As any geography or history book will tell us, Ceylon is an Island whose shape has been compared to a mango as well as to a pearl and which lies at the extremest southern point of the sub-continent of India. The narrowest point that separates Ceylon from India is only twenty miles. In fact, fanciful historians have compared Ceylon to a pearl hung on the pendant of India.
This close proximity of Ceylon to India is being stressed at the very outset, because if any single geographical factor has influenced Ceylon’s history and politics more than any other factor, it is this nearness to India, from which Ceylon has inherited its peoples, its languages, its religions, its civilisations, its conquerors, and also a lot of political ideas.
It was from India that the largely mythical Vijaya and his followers landed in Ceylon in the 6th century B.C. (about 543’ B.C.) to found what has now come to be called the Sinhalese race. This is not to say that settled life did not exist in Ceylon before this period. But this is as far as recorded history goes.
The famous Chinese traveller Fa Hien, who visited Ceylon in 412 A.D. says that Ceylon “had originally no inhabitants, but only demons and dragons dwelt in it. Merchants of different countries came here to trade. At the time of traffic, the demons did not appear in person, but only exposed their valuable commodities with the value affixed. Then the merchantmen, according to the prices marked, purchased the goods and took them away. But in consequence of these visits, men of other countries, hearing of the delightful character of the people, flocked here in great numbers, and so a great kingdom was formed.”
This account probably means that the original inhabitants of Ceylon must have been less civilised than the Indo-Aryans who later invaded the country. But, at least, they seem to have been sufficiently civilised to charge fixed prices for the merchandise they exchanged with foreign traders, probably Arabs.
From this we can inter that Ceylon has had a civilised existence for a period of over 3000 years and that the ancestors of the present inhabitants of the Island came over from India in the 6th century B.C. It would also seem that the original settlers, who belonged to the Indo-Aryan stock, came from Northern India (probably from both west and east) as distinct from those of Dravidian stock, who came over from south India much later.
The early Sinhalese kings seem to have maintained relations with the Roman Empire as far back as the 1st century A.D. and with the Chinese court from the 4th century A.D.
All these show that we are inheritors of an ancient civilisation which has had relations with the early Egyptian, Roman and Chinese civilisations. But we should also not forget that, although this civilisation had many achievements to its credit– the principal one being the wonderful system of irrigation through gigantic tanks built by the early Sinhalese kings – it was based on feudal exploitation under which the lot of the people was a sorry one. This should make us not to look back to the ancient glories of our civilisation – a favourite pastime of bourgeois politicians, who wish to distract the attention of the people from immediate tasks – but to look forward to a much brighter future based on the abolition of all exploitation.
Ceylon is a tropical island, lying a little to the north of the equator. Its area is 25,481 square miles. The distance from north to south is 270 miles, while that from east to west is 140 miles. The island is roughly divided into two by a central mountain range, which occupies the south-central part of Ceylon, and which rises to its highest point of 8,292 feet at the Piduruthalagala peak. As a result of the south-western monsoon, which occurs generally from May to September, and which brings in plentiful rain, the central and south west regions receive the highest rainfall and are generally referred to as the wet zone. The mountain range forms a sort of water shed. The area to the northeast of the range is fed by the north-east monsoon, which falls between October to April. The rainfall during this monsoon is less and the area served by this monsoon is generally called the dry zone.
The Dry Zone accounts for the greater part of Ceylon, and is historically the most important part, because it was the cradle of the Sinhalese civilisation. Although today less densely populated than the Wet Zone, the Dry Zone represents the area where the early civilisation of the Sinhalese flourished. As Dr. Paranavitana has pointed out, “It was here that the Sinhalese settled in early times and subsequently built their cities and religious monuments”. He also points out that “productivity of those areas was increased by an elaborate system of irrigation which attained its highest development in the 7th century, and was restored to its maximum potentiality by Parakrama Bahu I in the second half of the 12th century”.
Dr. Paranavitana has pointed out that “the Indo-Aryans who came to Ceylon and colonised it possessed a knowledge of both rice cultivation and of irrigation. From this basic, elementary knowledge there developed later the greatest engineering skill exhibited in the ancient Sinhalese Kingdom, namely the progressive building up of a colossal and complex system of inter-related dams, canals and tanks, mingling the waters of rivers flowing in different directions. No parallel system of the same magnitude or intricacy existed in contemporary India.”
