AROUND THE INDIA

Vestiges of this ancient civilization are abundantly extant today and may be reached from Colombo in a comfortable morning's drive through verdant countryside, flourishing green paddy fields, acres of coconut palms and alongside deep jungle in which elephant and leopard roam. Recorded history emerges from the mists sometime after the advent of the Sinhala, apparently before the Century BC. These were, it is believed, a North Indian people of Aryan, ancestry, who settled first in the north-central plains and raised in the Island an agricultural elite whose feats of irrigation excite wonder to this day and founded a system of government that proved viable for more than two thousand years.
 
By the middle of the 3rd Century BC the fame of the capital, Anuradhapura, was known as far abroad as the Mediterranean. Less than three centuries later a Sinhala trade delegation was presenting its credentials in Rome to Claudius Caesar, and Pliny, the Elder, spoke with them. Three centuries after that as far-flung a connexion had been established eastwards, with China.
 
In 247 BC occurred the greatest single event in Sri Lanka's history, when through the missionary labours of the monk Mahinda, son of the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka of India, the Island's king, court and commoners were converted to Buddhism. In Sri Lanka this pristine religion found a permanent home and for Buddhists everywhere the Island became a place of especially sanctity, a repository of holy relics, orthodox doctrine and a goal of pilgrimage.
 
About the same period began the Dravidian invasions which for a thousand five hundred years were to fall upon the Island in wave after wave While the country absorbed much of the Hindu culture and all of the Hindu people these invasions left behind, it remained a Buddhist State under Buddhist rule.
 
Under the Dravidian pressure, however, the capital, after having survived in Anuradhapura up to the 10th Century, had to be withdrawn again and again: to Polonnaruwa, to the rocky forests around Kurunegala, to Kotte near Colombo, finally to the Kandyan hills where the Sinhala Kingdom made its last stand.
 

Precincts were set aside for huntsmen and scavengers and even heretics and foreigners. There were hostels and hospitals, separate cemeteries for high and low castes. A water supply was assured by the construction of reservoirs.
 
Anuradhapura was to continue for over thousand years as the national capital. But internecine struggles for the royal succession grew, and it became more and more vulnerable to the pressures of South Indian political expansion. The city was finally abandoned and the capital withdrawn to more secluded areas.
 
But the monuments of Anuradhapura's heyday survive, surrounded by the solemn umbrage of trees, scions of an ancient parkland.
 
MIHINTALE
 
Over 7 miles east of Anuradhapura is Mihintale regarded as the cradle of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. The rock is riddled with shrines and rock dwellings. A grand stairway of 1,840 steps made of granite slabs 15' wide, leads to the summit, from where one could get a splendid view of the surrounding countryside.
    

The city in its day was fortified with three concentric walls, beautified with parks and gardens and sanctified by many a shrine and sacred place. The city itself, as well as the surrounding plain was watered by a unique irrigational complex known as the Sea of Parakrama (Parakrama Samudra) so vast was its scale.
   
SIGIRIYA
 
Sigiriya was no mere fortress, gloomy and forbidding. At the brief height of its glory - it was a royal citadel for more than 18 years, from 477 to 495 A.D. and one of the loveliest that have graced this land.
 
There are many interpretations of the Sigiriya period, history replete with legend, love and betrayal. But one story remains, the story of Kasyapa (477 - 495 A.D.) its creator, King with an artist's soul. Bards have written about him and plays and films have tried to capture his personality. 
 

	Kasyapa left Anuradhapura and built for himself at Sigiriya, a palace an city modelled in the mythical abode of "Kuvera" God of Wealth. He gave form to his dreams of grandeur. Eighteen years later, his half-brother Moggallan challenged him with an army. By one of those momentary mistake of judgement that changes the course of history, Kasyapa thought he was alone in battle, raised his dagger and slew himself.
In a sheltered pocket on the western face of the Sigiriya rock, approached by a spiral stairway, are the famous frescoes. Epigraphical evidenced refers to the existence of 500 such portraits, but only 19 remain today.     On the western and northern sides of the steep rock face runs a gallery or pathway which provides access to the seemingly inaccessible summit. Shielding this pathway is a 9 1/2 ft. plaster wall,. So highly polished, that even today, after fifteen centuries of exposure to sun, wind and rain, one can see one's reflection on it. Hence the name "Mirror Wall".     On the polished surface are the Sigiri Graffit... recorded by processions of visitors to the rock in the past.   The summit of the rock is nearly three acres in extent. The outer wall of the palace which is the main building was constructed on the very brink of the precipice. There were gardens, cisterns and ponds laid out attractively.   The pleasure garden of the western side of the rock is studded with ponds, islets, promenades and pavilions. Some and surface drainage systems have been discovered during excavations. The wall abutting the moat encircling the fortress is one of the most arresting features.
Twelve miles from Sigiriya is Dambulla, a vast isolated rock mass 500 ft. high and a mile round the base. Here is found the famous rocktemple dating to the first century B.C. The caves of Dambulla sheltered the kind during his 14 years of exile from Anuradhapura. When he regained the throne, he caused to be built the most magnificent of rock-temples of this island.   The view from the top of thisrock is breathtaking 350 ft. above are a series of five caves turned into shrines.   In the first cave is recumbent image of the Buddha 47 ft. long, cut out of the rock. There are images of deities associated with Buddhism. The frescoes on the walls and ceiling could be dated to the 15th - 18th centuries. In the second cave, the finest and the largest of all, are not less than 150 life-size statues of gods. There are numerous images of the Buddha as well. The ceiling too is covered with frescoes which depict great events in the life of the Buddha, and landmarks in the history of the Sinhala people.