhikkhus rose in opposition to these, but there was a sympathetic reception for Mahayanism at the Abhayagiri, which had been founded in the reign of Vattagaman! Abhaya (c. 103 BC), had seceded from the Mahavihara and had established itself as a rival and independent sect. There were frequent disputations between the Mahavihara and the Abhayagiri on matters relating to monastic discipline and doctrinal interpretation, ranging from truly significant issues to the very trivial. These polemical wranglings and sectarian disputes became more frequent and sharper in tone with the development of the cleavage between Theravada orthodoxy and heretical versions of Buddhism.

The third century AD saw a historic confrontation between the or thodox Theravada school and the intrusive and dynamic Mahayanist doctrines (the Mahayanists were called Vaitulyavadins and Vitanqla vadins in the Alahdvarnsa), which began, as is usual in such encounters, with the orthodox school on the offensive, urging the ruler to fulfil his traditional obligation to the 'establishment' of using the resources of the state for the enforcement of religious conformity, and if need be to crush heterodoxy before it could stabilise itself. This is what happened under Voharika Tissa (209-31) when the Mahavihara bhikkhus convinced him that the new teachings were incompatible with the true doctrines of Buddhism. These repressive measures were only temporarily successful, and the Mahayanists were too resilient and resourceful to be kept down for ever. Within a generation the struggle was renewed, but this time the Mahavihara woke up to the limits of its influence on the ruler of the day, Gothabhaya (249-62), who could not be persuaded that coercion on behalf of religious orthodoxy was the answer to problems stemming from doctrinal dissonance in the sangha. On the contrary, he was a little sympathetic to Mahayanism himself. Under Mahasena tables were turned on the Mahavihara. Orthodoxy now faced the ruler's wrath, which was manifested with a "S. Paranavitana in UCHC I, p. 248." virulence that far surpassed Voharika Tissa's suppression of Mahayanism. Indeed some of the magnificent edifices of the Mahavihara complex were pulled down and the material from them used for the extension of the Abhayagiri. Mahasena founded the Jetavana monastery, and the institutions affiliated to it formed a congregation generally partial to the Abhayagiri and its doctrines. Thus the third of the sects into which the saAgha was divided in ancient Sri Lanka had emerged.

Orthodoxy was not so easily dislodged. It had links, strong and intimate, with all sections of the population but above all with the nobility, and these loyalties were strong enough to restrain Mahasena and to compel him to stop well short of a complete destruction of the Mahavihara. Under his successor the Mahavihara recovered much of its former privileges. It had weathered the storm and re emerged as the centre of orthodoxy, largely through the indefatigable energies, scholarship and piety of monks such as Buddaghosa (fifth century AD), although a great deal of its original prestige and power was irretrievably lost in the struggle against Mahayanism.
The Ciilavamsa would have us believe that there was no substantial change in the position of the Mahavihara in the later centuries of the Anuradhapura kingdom; that it remained the centre of the 'official' version of Buddhism; that kings continued as its patrons and, as defenders of the faith, suppressed heterodox sects whenever these appeared to offer a challenge to the Mahavihara. But the fact is that the position of the Mahavihara was much weaker and less influential than this. Though the Mahavihara had survived the worst effects of Mahasena's purposeful hostility, the sectarian strife of the third century and early fourth century had demonstrated the limits of its powers. It neither received the exclusive loyalty of the rulers of the day and the people at large, nor dominated religious life as it had done in the early centuries of the Christian era. Every now and then new sects representing some fresh interpretation of the canon would emerge and the Abhayagiri and Jetavana viharas continued to be receptive to these heterodox sects and ideas.