The kings, whose names are most intimately connected with the greatest heritage of our past, are Pandukabbaya, who started the building of tanks, Mahasena ( 276-303 A.D.) who was called the Builder of Tanks, and during whose reign took place a remarkable advance in the science and practice of irrigation engineering as a result of which the first colossal reservoirs–the most famous of which was the Minneriya Tank – were built and Parakrama Bahu the Great, who brought it to its perfection. It is worth while to quote the famous saying of Parakrama Bahu I, to which he is said to have given utterance when he was ruler of Mayarata before he unified Ceylon under his rule. He is reported to have said: “In the realm that is subject to me there are, apart from many strips of country where the harvest flourishes mainly by rain water, but few fields which are dependent on rivers with permanent flow or on great reservoirs. Also by mountains, by thick jungle and by widespread swamps my kingdom is much straitened. Truly in such a country not even a little water that comes from the rain must flow into the ocean without being made useful to man. Except at the mines where there are precious stones, gold and the like, in all other places the laying out of fields must be taken in hand”.
When he became sole ruler of Lanka, he is reported to have constructed or restored 3,910 canals, 163 major tanks and 2,376 minor tanks – an unequalled achievement. His greatest achievement, however, was the construction of the Parakrama Samudra–formed by damming the Kara (Amban) Ganga at Angamadilla and conveying the water to the reservoir by the Angamadiila ala. It also received water from the Giritala Wewa by canal through two intervening tanks”.
It must be pointed out here that it was this elaborate but brilliant system of irrigation which is a tribute to the engineering skill of the ancient Sinhalese that was the basis of all the glories of the ancient Sinhalese civilisation–both during the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods. With the collapse of this system of irrigation–brought about by foreign invasions and internal discord to which we will refer later – begins the decline of the ancient Sinhalese civilisation.
Though Ceylon can be geographically divided into the Dry Zone and the Wet Zone, politically it was divided into three territories in ancient times: (1) Rajaratta, which was basically the whole of the Dry Zone west of the Mahaweli Ganga– Ceylon’s biggest river, with its Capital at Anuradhapura, (2) Ruhunu-ratta, which is the country lying to the east of the Mahaweli, but including all the southern parts including Batticolo, Monaragala, Hambantota, Matara and Galle districts–with Tissa-maharama as its capital; and (3) Malaya-dese, which roughly corresponds to the present Up-country.
No proper geological survey of Ceylon has ever been done. But, from ancient days, Ceylon has been famous for its Pearl Banks off Mannar, and for chanks (curch shells). Apart from this it has always been known for its plentiful supply of precious stones, principally rubies and sapphires, which are supposed to have been washed down to lower levels and within man’s reaches as a result of the erosion of the high peaks, which are of very ancient geological origin and which, at one time, are said to have been 10,000 feet higher than they are today. That is why Ceylon was once referred to as Ratnadipa, the ’Island of Gems’.
Natural deposits of iron ore seem to have existed from ancient times. The other valuable minerals found in Ceylon are graphite (plumbago), limestone, clay, ilmenite and monozite. Ceylon has always been famous for its spices. More recent geological surveys suggest the existence of petrol in the north-east of Ceylon.
Unfortunately, the sources of the early history of Ceylon are poor. For the most part, much of the early history of Ceylon is derived from the Mahawamsa and its later continuation, the Culawamsa. The Mahawamsa was put into writing only in the 6th Century A.D. and was composed in Dhatusena’s reign by a learned Buddhist priest, by the name of Mahanama, who was an uncle of the king. All his sources were records preserved by the Sangha (priests) of the Mahavira. The story was continued in the same style in the reign of Parakrama Bahu and carried down by later scholars from time to time to the end of the 18th century.
Although Ceylonese generally take pride in the possession of such an ancient historical record, and although it is undoubtedly valuable as a source of Ceylon history, its impartiality is open to doubt. It had the disadvantage of having been written by a member of the Sangha at a time when it had obtained a position of influence as advisers to the kings. The natural tendency was to praise those kings who supported the Sangha, and to speak disparagingly of those who did not.
