The Polonnaruwa Kingdom - VIII

The Polonnaruwa Kingdom - VIII

Contiued with part seven   here to go previous one

The Satmahalprasada, a stupa with an unusual pyramid-like form in seven levels or stories, is much more of an enigma. Was this monument yet another derived from an Indian prototype or an outstanding example of South East Asian Cambodian and Burmese influence on Sri Lankan architecture? The latter seems more likely because of the peculiar shape of this monument and in view of the very close religious ties at this time between Sri Lanka and the Buddhist countries of South East Asia. As at Anuradhapura, few secular buildings have survived in Polonnaruva. Of Parakramabahu's palace, only the foundations remain today, but Nisanka Malla's audience hall is in a better state of preservation.

As for painting, what is now preserved is a very small fraction of the work executed by the artists of the Polonnaruva kingdom. Of the secular paintings, nothing has survived, although the evidence suggests that walls of palaces like those of shrines were decorated with paintings. Those on religious edifices have fared slightly better. The Laiikatilaka bears traces of paintings on its walls, exterior as well as interior. The walls of the Tivanka pratimaghara (erroneously called the Demalamahasaya) carry more paintings than any other monument at Polonnaruva or indeed in the island, but the date of these paintings is a matter of conjecture, for though this shrine was built in the reign of Parakramabahu I, it has evidently been renovated and possibly altered at a later date.

These paintings are the work of artists who had centuries of tradition behind them, and who belonged to a school which, in its heyday, had ramifications throughout the subcontinent of India and beyond it. The famous cave paintings of Ajanta and Bagh are its most mature products. By the twelfth century, this artistic tradition was almost extinct in India, but the fragmentary remains of the Polonnaruva paintings afford proof that it had been preserved in Sri Lanka long after it had lost its vitality in the land of its origin. Nevertheless, like the earlier Slgiri paintings, these latter are distinctly provincial in comparison with the Indian prototype.

Indeed, all the later work in Polonnaruva, whether in art or architecture, appears archaic if not atavistic, the result very probably of a conscious effort at reviving and imitating the artistic traditions of the Anuradhapura kingdom. The moonstones of Polonnaruva are inferior to those of Anuradhapura in vitality and aesthetic appeal, just as the baths which adorned the palaces and monasteries were smaller in size and, with the single exception of the exquisite lotus bath, less elegant in design. The transformation of Polonnaruva into a gracious cosmopolitan city was the work of three kings Vijayabahu I, Parakramabahu I and Nissarika Malla and this development could be measured in generations if not decades, and not, as in the case of the cognate process in Anuradhapura, in centuries. Polonnaruva had a smaller area than Anuradhapura, but its compactness was conducive to a remarkable symmetry in the location of its major edifices, all of them like so many links in some gigantic creation of a celestial jeweler who used the Parakrama Samudra to the best possible advantage to set them off.

The comparatively short period in which the architecture and sculptural splendors of Polonnaruva were created is no doubt testimony to the dynamism and creativity of its rulers and people. But it had its somber side as well, for in retrospect the activity seems febrile, and this conspicuous investment in monuments must have impaired the economic strength of the kingdom and contributed greatly to the rapid decline that set in after the reign of Nissarika Malla.

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