Indeed it would seem that for much of the Anuradhapura period, the Abhayagiri had a more numerous following than its more illustrious rival. The Abhayagiri complex covered a larger area than that of the Mahavihara, while its edifices rivalled if they did not surpass those of the latter in grandeur and variety. Besides, the bhikkhus of the Abhayagiri enjoyed a reputation for spiritual attainment and learning both in Sri Lanka and abroad. The equating of heterodoxy with sinfulness, which the Mahavihara and its adherents put forward in their criticisms of the Abhayagiri, was one which had no basis in fact or acceptance among the Buddhists of the island. Though it was never able to displace Theravada Buddhism from its position of primacy, Mahayanism had a profound influence on Sri Lanka Buddhism. This it achieved by the response it evoked among the people, in the shift of emphasis from the ethical to the devotional aspect of religion. To the lay Buddhist, Mahayanist ritual and ceremonies had a compelling attraction, and they became a vital part of worship. The anniversary of the birth of the Buddha became a festive occasion celebrated under state auspices. Relics of the Buddha and of the early disciples became the basis of a powerful cult of relic worship. Of these much the most significant and popular was the tooth relic of the Buddha which was brought to Sri Lanka in the reign of Sirimeghavanna (301-28) under Mahayanist auspices and housed in the Abhayagiri, since the Mahavihara would have nothing to do with it, in the early stages at least. But the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Mahavihara could not prevent the cult of the tooth relic from becoming an important annual Buddhist ceremony whose appeal became progressively more contagious to the point where, after some centuries, the possession of the tooth relic became essential to the exercise of sovereignty in Sri Lanka.

The Mahayanist influence was seen also in the increasing popularity of images of the Buddha and of bodhisattvas in Buddhist worship. As a result an image house became, in time, an essential feature of the complex of structures that formed a vihara. There was also evidence once more of Mahayanism's persuasive appeal a profound change in the Theravadin concept of the Buddha, one feature of which had significant political implications the belief that a righteous king could attain Buddhahood in a future birth. This latter was an irresistible attraction for royal patrons of Buddhism. They could hardly demonstrate any enthusiasm, much less passion, for suppressing a religious doctrine the effect of which was to confer an element of divinity on kingship. One other point needs emphasis. Mahayanism was not the only influence at work in softening the pristine starkness of Theravada Buddhism. There were others too: pre Buddhistic cults, Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism, in chronological order. The belief that one's life was affected by good and evil spirits i.e. disembodied souls or incorporeal beings, who needed to be propitiated by prayer and ritual was one of the ritual elements of the pre Buddhistic folk religion to survive in the face of the more rational outlook which Buddhism encouraged. Eventually Buddhist rites were developed to cater to this pre Buddhist survival, and a ceremony called pirit was evolved. This consisted of the public chanting of extracts from the Buddhist scriptures by bhikkhus in times of general calamity such as drought, epidemic or famine, for the purpose of exorcising evil spirits from a place or person. Sorcery and magical arts, generally pre- Buddhistic in origin, remained as strongly rooted among the people after their conversion to Buddhism as before, and indeed continued to exercise their sway with virtually undiminished power. This accommodation between Buddhism and pre Buddhistic cults and practices became a feature of Sinhalese religious beliefs lasting up to modern times.

Although the spread of Buddhism in the island was at the expense of Hinduism, the latter never became totally submerged, but survived and had an influence on Buddhism which became more marked with the passage of time. Vedic deities, pre Buddhistic in origin in Sri Lanka, held their sway among the people, and kings who patronised the official religion, Buddhism, supported Hindu temples and observed Brahmanic practices as well. Hinduism was sustained also by small groups of Brahmans living among the people and at the court. It was in the later centuries of the Anuradhapura kingdom that the Hindu influence on Buddhism became more pronounced as a necessary result of political and religious change in South India. The early years of the Christian era saw Buddhism strongly entrenched in South India, and Nagarjunikonda (in Andhra) and Kanchi were famous Buddhist centres there. Close links were established between these South Indian Buddhist centres and Sri Lanka. There was a Sri Lanka vihdra at Nagarjunikonda, and the introduction and establishment of the new heterodox Buddhist sects of Sri Lanka was the work primarily of visiting ecclesiastics from India or Sri Lankan students of famous Indian theologians.

