Urbanism and Cosmopolitan Sri Lanka

Urbanism

Nestled within the diverse monastic landscape of Anurādhapura was the citadel, measuring one kilometre square, and defined by a ditch and rampart. This has been subject to more than a century of excavations.^[1] Early historic treatises, such as the Arthaśāstra, contain details of how urban forms should be planned; quadrangular, surrounded by three moats and a rampart,^[2] and internally structured by cardinally orientated roads and gateways.^[3] Within the city, the Arthaśāstra advises that the inhabitants should be separated along varna and occupational lines, with heretics and caṇḍālas (outcastes) banished outside the city walls.^[4] Furthermore, as outlined in the previous section, the description in the Mahāvaṃsa of the laying-out of Anurādhapura in the fourth century bce by Paṇḍukābhaya records that the city was divided into four quarters, and that sep arate areas of the city were allocated for diff erent social groups.^[5] Such textual descriptions have been linked to the archaeological evidence^[6] and, architectur ally, Anurādhapura appears to match these descriptions as its moat, rampart and cardinally orientated structures seem to conform to the Arthaśāstra’s precepts and the description of Paṇḍukābhaya’s city. It has been argued that Anurādhapura’s layout ‘was no casual cluster of buildings but a cosmography that reflected the universe’.^[7] This follows the argument of Hocart, who suggested that during the early historic period ‘the doctrine of the four quarters […] had a considerable influence on the planning of cities’.^[8] As stated above, other Sri Lankan urban forms correspond to cosmological symbolism, with their plans recreating the uni-verse in microcosm.^[9]

However, much evidence from Anurādhapura now suggests that such plans were idealizations. Working on the premise that distinct social groups may be identifiable through artefactual variability across a site, Coningham and Young analysed craft waste and faunal remains from different areas across the citadel.^[10]

They found no distinct areas associated with specific crafts. The faunal record is particularly interesting in that species forbidden and permitted by the laws of Manu were found together throughout the city.^[11] Following suggestions by anthropologists and historians that caste rigidity may be a recent phenomenon,^[12] this analysis reinforces the notion that social divisions based on material differ-entiation were not present in early historic Anurādhapura–or may require more refined archaeological methodologies than those at our disposal in order to be identified.^[13] This is not to say that Anurādhapura did not host various diff erentiated communities, as outlined above. It rather suggests that while there is abundant evidence for plurality, there were also widely shared practices. Cosmopolitan practices were compatible with both diff erentiation and unifying concepts and lifestyle choices.

Studying the cosmopolitan through archaeology in Sri Lanka

It is clear that Sri Lanka was not a uniquely Buddhist island but had strong Hindu influences as well as more localized traditions, as evidenced by the emergent ter-racotta cults in the hinterland of Anurādhapura. Rather than focusing on the reli gious and spiritual aspects of Buddhism, archaeological evidence suggests that the monastic institutions of Anurādhapura seemed to have played a dominant material role in the colonization, management and development of the wider landscape surrounding the city. Monasteries remained the only viable long-term structures within the hinterland, as attempts to secularize the management of the landscape faded. The epigraphic record reveals how land was donated by kings and other elites to these monasteries, to the degree of completely alienating it from state control. Sri Lankan scholars have long hypothesized about this, with Leslie Gunawardana stating in 1979 that ‘considerable powers were transferred to the monastic administration by withholding the authority of government officials to intervene in their aff airs’,^[14] Even more starkly, Dias wrote that ‘lands and villages beyond the control of the central authority were given to the monasteries to bring some control over them […] This way the monastic institutions became the landed intermediary between the central political authority and the people.’^[15]

The recent research-oriented fieldwork developed in the hinterland of Anurādhapura has demonstrated the existence of a complex patchwork, itself consisting of intricate networks of religious and secular cooperation and communication. As noted above, six years of field research have allowed us to identify more than 750 archaeological sites, ranging from small scatters of eroded ceramics, through rock-cut caves, stone bridges over the Malvatu Oya, metal-working sites and a corpus of sites containing terracotta figurines, to monastic complexes several hectares in size.^[16] The ceramic scatters can be interpreted as short-term villages linked to slash-a nd-burn (chena) agriculture. Monastic sites, in contrast, ranging from rock-c ut shelters to large complexes, reflect a much more permanent and highly visible presence. This contrast led us initially to theorize about a ‘Theocratic Landscape’ in which monasteries functioned as centres of economic and polit-ical control (in lieu of towns), while villages kept shifting around them.^[17] Since then, we have developed a more complex model of ‘Buddhist Temporalities’ and low-density urbanism, reflecting our growing awareness of multiple heterarchies in the Anurādhapura hinterland. Our Buddhist Temporality model reflects the complex relationship between monastic institutions and secular authority, contending that ‘the city’s surrounding landscape of villages and rural communities was not centrally regulated by the state through higher-o rder settlements and royal offi cials but through a network of Vihāras, closely linked to the great monas teries of the city rather than the throne’.^[18]