What happens when a monk becomes a historian is that religion and history tend to get mixed up. The result is that such stories as that the Buddha before his passing away had entrusted the safety of Lanka to Sakra, because he knew that his doctrine would eventually be established in that island; and that, on receiving the Buddha’s command, Sakra summoned Vishnu and entrusted the protection of the island to him – such legends tend to become accepted as fact and history. In the same way, some Buddhist historians even claim as a historical fact that the Buddha visited Ceylon three times during his life and that, on one of those occasions, left the imprint of his foot-print on Adam’s Peak. The only historian who had sufficient scientific objectivity and courage to dispute this story is Dr. Paranavitana, who has pointed out that similar legends are to be found in other Buddhist countries.
This situation was made worse as a result of a split that took place within the Sangha itself. In all doctrinal and disciplinary matters, all Buddhist priests in Ceylon accepted the authority of the Mahavira, which was considered the established Buddhist church from its inception. The first split took place during the reign of Vattagamani Abhaya (103-102 B.C. and 89-77 B.C.). The new sect was known as the Abhayagiri sect after the name of the teacher, whose interpretation of the Buddhist doctrines was adopted by this sect. Later on, another faction broke away from the Abhayagiri sect, which was to have the Jetavana monastery built by Mahasena as its headquarters.
Although there were certain differences in text and interpretation, all these three sects belonged to the Theravada or the traditional school of Buddhism. It is to be noted that before Buddhism came to be preached in Ceylon, it had already split into eighteen different sects since the death of its founder.
But, now, a new movement gained ground among the Buddhists in India. Dr. S. Paranavitana explains the new philosophy as follows; “The ideal of the Bhikkus of the Theravada as well as of the older sects was the attainment of Nirvana by pursuing the career of a disciple or Sravaka. This led to one’s own salvation. The teacher of this new movement proclaimed that the nobler ideal for a Buddhist should be, like the Master Himself, to follow the career of a Bodhisatva, striving for the salvation of all humanity. They, therefore, strive not to become arhats in this life, but to become Buddhas in the future. This they characterised as the great career, the Mahayana. The goal of working for one’s own salvation they stigmatised as the lower career, the Hinayana ”.
There is no doubt that this schism in the Buddhist church is similar in some respects to the schism brought about in the Roman Catholic Church by the Reformation. Like the Reformists, the Mahayana school of Buddhism was more liberal, and, therefore, progressive and attracted to its fold the bolder philosophers. But what is of significance as far as Ceylon is concerned is that the Mahayana doctrine found disciples in the Abhayagiri monastery, while it was stoutly opposed by the Mahavira, which became the stronghold of the traditional school of Theravada Buddhism.
Thus, the Mahavira taught the teachings of the “southern” Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma, Siam and Cambodia while the Abhayagiri monastery taught the teachings of the “northern” doctrines of Kashmir, Tibet and China, learned from the Indian Vaituliya.
It is to the heated controversy that arose as a result of this doctrinaire difference between the Mahavira and the Abhayagiri monasteries that we referred to as the main obstacle to an accurate interpretation of early Ceylon History. Because, in the course of this furious debate, which sometimes took the form of wholesale persecution of the opposite sect and which began in the reign of Voharaka Tissa (215-237 A.D.) the records kept by the Abhaygiri monastery were burnt and destroyed. Thus, the victory of the Mahavira or the traditional school became complete and it is their version of Ceylon’s history that goes as history today.
Undoubtedly, the greatest single influence on early Ceylon history was the introduction of Buddhism in the reign of Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 B.C.). It is not the purpose of this essay to assess the influence of Buddhism on Ceylon or its history. But one cannot pass without pointing out the fact that if the teachings of the Buddha influenced the great Indian Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century B.C. to realize the folly of violence after he had conquered Kalinga and to foresake violence thereafter and to devote his energies to the spreading of the new faith not only in India, but also in the surrounding countries, no such influence seems to have been felt by the latter-day converts in Ceylon. From Duttu-gemunu to Parakrama Bahu and later on, one and all of the Sinhalese kings resorted to violence in pursuit of their ambition to ascend the throne. In almost all cases, they had the blessings of the Sangha. Kings like Parakrama Bahu undertook foreign invasions, too, against India and Burma–no doubt with the full blessings of the Sangha!