After the sixth century all that remained of South Indian Buddhsim, inundated by the rising tide of an aggressive Hindu revivalism, were a few isolated pockets in Orissa, for example, maintaining a stubborn but nonetheless precarious existence. There was no recovery from that onslaught. The intrusive pressures of South Indian kingdoms on the politics of Sri Lanka carried with them also the religious impact of a more self confident Hinduism. All this was especially powerful after the Cola invasions and Cola rule. There was, for instance, the influence of Hindu ritual and modes of worship; faith in the magical effect of incantations, a great Vedic phenomenon, and more importantly in bhakti (devotion as a means of salvation), which was an important part of Hinduism from about the seventh century ad, strengthened the shift from the ethical to the devotional aspects of Buddhism initiated by Mahayanism. Hindu shrines came to be located close to vihdras. The assimilation of Hindu practices in Buddhism, of which this was evidence, was reinforced by the gradual accommodation in Buddhist mythology of Hindu deities such as Upuluvan, Saman and Natha. This latter occurred by the tenth century.

Tantric Buddhism had established itself and indeed begun to flourish in India from about the eighth century, especially in the land of the Palas. As with every Indian religious movement of the time, its influence began to be felt almost immediately in Sri Lanka, so much so that when two well known exponents of Tantrism, Vajrabodhi and Amogharajra, arrived in the island sometime in the eighth century, they were able to collect a large number of Tantric texts as well as learn some of the Tantric ritual practices prevalent there. In the ninth century Tantrism had an even stronger impression on Sri Lanka. Two Tantric schools or sects were introduced, the Nllapa adarSana and the Vajravada, the latter in the reign of Sena I (833-53) by a bhikkhu from the Viramkara monastery at Anuradhapura. Sena I himself became an adherent of Tantrism. Tantric incantations or dharanis in the Indian nagari script of the ninth century, inscribed on stones, clay tablets and copper plaques, have been found in a number of places in the old Rajarata, as well as Tantric images in bronze and copper, e.g. of the goddess Tara.

Thus Sri Lanka's Theravada Buddhism accommodated a variety of religious influences pre Buddhistic cults and practices, Mahayanism, Tantric Buddhism and Hinduism but was not overwhelmed by any or all of them. One last theme needs to be reviewed in this first part of the present chapter Buddhism as a link with other parts of Buddhist Asia. The closest and most intimate ties were with the Buddhist kingdoms of South East Asia, especially with lands where the prevalent form of Buddhism was Theravadin. Thus there were frequent exchanges of pilgrims and scriptural knowledge with Ramanna in Burma. These links became stronger after the tenth century. The resuscitation of the Sinhalese sangha after the destructive effects of the Cola conquests owed a great deal to bhikkhus from upper Burma sent over for this purpose by its king at the request of Vijayabahu I (1055-1110). Relations with Cambodian Buddhism hinted at in the chronicles were very probably more tenuous than those with Burmese Buddhism. Whether this was because Cambodian Buddhism, unlike its Ramanna counterpart, was Mahayanist we are in no position to say. There is evidence too that Sinhalese nuns went to China in the fifth century AD and helped in the ordination of women there. In 411 the famous Chinese Buddhist traveller Fa Hsein visited the island and stayed here for two years. But contacts with Chinese Buddhism were occasional and tenuous.

