Anuradhapura is the name of the first capital of what is today the island country of Sri Lanka. The 100 hectare (247 acre) ruins of the ancient city lie immediately to the southeast of the modern city named after it. Ancient Anuradhapura was involved in Indian Ocean region trade from its founding in the 4th century BC to its collapse following a destructive invasion in AD 1017. Anuradhpura's importance to Buddhist religious communities begins at least in the 2nd century BC, and even today, the ruins are a focus of pilgrimage for people throughout the Buddhist world.
Population estimates for the city in its heyday are wide-ranging and conflicting, but there likely was between 8,000 and 10,000 monks and nuns living in the sacred portion of the city by the third century AD, when Anuradhapura was visited by pilgrims throughout the Buddhist world.
Chronology
- Period 1, ca 400-250 BC, the earliest occupation as a small Iron Age village of circular timber structures with thatch roofs.
- Period 2, 250 BC-450 AD, initial appearance of formalized monastic architecture; including tree temples (bodhigara); ritual structures (uposathaghara); brick monuments (stupa), including Ruyanvelisaya and Mirisavati stupas; and monumental tanks and canals.
- Period 3, ca 450-680 AD, brick architecture develops, stone extensively used in steps, walls and pavings, with wooden pillars.
- Period 4, ca 680-1017 AD, end of monastic architecture, introduction of stone pillars, establishment of distinctive monastic forms
Features of the Ancient City
Early in its construction, Anuradhapura was divided into Sacred (including the village of the Candalas, quarters for foreigners and cemeteries); and the Secular, a fortified settlement known as the Citadel.
The Sacred City included monastic complexes dominated by major Buddhist, Mahayanist, Theravadist and Mahavihara sects. It included a core zone of these complexes, marked by four great brick-built stupas (Jetavana, at a height of 160 meters [524 feet]; Ruyanvelisaya, 106.5 m [359 ft] ; Mirisavati, 58.5 m [190 ft]); and Abhayagiri (71.5 m[235 ft]). This sector was surrounded by an agricultural zone and an outer ring of later monastic complexes.
The Citadel
The secular part of the city is called the Citadel; by the 7th century AD, the citadel was surrounded by a moat and banked earthworks, capped with a wall and ramparts. Eventually, the ramparts were expanded and widened to a height of at least 7.9 m (26 ft).
One elite residence within the secular city consisted of a high-quality ashlar hall with load-bearing granite pillars supporting a second story, and a tiled roof with a wood, brick and mud super structure was constructed ~300-500 AD. The first story was raised 1.75 m (5.7 ft) above the pillar foundations, and floored by a brick pavement. Coins recovered from the floor of this structure included punch-marked coins, Lakshmi Plaques; beneath the pillars were a Late Roman Imperial third brass coin, and a Mainless Lion coin.
The monumental complex of buildings called Vijayabahu’s Palace was constructed about 1070 AD, just before the invasion of Anuradhapura. This complex measured 200x200 m (650x650 ft), with a gatehouse on the eastern side. Inside an enclosure measuring 67x40 m was a courtyard with a 5.8 meter gallery around its outer edges. The palace, 22.5x20.4 m is in the western half of the enclosure, and shows extensive use of wooden pillars.
The Hinterland
Within a 50 kilometer (31 mile) radius of Anuradhapura were agricultural fields, and a vast water (hydraulic) system based on three artificial lakes, first built in the 4th century BC and augmented in the fifth century AD with feeder channels and canals. The water system allowed excess wet season water to be stored for drinking and irrigation agriculture. Over 1,000 sites (including brickworks, monastic sites, megalithic tombs, quarries, pottery and blacksmith workshops, and water tanks) have been identified in this region.
Trade
Historical documentation contains ample evidence of the importance of Anuradhapura to trade networks throughout the Indian Ocean. Archaeological evidence supporting the trade networks include the presence of a series of fine grey wares, including Indian Rouletted Ware (IRW made ~400 BC-AD 300) and Arikamedu pottery (200 BC-AD 300), both fine wares produced in Anuradhapura and found at ports from Berenike, Egypt, to Sembiran in Indonesia. Geochemical analysis of the pottery fabrics suggests that at least some of the wares were produced in southeastern India and imported to Anuradhapura. Magee, for example argues that IRW was an elite pottery created in southeast India for the use of maritime merchants based in Arikamedu and Anuradhapura.
Collapse
Scholars have proposed several possible scenarios for the abandonment and destruction of the city after 1500 years, but all of them include the damage done by an invasion of neighboring Cola people. Incursions by the neighboring Cola ruler Rajaraja began in the late 10th century, culminating when his son Rajendra I violently sacked Anuradhapura in 1017, all areas of the city and its hinterland abandoned.
Additional forces resulting in the decline may have been due to the destruction of the hydraulic landscape during the Cola invasion, with malaria devastating the populations. A third set of scholars suggests that the 10th century invasion ended the monastic settlements, and the secular colonies declined after the Cola left in the 11th century AD.
Archaeology and Historical Documentation
The Mahavamsa ("the Great Chronicle"), a 6th century Pali history-poem covering Sri Lankan rulers from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, refers to Anuradhapura as the capital city; as do the Culavamsa records of King Vijayabahu IV [ruled 1270-1272), which describe restorations to the ruins. The earliest non-Sri Lankan records date to the 17th century, when a British sailor wrote an account of his captivity, including a description of the area of "Anarodgburro", a rendering of the Tamil word for Anuradhapura.
Excavations at Anuradhapura were conducted in the 1890s by the archaeological Survey of Ceylon under the leadership of H.C.P. Bell. These studies also included the restoration of several of the ruins, which, like most restorations of the era, both preserved and damaged the ruins. Excavations at the site were conducted in the 1960s under the direction of Siran Deraniyagala; by Paranavitana in the 1970s, and beginning in the 1990s, by the Sri-Lankan-British Anuradhapura Project, and the Upper Malvatu Oya Exploration Project in the 21st century.
Sources
Coningham RAE, Gunawardhana P, Manuel MJ, Adikari G, Katugampola M, Young R, Schmidt A, Krishnan K, Simpson IA, McDonnell G et al. 2007. The state of theocracy: Defining an early medieval hinterland in Sri Lanka. Antiquity 81(313):699-719.
Ford LA, Pollard AM, Coningham RAE, and Stern B. 2005. A geochemical investigation of the origin of Rouletted and other related South Asian fine wares. Antiquity 79(306):909-920.
Magee P. 2010. Revisiting Indian Rouletted Ware and the impact of Indian Ocean trade in Early Historic south Asia. Antiquity 84(326):1043-1054.
O'Sullivan DM, and Young RL. 2012. A world apart? Translating the archaeology of the sacred in the modern world. World Archaeology 44(3):342-358.
Pavan A, and Schenk H. 2012. Crossing the Indian Ocean before the Periplus: a comparison of pottery assemblages at the sites of Sumhuram (Oman) and Tissamaharama (Sri Lanka). Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 23(2):191-202.
Strickland KM. 2011. The jungle tide: "Collapse" in early Mediaeval Sri Lanka. Durham, UK: Durham University.
Tomber R. 2007. Rome and Mesopotamia – importers into India in the first millennium AD. Antiquity 81(314):972-988.