Have we, therefore, the right to talk about the influence of Buddhism in Ceylon? Or about Ceylon being the repository of Buddhism in its purest form?
The advent of Buddhism certainly had other effects. More than the arrival of the earlier Indo-Ariyan settlers, it was the advent of Buddhism that brought the culture of the Indian continent to Ceylon – the art of writing, architecture, sculpture, literature, etc. It is because Indian culture penetrated to our island along with the advent of Buddhism that there arose in certain circles the talk about a Buddhist civilisation and the tendency to identify the civilisation of the Ceylonese with Buddhism. That is how, to-day, you hear chauvinistic politicians talking about “the country, religion and language”. Is such an identity possible? Is there such a thing as a Buddhist civilisation? To postulate such a possibility is to deny that there are Buddhists who are not Sinhalese, or that they have been influenced by Buddhism. Civilisation is the way of life of a people, and the set of values to which they learn to conform in the course of life. Many influences shape this development. But to talk of civilisisation in terms of religions is to introduce a divisive concept which does not augur well for the development and fusion of multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-lingual peoples into a single nation – which everyone accepts should be our aim.
Nor is there a basis for such a connotation. Buddhism was basically a revolt of the Kshatriya or princely class against Bhraminical domination of society. Buddha belonged to the Kshatriyacaste and led this revolt. That is how you account for the anti-Bhraminical and aetheistic aspects of Buddhism. But the Buddha’s teachings were subjected to many changes before long. That is how you account for the appearance of eighteen different sects even before Buddhism reached Ceylon. One reason may be that an atheistic doctrine was far too ahead of the time for the 6th century. B.C.
Hinduism fought a rearguard action, and, though defeated at the beginning, succeeded in re-absorbing Buddhism into its fold. That is how Buddhism disappeared in India. But, even in Ceylon, the influence of Hinduism was felt. This was made easier by the habit of the Sinhalese kings, coming down from the time of the mythical Vijaya, of going to South India for their queens. The latter very naturally brought their gods along with them. Thus( the Hindu gods were admitted into a Buddhist pantheon. That is how the worship of Vishnu became an accepted practice in Buddhism as practiced in Ceylon. If one goes to see the ruins of the palace of Nissanka Malla in Polonnaruwa, you will see the ruins of two temples in front of the palace. One was the Buddhist temple at which the king worshipped. The other was a temple dedicated to Vishnu, at which his Indian queen worshipped. Later on Vishnu was admitted inside the same temple. Today, even such an out and out Hindu practice as dancing the ’Kavadi’ has become a Buddhist practice. We have heard of Srimavo Bandaranaike dancing the ’Kavadi’ at the notorious Lunawa temple, which is patronised by top society people. The sight would have revolted Lord Buddha and should revolt any genuine Buddhist!
Thus, quite a few of the influences which we believe are Buddhist are in reality taken over from Hinduism. In the courts of most early Sinhala kings, even during the Polonnaruwa period, where Buddhism was the official religion, the Brahmins occupied a prominent place as purohitos and performed many functions, such as anointing the king on the day of the coronation, fixing the times for important events, etc.
However, there was one negative influence of Buddhism, which we cannot gloss over. Very early in Ceylon’s history, the Sinhala kings from the time of Vattagamani (103-102 B.C. and 89-77 B.C.) introduced the practice of donating lands to monasteries for the Sangha to derive revenue therefrom. This is in complete contradiction to the principles of Buddhism, because members of the Sangha were to be free from material attachments. Vattagamani introduced this practice to reward the priest who had helped him while he was in exile. Other kings continued this practice for the purpose of winning the favour of the Sangha. The bestowal of material benefits to the Sangha led to the increase of its numbers, because the members of the Sangha began to be assured of a good life – a far cry from the teachings of the Buddha. Thus, these priests became parasites on society – doing no productive work but receiving all their wants. The increase in their numbers was bound to have an adverse effect on the economy and this factor has been adduced as a reason for the collapse of the Polonnaruwa kingdom by some scholars.
This fate did not overtake the Mahayana sect, because the priests of this order did manual labour of a productive nature.
Therefore, it would be more correct to speak about a Ceylonese or Sinhalese civilisation, which is a fusion of Indian culture with the pre-Sinhala culture of the island, and which had been influenced both by Buddhism and Hinduism and later by Christianity–although the influence of Buddhism is more dominant.