Architecture and sculpture

The concept of Buddhism as state religion had as one of its essential features the obligation assumed by the ruler to divert some of the agricultural surplus at his command for the construction of religious edifices, which became in time more magnificent in scale and visual impact. The earliest Buddhist shrines in Sri Lanka were based on Indian models, and in the wake of the Mauryan Buddhist mission to the island came the arts and crafts of India as well. But after an initial period of Indianisation, which tended to imitate the parent culture, a distinctive Sri Lankan style in art and architecture was evolved, bearing the stamp of its Indian origin no doubt, but not identical with that of any particular region of India. The most constant feature of Buddhist Sri Lanka is the stupa or cetiya which came to the island from Northern India.
These stupas generally enshrined relics of the Buddha and the more celebrated illuminati of early Buddhism, and were on that account objects of veneration. They dominated the city of Anuradhapura and the landscape of Rajarata by their imposing size, awe inspiring testimony to the state's commitment to Buddhism and to the wealth at its command. The stupa, generally a solid hemispherical dome, gave a subdued but effective expression to the quintessence of Buddhism simplicity and serenity. There were five important stupas at Anuradhapura. The first to be built was the small but elegant Thuparama. Dutthagamani built two, the Mirisavati and the Ruvanvalisaya or the Mahastupa. Two stupas subsequently surpassed the Mahastupa in size, the Abhayagiri and the largest of them all, the Jetavana. The scale of comparison was with the In this section of the present section I have relied on the following authorities: A. K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art (London, 1965); E. F. G. Ludowyk, Footprint of the Buddha (London, 1958), S. Paranavitana, Sinhalayo (Colombo, 1967) and his contributions on religion and art in UCHC, I, pp. 241-67 and 378-409; B. Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India (3rd revised edn, Harmonds worth, 1967).

There is no evidence of stupas in Sri Lanka before the introduction of Buddhism. No stupa built in this period is preserved today without alteration in shape or addition. The form of the oldest stupas was the same as that of the monument at Sanchi, the oldest preserved example of the type in India. There are six types of stupa in Sri Lanka, all described by reference to their shape: a bell, a pot, a bubble, a heap of paddy, a lotus and an amalaka fruit. largest similar monuments in other parts of the ancient world. At the time the Ruvanvalisaya was built it was probably the largest monument of its class anywhere in the world. The Abhayagiri was enlarged by Gajabahu I in the second century AD to a height of 280 feet or more, while the Jetavana rose to over 400 feet. Both were taller than the third pyramid at Gizeh, and were the wonders of their time, with the Jetavana probably being the largest stupa in the whole Buddhist world. Smaller stupas were also built in the early Anuradhapura period at Mihintale, Dighavapi and Mahagama.

Those of the later Anuradhapura period, such as the Indikatusaya at Mihintale, and the stupa at the Vijayarama at Anuradhapura are of modest proportions, their domes elongated in shape and the three basal terraces reduced to mouldings. These seem to have been in spired by the Mahayanists. One feature of the colossal stupas merits special mention: the frontispieces which project from their bases. The exuberant architecture of these frontispieces vahalkadas, as they were called with their ornamental sculptures are in agreeable contrast to the stark simplicity if not monotony of the lines of the stupas. The best examples of vahalkadas are those of the Jetavana and Abhayagiri dagobas at Anuradhapura and the Kantaka at Mihintale. These sculptures bear evidence of the influence of the Amaravati school but with a restraint which makes up for a lack of vitality.
Among the architectural features of this period is the vafadage, a circular shrine enclosing a small stupa. The largest of the vafadages is at the Thuparama at Anuradhapura, which had four circles of stone pillars encompassing the stupa, while each of those of Madirigiriya and Polonnaruva has three circles of pillars, those of Tiriyay and Mihintale having two each. Though the vatadages all follow a common design, each has some distinctive feature of its own. The earliest extant vatadage to which a date can be assigned is that at Madirigiriya from the reign of Aggabodhi IV (667-83). The Lovamahapaya or the Brazen Palace is unique among the ancient monuments of Anuradhapura. Designed to house the monks of the Mahavihara, it was begun by DutthagamanI, and is believed to have risen on completion to nine stories in all. The bhikkhus were accommodated on the basis of rank, with the uppermost floors being reserved for the most senior and, presumably, the most venerable among them. All that remains of this early skyscraper are some 1,600 weather beaten granite pillars which are a haphazard reconstruction of the twelfth century, with some of the pillars upside down and not even on the original site.

