The Anuradhapura Kingdom - V

The Anuradhapura Kingdom - V

Contiued with part four   here to go previous one

There is also the position of the paramukhas (Sanskrit ‘pramukha’, chief or notable) or the ruling, 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 center. 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 analyzed 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 the 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 the 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 population.

They sacked Anuradhapura and imposed a substantial indemnity 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, the Pallavas 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 was emerging as a formidable threat to both Pandyans and Pallavas. The latter was the first to be absorbed by the Colas, who then proceeded southward to Pandyan territory.