The second biggest influence on Ceylon’s history were the foreign invasions to which it was repeatedly subjected – the South Indian invasions of the earlier period, and the European invasions of the later period. The fact that only a narrow stretch of water, which could be easily crossed, separated Ceylon from India meant that whenever a South Indian kingdom became powerful by subjugating its rivals on the mainland, the temptation to bring Ceylon also under their domain was too great to resist. Similarly, whenever there was a strong and united Sinhala kingdom, there were invasions from the island and interference in the politics of the mainland.
The period in Indian history, when Ceylon faced the greatest threats of invasion, was the time when the Chera, Chola and Pandya princes were at the height of their power in South India. But South Indian invasions seem to have been there from the dawn of Ceylon’s history. The story of the first great Sinhala king, Duttugemunu, is the story of the liberation of Ceylon from Tamil domination.
The next serious threat of invasion of Ceylon arose during the beginning of the Nth century, when the Cholas were at the height of their power. At this time, the Cholas managed to conquer and occupy Ceylon for over half a century. The contest for supremacy in South India seems to have raged between the Chera (Kerala), Chola and Pandyan kingdoms. The Sinhalese kingdom became a fourth contestant for power in the region. The Malayasian kingdom of Srivijaya, a great sea power as were the Cholas, seems to have joined this race for power in the 11th and 12th centuries, and to have become a strong ally of Ceylon.
An automatic balance of power policy seems to have evolved between these kingdoms. The most powerful seems to have been kept in check by an alliance of all the others. It was much the same kind of policy that Britain followed in Europe during the Napoleonic era. The Sinhalese kings participated fully in these wars, and in the balance of power game. As a result, Sinhalese armies took part in wars of conquest in South India, and supported one or the other of the rival claimants to supremacy. More than one Pandyan prince was placed on the throne as a result of the intervention of a Sinhalese army. Similarly Ceylon, in turn, was subjected to invasion and conquest from South India.
It is wrong to conceive of these wars, invasions and conquests as between nations. There was no question of nationhood involved at that time. It is a concept that arose only after the development of capitalism. All the princes involved in these wars were feudal princes, most of whom belonged to the same dynasty or were related by marriage. The wars were also largely fought by mercenary troops. Every student of Ceylon history remembers that the army with which Mogollana defeated Kasyappa and seized the throne of Lanka was a mercenary army from India.
These wars between these feudal princes of South India and Ceylon resembled the feudal wars that took place between the feudal nobles of France and England, like the Hundred Years’ war. They were not between nation and nation or country and country. The attribution of national sentiments to what were simply inter-feudal wars was only to serve the latter-day purpose of arousing chauvinism. It is interesting to note that the Maha-wansa can find nothing to say against Elara and his rule, and therefore the fact that he was not a Buddhist is used to rouse the people against him–something almost unimaginable in those days.
The fact must be faced that, under feudalism, a Sinhalese feudal king or noble felt closer to a Tamil king or noble than to a Sinhalese serf or peasant. To them, race or language was a matter of least importance. What mattered was one’s status in a feudal society. That is why many of the Sinhalese kings married queens from South India. So much so that Parakrama Bahu, who is considered the greatest of the Sinhalese kings, can hardly be called a Sinhalese. His father was a Pandyan prince. Only his mother was a Sinhalese. Even here, her father was not a Sinhalese. The reason why Parakrama Bahu was favoured for the throne was because the Sinhalese at this time followed the matrilineal line of succession. Similarly, Bhuvaneka Bahu VI was a Tamil prince, Prince Sapumal, who conquered Jaffna for Parakrama Bahu VI and married the latter’s daughter.
That was also the reason why the last kings of Ceylon were from South India. This was not the result of an invasion, but by a decision of the Kandyan chieftains. The last king of the Sinhalese, Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe – although erroneously called a Tamil – was the son of a princess from Andhra by the Kandyan chieftain Pilimatalawa. The language of his court was Tamil, and it is interesting to note that the Kandyan Convention of 1815 is signed by all the Kandyan nobles who were signatories, excepting Keppetipola, in Tamil. Srimavo Bandaranaike’s ancestor, Ratwatte Dissawa, also signed in Tamil. It was not a matter that seemed to have bothered them. Feudal ties united Sinhalese and Tamil nobles against the people, mostly peasants.