Literary works refer to the splendid mansions of kings and nobles, but few traces of these have survived since they were built mostly of wood, and there are no traces at all of the habitations of the common people. Stone played only a limited role in Sinhalese architecture and was usually restricted to ornamental details and ancillary features. But these latter have survived, while the woodwork which was the basis of Sinhalese architecture, domestic and public, has not. As an example of this are the stone faced baths, various in shape and dimension but elegant in design, located within the precincts of the monas-teries and royal parks. These have survived. The abundance of timber suitable for building purposes, and the lack of a type of stone which was at once durable and easy to work, appear to have hindered the development of a style of stone architecture in Sri Lanka. When such a style did emerge, the inspiration came once more from an Indian source, from South India this time, where the earlier architecture of brick and wood was yielding place, so far as religious edifices were concerned, to one solely of stone. This had its influence on Sri Lankan architecture. The best example of stone architecture of this period is the galge at Devundara, the southernmost point of the island, the shrine built to house the image of Upuluvan, the ancient Varuna, the protector of the island. The simplicity and lack of ornamentation in this shrine was in striking contrast to the exuberance of the Dravidian style that was developing about the same time in South India.

Both in terms of its variety and artistic achievement, the sculpture of the Anuradhapura kingdom is as rich and impressive as its architecture. Some of the outstanding features of this sculptural heritage are reviewed here, beginning with the moonstones which many scholars regard as the finest product of the Sinhalese artist. At a time when the Buddha image came to be regarded as a regular feature of a Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka, the moonstone was central to the theme of worship.18 Its decorative features were intended to communicate symbolic significance to the worshipper. 11 Moonstones are semi circular slabs richly decorated in low relief and placed at the foot of a stairway leading to a major shrine, with a standard pattern consisting of several concentric bands of ornament, beginning with an outer zone of luxuriant foliage followed by a spirited procession of animals the horse, elephant, ox and lion remarkable for their poise and probably symbolising the four quarters of the world. This band of animals is followed by a belt of stylised vegetation and then a row of hamsa (sacred geese) dangling flowers in their beaks. The appears to have come to Sri Lanka from the Andhra country, but it had its fullest development in Sri Lanka. There are six moonstones at Anuradhapura, each one a masterpiece. The earliest Buddha images found in the island go back to the first century AD. A standing Buddha of Amaravatl marble, about 6 feet high and probably imported from Amaravatl (Vengi), has been discovered almost intact at Maha Illuppallama in Anuradhapura. Fragments of Buddha images in the Amaravatl style and in the distinctive marble of that school have also been found. In time Buddha images were carved and sculpted in Sri Lanka, and developed peculiarly Sri Lankan characteristics, without however effacing all traces of the Indian prototype on which they were modelled. Buddha images in bronze of characteristically Sri Lankan workmanship have been found in western Java, Celebes, Vietnam and Thailand. Images of the Buddha in a sedentary position, from the early period of Sinhalese sculpture, are perhaps more exciting and impressive than the more stately statues of the Buddha in a standing posture the very simplicity of the conception is singularly successful in its dignified and elegant evocation of the concept of samadhi.

Some of the standing Buddha images are of colossal proportions and consequently awe inspiring. The most remarkable and famous of these is the 42 feet high Buddha image at Avukana. The group of colossal images carved on the face of a rock at Buduruvagala near Vallavaya comprises a Buddha image in the centre, attended by a bodhisattva on either side. These figures at Vallavaya may be dated to the ninth and tenth centuries, to which period may also be attributed the stylistically interesting bodhisattva figure at Valigama on the south coast. Buddha images in the recumbent position, of similar proportions, are found at Ajahara and Tantrimalai. At Maligavala in the Buttala area a Buddha image nearly 40 feet high has been fashioned completely in the round, probably brought from the quarry to the site, and set up in position in the shrine. This colossus has fallen from its pedestal and lies on the ground badly mutilated. Images of similar size and bulk carved on rock faces have not been found in India. However, there are figures oflarger dimensions carved on rock faces by Buddhists in what is now Afghanistan, of which the group at Bamiyan is the most spectacular.

