Anuradhapura Kingdom

For well over a thousand years, the city of Anuradhapura in the dry north-central plains of Sri Lanka was the seat of Sinhalese kings. The kingdom that took its name became the cradle of Theravada Buddhism on the island, raised some of the largest stupas in the Buddhist world and built a vast network of reservoirs and canals. It ended in 1017 when Chola armies from southern India captured its last king. Shown on our maps as Simhala, it is known for its early centuries mainly through the Pali chronicle tradition of the Mahavamsa.

Much of the kingdom's early story comes from the Mahavamsa, a chronicle compiled in the time of King Dhatusena in the fifth century CE, and its dates are traditional rather than independently confirmed. In its account, the exiled Indian prince Vijaya reached the island in 543 BCE, and one of his ministers, Anuradha, founded a village that later grew into the city. The chronicle dates King Pandukabhaya's reign from 437 to 367 BCE and has him make Anuradhapura his capital in 377 BCE. Modern summaries even give different reign dates for later kings, a sign of how uncertain the chronology remains.

The chronicles credit Pandukabhaya with fixing village boundaries, appointing headmen and building the first irrigation tanks. The decisive cultural change came under Devanampiya Tissa, dated to 250–210 BCE, whose ties with the emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire brought a Buddhist mission led, in tradition, by the monk Mahinda. A sapling of the Bodhi tree was planted in the capital and orders of monks and nuns were founded, though historians note there is no independent evidence that Ashoka had children called Mahinda and Sanghamitta. In the early fourth century CE the Buddha's tooth relic arrived from Kalinga, and possession of it came to be seen as proof of the right to rule.

Rulers from South India repeatedly seized the capital. The Chola dynasty prince Elara ruled the north for 44 years until Dutthagamani, who reigned from 161 to 137 BCE, defeated him and, according to the chronicle, united the whole island for the first time. Five South Indian chiefs held power in the first century BCE until King Valagamba drove them out, and another group of South Indian rulers, beginning with Pandu, held the throne in the fifth century CE until Dhatusena restored Sinhalese rule. Some kings struck back: Sena II's forces sacked Madurai in 862. Dhatusena's son Kashyapa moved the court for a time to the rock fortress of Sigiriya.

Agriculture in the dry zone depended on stored rainwater. Vasabha in the first century CE began large reservoirs, Mahasena added Minneriya with an embankment some 1.25 miles long, and Dhatusena built the Kala Wewa, linked to the capital by the 54-mile Jayaganga canal, which falls just six inches per mile. Monumental stupas such as the Ruwanwelisaya and Mahasena's Jetavana rose in the capital, and stone Buddha statues such as the meditating Samadhi figure became a hallmark of the period.

By the reign of Mahinda V, from 982, royal authority had weakened so far that unpaid troops rebelled. The Chola emperor Rajaraja I invaded in 993 and annexed the north, and in 1017 his son Rajendra I captured Mahinda, who died a prisoner in India in 1029. The Cholas destroyed Anuradhapura and governed from Polonnaruwa. When Sinhalese rule was restored under Vijayabahu I, he was crowned at the old capital but kept Polonnaruwa as his seat, so the Anuradhapura period came to an end.

Our maps label the kingdom Simhala on every map from 500 BCE to 700 CE: 500, 400, 323, 300, 200 and 100 BCE, 1 BCE, and 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700 CE. The 500 BCE outline precedes the chronicle's founding date of 437 BCE and reflects the legendary Vijayan settlement rather than the recorded kingdom. The Cholas appear across the strait on the 200 and 700 CE maps.