It was the British rulers who saw the potentialities in promoting these feudal rivalries to look like national animosity between Sinhalese and Tamil for the purpose of keeping India and Ceylon apart, and for keeping Sinhalese and Tamils divided in Ceylon. In this, they have had a great measure of success–particularly with the support of local chauvinists on both sides.
Another point that must be made is that just as there were continuous wars between South Indian kings and Sinhalese kings, so were there continual internal wars between Sinhalese claimants to the throne. Raja-rata, Ruhuna and Malaya-desha often had separate rulers–each trying to become the sovereign ruler over Ceylon. Parakrama Bahu I had to fight a costly civil war which nearly ruined the country before he could unify the island under his rule.
One result of these continuous wars was the establishment of a Tamil kingdom in the northern part of the island. Another result was the fusion of South Indian and Ceylonese cultures. When they were not fighting each other, there was a lot of co-existence and co-operation between the South Indians and the Sinhalese. In most periods of the history of pre-colonial Ceylon, South Indians were to be found in the Sinhalese kingdom as purohitas, artisans, mercenary soldiers (during the time of the Polonnaruwa period, there was a regiment called the Velaikkaras (Tamil guards) who acted as bodyguards to the king), traders, etc.–apart from their invasion of the king’s bed rooms. All these could not have been without their influence.
It was a different story when Ceylon was faced with a series of invasions by European nations from the beginning of the 16th century. Then it was a different civilisation and a people–whose habits, customs, language and religion differed considerably from the Sinhalese and who were wedded to a more powerful economy, and had the added advantage of the possession of gun powder which, though discovered in China, was now being used to subjugate the peoples of the East.
The European invasions introduced Ceylon to the world of the steam ships, railways, telegraph, telecommunication, the motor car and the aeroplane. It also brought us advanced knowledge, particularly of the sciences.
But it also brought about the destruction of the natural feudal economy then existing in Ceylon, and the introduction of a colonial economy based on money. It brought us increased exploitation of the people, and the plunder of our natural resources to a degree undreamt of before. The upper classes of our people became slavish imitators of an alien culture, unsuited to their environment and forced on them by the conquerors. A movement to reverse this trend was to take place. But that is modern history.
It is not the intention here to give a detailed account of the history of Ceylon, but only to dwell on the most important aspects, which have had a lasting effect on the future development of the country.
Ceylon history can conveniently be divided into the following periods: (I) The Anuradhapura period, (2) The Polonnaruwa period, (3) the post Polonnaruwa period up to the period of the kingdom of Kotte, (4) the colonial period and (5) the neo-colonial period.
Early Ceylon history is largely a repetition of the stories of different kings and their attempts to unify Ceylon under their rule. We are not interested in the list of these kings, but will only point out some of the more outstanding ones.
The first king who deserves mention is Pandukabhaya, who built the first irrigation tank, and thus initiated a policy which was not only to make Ceylon famous, but was also to be the basis of its prosperity for well over a thousand years. The kings that succeeded Pandukabhaya made Anuradhapura their capital and thus give the name for this period of history.
It was during the reign of Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 B.C.) that Buddhism was introduced into Ceylon on the initiative of the Indian Emperor, Asoka, who is reputed to have sent his son, Mahinda, and his daughter, Sanghamitta, as missionaries to Ceylon. It is reported that Mahinda insisted that a Sinhalese priest should be the head of the Buddhist Church in Ceylon. Thus was assured a national church and Buddhists in Ceylon were spared allegiance to a foreign church – a la the Roman Catholic Church.
The king who is regarded as the greatest of this period was Duttugemunu, who liberated Ceylon from Tamil domination. But the king whose reign was to influence the future prosperity of the entire country for decades was Mahasena (276-303 A.D.) who came to be referred to as the Builder of Tanks. As mentioned already, it was during his reign that a big leap forward took place in the science of irrigation engineering, and the first colossal reservoirs were built. He is credited with having built i6 tanks and one great canal. The tanks built by him include Minneriya (4,670 acres), Kavudulu tank, Huruluwewa, Kanavava. Mahakanandaravava near Mihintale, Mahagalkadavala, etc. The Elahara-Minneriya-Kavudulu scheme, which was completed in his reign, is considered to be an epoch-making event in the history of irrigation of Ceylon.
