The Anuradhapura Kingdom - III

The Anuradhapura Kingdom - III

Contiued with part two   here to go previous one

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 bedeviled 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 of one supremely important religion, the 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 nevertheless, 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   (the northern division)
• Paccimadesa   (the western division)
• Pachinadesa   (eastern division)
• Dakkhinadesa   (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.

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