Who ruled Polonnaruwa?

Polonnaruwa lies in the dry zone of north-central Sri Lanka, east of Anuradhapura and close to the Mahaweli River. After the Chola conquest of the island at the end of the tenth century it replaced Anuradhapura as the seat of government, and in the twelfth century, under Parakramabahu I, it was the capital of a kingdom that controlled the whole island. Its palaces, temples and vast irrigation tank now make up one of Sri Lanka's best-preserved medieval ruin fields.

The origin of the name is unknown; Chola inscriptions found on the site call it Pulainari, and it may derive from an older name linked to the sage Pulastya. The place began as a military post of the Sinhalese kings. When the armies of the Chola dynasty of South India overran the north of the island, starting with Rajaraja I's invasion of 993, they made Polonnaruwa their administrative centre and renamed it Jananathamangalam, after one of Rajaraja's titles. They built Shiva temples there, one of which, named after Rajaraja's queen, survives as Siva Devale, and the north and centre of the island were governed as a Chola province under Rajendra I. Several Hindu temples and bronze sculptures remain from this period.

Sinhalese resistance gathered in the south. Vijayabahu I, who had himself crowned at Anuradhapura in 1055, sent armies against the Chola garrisons from three directions, and Polonnaruwa fell around 1070 after a siege said to have lasted seven months. He kept it as his capital because it was more central than Anuradhapura and better placed to control the restless southern province of Rohana. He repaired irrigation works and revived Buddhism, which had suffered under rulers who favoured Shaivite Hinduism.

A succession dispute after his death led to civil war, from which his relative Parakramabahu I emerged as ruler in 1153. He reunited the island and secured his claim by taking possession of the Buddha's tooth and bowl relics, by then essential to royal legitimacy. His reign, to 1186, is regarded as the high point of Polonnaruwa. Chronicles credit him with an enormous programme of reservoirs and canals, above all the Parakrama Samudra, and he sent forces to intervene in a Pandyan succession war in South India and to punish the kingdom of Ramanna in Burma. The city was filled with Buddhist monuments, including the circular relic house now called the Vatadage. Settlers from Cambodia lived in a quarter of their own, and Chinese Song coins found at the site show the reach of its trade.

Parakramabahu had no son. A prince of the House of Kalinga, Nissanka Malla, took the throne in 1187 and gave the kingdom about a decade of order, building the Hatadage and other relic shrines in an effort to rival his predecessor. After him, court factions and generals made and unmade kings; Parakramabahu's widow Lilavati was placed on the throne three times. Pandyan and Chola forces raided repeatedly, and in 1212 a Pandyan-backed claimant seized the capital.

Around 1214 or 1215 the invader Magha of Kalinga, leading soldiers and mercenaries from South India, captured the city. According to the Sinhalese chronicles, Polonnaruwa was sacked and its people massacred, and Buddhist sites were plundered. Magha ruled for about two decades, and the devastation drove much of the Sinhalese population south and west and into the hills. The kings who resisted him built fortresses elsewhere, and Vijayabahu III moved the capital to Dambadeniya, ending the long civilisation of the northern dry zone. Polonnaruwa was left to the forest.

Polonnaruwa's ruins were inscribed by UNESCO as the Ancient City of Polonnaruwa, a World Heritage Site, in 1982, together with Anuradhapura and Sigiriya. Troops of toque macaques still live among the monuments. A modern town, the second largest in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka, lies about three kilometres south of the archaeological zone and is the main town of Polonnaruwa District.