The Anuradhapura Kingdom - IX

The Anuradhapura Kingdom - IX

Contiued with part eight   here to go previous one

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 Valve 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 utilized 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 favor, 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-organized 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 organizational 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 civilizations 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 civilization, 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 sustainable agricultural development in Rohana was comparatively minor, and even insubstantial 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.