The Indian influence is prominent in other features of the sculptural achievements of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The dvarapalas or guardians of the Four Directions usually in the form of a naga king in innermost bands are all inspired by the lotus plant and culminating in stylised lotus petals of great delicacy. The vitality of the carving is matched by an extra ordinary restraint. human form attended by a grotesque potbellied dwarf, the guard stones at Buddhist shrines bear the distinct mark of the Amaravat! school. The rock cut Isurumuniya vihdra below the bund of the Tissavava at Anuradhapura is renowned for its sculptural embellishments, the most celebrated of which are two reliefs carved on rock outcrops: the lovers a young warrior on a stone seat with a young woman on his lap and the man seated in the pose called royal ease with the head of a horse behind him. The first of these, the lovers, has characteristics of the Gupta school in India of the fourth and fifth centuries, while the second is in the Pallava style of the seventh century.

There is also that most astounding monument of them all, Slgiri, a complex of buildings, part royal palace with superbly designed ornamental gardens part fortified town, which together constitute a magnificent and unique architectural tour de force. Slgiri is remembered today for the exquisite frescoes in a rock pocket some 40 feet above the access pathway. Who these female figures are has always been a matter of debate among scholars. H. C. P. Bell argued that they were the wives of King Kassapa, but a more recent theory propounded by Paranavitana is that Slgiri was devised less as a fortified town than as a symbolic representation of the palace of Kuvera, the god of riches, who dwelt on the summit of mount Kailasa, and that the females are 'Lightning Princesses' attended by 'Cloud Damsels'. The paintings at Slgiri are the earliest surviving specimens of the pictorial art of Sri Lanka that can be dated; they are approximately the same age as those of Ajanta in India with which they bear comparison. Though no paintings of an earlier era than those at Slgiri have survived, the inscriptions and literature of the early Anuradhapura period show that painting as an art form had as long a history as sculpture and architecture and was as extensively practised. Its techniques and artistic theory are likely to have been based on Indian traditions modified to suit the local milieu. Thus the Slgiri paintings would represent a sophisticated court art with centuries of experience behind it.

Fragments of paintings datable to the seventh or eighth centuries have been discovered in the lower relic chamber of the stupa to the east of the K.antaka.cetiya at Mihintale. They comprise figures in outline, of divine beings rising from clouds in four directions. Paintings have also been noticed in the eastern vahalkada of the Ruvanvalisaya; the eastern vahalkada of the Jetavana; at a site named Gonapola in the Digamadulla District (Gal-oya) and in some caves at Slgiri. A seven headed cobra forms a halo above the rich tiara of the ndga king and in his upraised hand he holds a vase of plenty sprouting forth prosperity and abundance.

Literature

Buddhism was, without doubt, the greatest stimulus to literary activity among the ancient Sinhalese. The Theravada Buddhist canon was brought to the island by Mahinda and his companions and handed down orally. These scriptures were in Pali and it was in this language that they were committed to writing for the first time, at Aluvihara near Matale in the first century BC. The preservation of the Theravada canon, which had been lost in India at a comparatively early date, is one of the landmark contributions of the Sinhalese to world literature. Around these scriptures grew a considerable body of writing in Pali and old Sinhalese, consisting of exegetical works, religious texts and historical accounts. The Mahavihara bhikkhus compiled an extensive exegetical literature in Pali. No doubt its rivals, the Abhayagiri and Jetavana, matched the achievement of the Mahavihara in this field, but nothing of their work has survived. Not that very much of the body of material produced by the Mahavihara has survived either, but these works together formed the basis of the extensive canonical and commentarial literature in Pali, and the chronicles in that language in the fifth century AD and later. The oldest Pali chronicle surviving today is the Dipavamsa which provides an account of the history of the island up to the time of Mahasena, with scattered references to developments in India when these had some bearing on Sri Lanka. The Pali commentaries and canonical literature, a systematic compilation of the fifth century AD by Buddhaghosa, Buddhadatta and Dhammapala, none of them a native of the island, demonstrate greater literary skill. Buddhaghosa, whose most famous work is the Visud- dhimagga, is much the most celebrated of these scholars. His work was intended mainly for Buddhist missionary activity overseas in South East Asia.

