December 2003
King Pandukabhaya formally planned the city with gates and quarters for traders. The city at the time covered an area of one square kilometer, making it one of the largest cities on the continent at the time.The city was largely deserted after the invasion by the Chola Tamil Hindu king Rajaraja 1 in 993 CE and his son Rajendra 1 in 1014 CE. According to Culavamsa (6th century CE-18th century CE), Anuradhapura was "utterly destroyed in every way by the Chola army. Still, the place was continuously inhabited after this event as indicated by records of visitors to the island such as Robert Knox and others. Thus, the city was the longest-serving Sinhalese capital of Sri Lanka from the 5th century BCE (437 BCE) until the 11th century CE (1017 CE) flourishing for around 1,500 years.
(Wikipedia)
The first stop on our loop around Sri Lanka from Colombo was Anuradhapura. Either too high of expectations or over-zealous guidebook authors led us to believe we were traveling to an amazing site. After having seen Angkor Wat and the ruined temples of Java, for us the first and most ancient capital of the kingdom of Lanka appeared as a bunch of nothing. We were loving Sri Lanka, no doubt - the people were nice, we had a fantastic driver, and tourists sites were well-maintained and organized. In that way, it was lightyears better than India. However, our first stop really just had us looking at each other and saying "you must be kidding"? Anuradhapura was one big renovated pagoda and a lot of "very ruined" ruins strewn over a large area. I think our poor driver was worried we were going to bail on the whole trip after seeing our lack of enthusiasm.
We knew this was an ancient capital and we poked around all the corners of the site looking for the "wow" part of it that was going to make it all worthwhile. We never found it. The large white pagoda was extremely plain and austere - out of place, even. We gave Anuradhapura our best shot, but it simply fell flat.
The funniest thing about that site was that it turned out to be the least interesting place of the whole trip. We absolutely LOVED the rest of the locations we visited. Perhaps Anuradhapura was just an obligatory stop given its importance and history. The Sinhalese promoted it for tourists so people would not forget what an ancient country the island was. For tourists without a penchant for history, however, there was little to see.
Filled with hope we pressed onward - Sri Lanka would reward us continually after paying our dues at the ancient capital. The Kingdom of Lanka held many amazing places and we would soon see many more of them.
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