Dhatusena (459-477 A.D.) built the famous Kalawewa. His son Kasyappa (477-495 A.D.) gained fame by his construction of the Sigiriya fortress, where today we find what is perhaps one of the most beautiful heritages of Ceylon’s ancient past – the Sigiriya frescoes. He must have been a great patron of arts and the culture of different lands seemed to have flourished at his court.
The Anuradhapura period comes to a close about 1000 A.D. with the Chola conquest of Ceylon and the capture of Mahinda V and his death in captivity in 1029.
There follows over half a century of Chola occupation. The king who liberated Ceylon from Chola occupation and unified Ceylon under his rule was Vijayabahu I (1055-1110). He shifted his capital to Polonnaruwa–probably to be safer from invasions from South India. Hence, the name for this period of Ceylon’s history. The Polonnaruwa period probably represents the highest point in the development of ancient Sinhalese civilisation–with Ceylon unified under the greatest of the Sinhalese kings, Parakrama Bahu the Great, and Sinhalese armies successfully invading both South India and Burma.
It is recorded that Parakrama Bahu I built himself a fleet for the invasion of Burma. This must have presupposed the existence of a ship building industry at this time in Ceylon.
We have already pointed out how the irrigation system in Ceylon attained its zenith during the reign of Parakrama Bahu I. It is not necessary to re-state those facts. There is no record of any irrigation work of any note after his death. After his death in 1186, the collapse of the Sinhalese kingdom had started even before another ten years had passed. Before the end of the next century, the great [and complex system of irrigation, which is universally regarded as the greatest achievement of the Sinhalese people, passed into ruin.
The cause of the desolation and collapse of the ancient Sinhalese civilisation was due to the collapse of the elaborate social and administrative organisation that was necessary for the construction and maintenance of the complicated irrigation system that made these regions productive and prosperous.
The local chiefs who were responsible for supplying labour to maintain the irrigation system were known as ’kulinas’. They had specialised knowledge and experience that were required to run the public administrations, including the maintenance of irrigation work.
Foreign invasions and internal discord disrupted these activities and the kulinas fled to other areas–bringing about the collapse of the whole system.
The glories of the reign of Parakrama Bahu I seems to have been achieved at the cost of terrific exploitation of the people. He seems to have increased taxes and levied more free service to the state and exacted harder work. Those who failed to pay these levies seem to have been imprisoned, because his successors, Vijayabahu II and Nissankamalla, are said to have freed, according to the Culavansa, “many persons, oppressed by the excessive and illegal punishments inflicted by King Parakrama Bahu the Great, in violation of the customs of former sovereigns . . .”.
The Polonnaruwa period ends, like the Anuradhapura period, with a period of internal civil war culminating in another conquest of Ceylon from abroad. This time it was by Magha from Kalinga. Kalinga is now identified as a region in Malayasia and not in India. This invasion and occupation seems to have been one of the cruellest Ceylon has experienced.
When the princes of Dambadeniya liberated the greater part of Ceylon, they shifted the capital to Dambadeniya, from where it was later shifted to Gampola, Rayigama and then to Kotte, where we find it when the Portuguese arrive on the scene in 1505. It is during this period that there came into existence the Kingdom of Jaffna ruled by the Ariya-chakravartis, and which was suppressed during the reign of Parakrama Bahu VI, but whose existence is again heard of during Portuguese times.
During this time also occurred the remarkable episode of a Sinhalese King of Kotte being taken prisoner by the Chinese and taken in captivity to China. This happened to Vira Alakes-wara, king of Kotte, in the year 1411 when the third King Emperor, Cheng Tsu (Yung lo) ruled in China. The feat is credited to an enuch, Cheng Ho. The captured king was set free in China, and another king, presumably Parakrama Bahu VI appointed to rule Ceylon under Chinese suzerainty. Parakrama Bahu VI, who ruled Ceylon between 1412 and 1467 is said to have visited China in 1416 and 1421. The last recorded tribute sent to China Is in 1459.
The reign of Parakrama Bahu VI of Kotte seems to have been the last one of any achievement before the tide of European invasion engulfed Ceylon.