The Cultural Triangle (part 2):
Sri Lanka is the cradle of the great civilizations of Asia and the world. From the third century B.C., successive Buddhist kingdoms flourished within a triangular area bounded in the north by the ancient capital and sacred city of Anuradapura, in the east by the medieval capital Polonaruva, and in the south by Kandy, the hilltop capital of the last Sinhala king.
What is now called the Cultural Triangle was the centre from which the influence of Thervada Buddhism and Sinhala artistic genius spread far and wide. The astonishing concentration of monuments and sites, including monastic settlements, royal palaces, gardens and vast irrigation works, as well as rock paintings and sculpture, testify to the artistic and technological achievements of those ancient kingdoms.
In the eleventh century, there were successive invasions and the capital was shifted from Anuradhapurura to Polonaruva, which became the medieval capital of Sri Lanka from the eleventh to the end of the first quarter of the thirteenth century A.D. The city is situated in the Dry Zone of the North-Central province. One of the most exceptional kings of the period was Parakramabahu the Great. His story is carved on rock and masonry and great irrigation works. One of the lakes he constructed to give life to paddy fields and to unborn generations is called the Parakrama-Samudra. The philosophy of this farsighted leader was that not a single drop of water, which falls on the land, should be allowed to go in to the sea before it has served the cause of the people. This period was the most prosperous for the country. Sri Lanka became to be known as the granary of the east. Evidence of its splendor is seen even today in massive Buddha images carved out of the living rock, and great dagobas, reliquaries and a scientifically constructed network of irrigation works.
The palaces of Parakramabahu and Nissankamalla, with their audience halls and the bathing ponds, provide an insight into the royal palace architecture of ancient Lanka. Polonaruwa is described in the chronicles as a garden city, where King Parakramabahu is recorded as having planted one thousand plants of every variety in the Lanka Uyana, or Park of a Thousand Trees. However, at the beginning of the 14 th century, this royal capital was doomed to follow the same fate as Anuradhapura, and the people began to desert it for protection and shelter into the interior.
One of Asia's major archaeological sites, Sigiriya presents a unique concentration of fifth-century urban planning, architecture, gardening, engineering, hydraulic technology. Sigiriya is centered on a massive rock rising 200 meters above the surrounding plain. Its location is one of considerable natural beauty and historical interest.
Sigiriya is a walled-and-moated royal capital of the fifth century A.D. with a palace complex on top of the rock, elaborate pleasure gardens, extensive moats and ramparts, and the well-known paintings on the western face of the rock. A spiral stairway was built to enable people to view the timeless frescos, which date back to the 5th century A.D.
Also known as the Golden Mountain temple is one of the largest cave temple complexes in the South and Southeast Asian region. Dambulla has also one of the richest collections of Sri Lankan sculpture in the form of a large number of Buddha images in standing and recumbent postures as well as outstanding figures of gods.
Herta Keilbach, Ph.D.