One notable feature of Sri Lanka's Pali literature needs special mention: the remarkable tradition of historical writing among the Sinhalese. The earliest historical work is the Dipavamsa, a compilation, very probably, of the fifth century AD. The Mahavamsa, also in Pali verse and covering the same period of history, is a much more sophisticated accomplishment and one which succeeding generations used, quoted with pride as the definitive work on the island's history, and felt compelled to up-date. Its continuation the Culavarhsa, attributed to Dhammakitti in the thirteenth century surveyed the island's history up to the reign of Parakramabahu I (1153-86). A subsequent extension by another bhikkhu took the story to the fourteenth century, and it was concluded by yet another in the late eighteenth century. These chronicles, notwithstanding their flaws and gaps, provide a remarkably accurate chronological and political framework for the study of the island’s history. But their scope is by no means limited to Sri Lanka, for events and personalities on the Indian sub continent are often mentioned. These references have provided scholars with data to determine the chronologies of Indian kings and empires as well.

Sinhalese as a distinct language and script developed rapidly under the joint stimuli of Pali and Buddhism. Indeed it would be true to say that the art of writing came to Sri Lanka with Buddhism. By the second century AD Sinhalese was being used for literary purposes, and thereafter a body of religious writing explaining the Pali canon was accumulated, primarily for the purpose of conveying its ideas to those not conversant with Pali. The Sinhalese language was also enriched by translations from Pali. But Pali did not remain for long the only or even the dominant influence on Sinhalese. Sanskrit, the language of the Mahayanist and Hindu scriptures, whi^h was richer in idiom, vocabulary and vitality, left a strong impression on the Sinhalese language in the later centuries of the Anuradhapura era. There was also a considerable Tamil influence on the vocabulary, idiom and grammatical structure of Sinhalese. Very little of the Sinhalese work of this period has survived, and most of it seems stilted, pedantic and lacking in originality and vitality. This is not surprising since much of it was written for scholars, and conformed to rigid literary conventions. The earliest known Sinhalese work was the Siyabaslakara, a work on rhetoric, a Sinhalese version of the well known Sanskrit text on poetics, the Kavyadarsa. Its author was probably Sena IV (954-6).17 There were also exegetical works and glossaries, but none of them had any literary pretensions. Some of the inscriptions of the first and second centuries BC appear in verse. Much more interesting as examples of a lively and sensitive folk poetry are the verses written on the gallery wall at Slgiri by visitors to the place in the eighth and ninth centuries, of which 700 stanzas have been deciphered.18 These verses are a poignant reminder of how rich this vein of folk poetry must have been. Almost all of it is now irretrievably lost.

Nothing of the more formal poetry has survived. Moggallana II, for example, apart from being a great builder of tanks, was a man of letters and is said to have composed a religious poem, of which how¬ever there is now no trace. Just as Pali was the language of Sinhalese Buddhism, Sanskrit was the sacred language of the Brahmans (and Hinduism) and of Mahayanism. With the spread of Mahayanism in Sri Lanka, the more erudite bhikkhus turned to the study of Sanskrit since most of the Mahayanist scriptures were written in that language. Sanskrit studies became more popular in the island with the influence of the Pallavas who were great patrons of that language. Some of the more famous Sanskrit works were known in the island, and Sanskrit theories of poetics and rhetoric were studied. But Sri Lanka’s contribution to Sanskrit literature was both meagre and imitative. The one notable work was that of Kumaradasa (a scion of the Sinhalese royal family but not a king), who composed the Janakiharana in the seventh century AD. Its theme was the Rdmayana. There were also a few inscriptions in Sanskrit, and some minor writings in that language. All in all, therefore, the major contribution of the Sinhalese in the period of the Anuradhapura kings was in Pali. Creative writing in that language reached a level of competence far above that in either Sinhalese or Sanskrit.