Certainly, the critical reappraisal of archaeological evidence allows us to narrow the gap between Anurādhapura and Polonnaruva. While the latter has long been archaeologically interpreted as a cosmopolitan urban centre, similar evidence from Anurādhapura has been largely undervalued but is now overwhelming. The remains of Polonnaruva, traditionally dated to between 1017 and 1293 ce, have revealed Buddhist monasteries and Hindu temples with bronze sculptures of Hindu deities. This has led some scholars, rightly in our opinion, to speak of religious plurality and harmony.^[19] Excavations within the Alahana Pirivena in Polonnaruva uncovered quantities of pottery with appliqué designs, including swastika, śrīvasta and vajra or triśūla,^[20] which have now also been identified in the city’s hinterland (Figure 1.7). Bronze figurines excavated at Polonnaruva and representing deities such as Śiva and Parvati have been put forward as evidence of the presence of Hinduism in the city.^[21] And yet such evidence was not restricted to Polonnaruva. For example, figures of Śiva, Parvati, Kevalamūrti and Nṛtyamūrti, and potentially Ardhanarīśvara, were recovered from a pillar foundation at Jetavana in the 1980s.^[22] Furthermore, three appli qué ceramic sherds with symbols similar to those from the Alahana Pirivena were discovered in the later sequence of trench ASW2 at Anurādhapura,^[23] as well as in the vicinity of Jetavana.^[24] The later evidence at Anurādhapura is striking in its similarity to the evidence usually given for plurality of belief in Polonnaruva, and yet Anurādhapura, persistently presented as an essentially Buddhist capital, is generally not advanced as a similar example of religious plurality. The transmis-sion of the capital from Anurādhapura to Polonnaruva has been projected as an abrupt and singular event, yet recent research has shown the abandonment of Anurādhapura and its hinterland to have been a slow process that happened over several centuries.^[25] We would argue that around Polonnaruva there is likely to be evidence of much earlier settlements and communities that would shed more light on the nature of early medieval Sri Lanka. To this end, the Central Cultural Fund and British Academy have sponsored successful pilot hinterland surveys around Polonnaruva, as well as excavations at Śiva Devale No.2 and the citadel’s northern wall.

Fig. 1.7 Appliqué triśūla on a pottery rim sherd from site Kalahagala (S360) in the hinterland of Polonnaruva, found during the 2016 field season of the Polonnaruva Archaeological and Anthropological Research Project, authors’ photograph.

We are, of course, far from constructing a clear narrative and it remains problematic to assign certain artefactual forms to particular groups. Widely shared symbols, such as the swastika and vajra / triśūla, highlight the difficulties inherent to South Asian archaeology. Indeed, they lead to questions about the extent to which artefacts can be defined as Buddhist, Hindu or Jain. The fluid identity of artefacts has recently been noted at a modern shrine to Ayanayake, lord of the jungle, in the Anurādhapura hinterland. The shrine was constructed using reclaimed pillars from nearby monastic structures damaged during road construction but was also equipped with an eroded Buddha head, which was painted with the trunk of Ayanayake, as the focus of the shrine^[26] (Figure 1.8). While objects may be used in more than one context with changed meanings, the opposite may also occur, with similar architectural motifs being part of several traditions. Stūpas and vihāras share many traits with Jain and Hindu architec ture.^[27] A further challenge that needs addressing is the archaeological visibility of women within early Sri Lanka’s history and archaeology. Indeed, Faxian noted the presence of nuns within the Sacred City of Anurādhapura^[28] and inscriptions record donations by female devotees throughout Sri Lanka.^[29] Furthermore, communities of Buddhist nuns from Sri Lanka are recorded in an inscription at Nagarjunakonda in India^[30] but, in spite of this, there has been little discussion of this challenge within both archaeological interpretations and Buddhist discourse.^[31] Gender is notoriously difficult to identify within the archaeological record, especially when dealing with the ephemeral remains of a subtropical landscape. However, if we want to truly understand the cosmopolitan nature of early historic and early medieval Sri Lanka, such challenges have to be acknowl edged and then addressed.

Fig. 1.8 Head from a Buddha image rededicated as an image of Ayanayake, Anurādhapura hinterland, authors’ photograph.

The landscape we have been studying was highly contested, closely integrated into the secular and monastic core, yet at the same time divorced from the networks and linkages enjoyed by the urban elite. Tensions prevailed between the pressing need to participate in larger networks of exchange, patronage and religious merit through the royal centre and major monastic institutions of Anurādhapura, on the one hand, and the practice of non-Buddhist rituals, on the other. Such diversity continued into the late medieval period, as attested by the fifteenth-century trilingual inscription of Admiral Zheng He in Galle. The inscription in Tamil, Chinese and Persian records the veneration of an incarnation of Viṣṇu, of the Buddha, and of a Muslim saint, providing evidence for the continued, diverse and dynamic linguistic and religious framework of the island.^[32] Taking all this together, we find evidence of what can be interpreted as a highly cosmopolitan society with broad international links and outlooks and considerable internal diversity. This society participated in an ever-e xpanding network of religious and economic exchange and patronage. Yet, at the same time, there were also distinctly pervasive traditions–subsistence, ceramic forms, craft manufacturing and patterns of low density urbanism. This apparently contradictory stance reflects the many possible facets of community identity, ranging in scale from the local to the regional and the global. The degree to which different communities had access to opportunities probably changed over time but the archaeological record overall strongly suggests that Sri Lanka, far from being a peripheral island, was at the very heart of many social, economic and religious developments of the Indian Ocean World.^[33]

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

Coningham, Anurādhapura, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

[2]:

Kautilya, the Arthasastra, trans. L.N. Rangarajan (New Delhi: Penguin, 1992), 2.3.4–6.

[3]:

Kautilya, the Arthasastra, 2.4.1–2.

[4]:

Kautilya, the Arthasastra 2.4.7–23.

[5]:

Mahāvaṃsa, 10.88–9.

[6]:

Arthur Maurice Hocart, ‘The Four Quarters,’ Ceylon Journal of Science, section G.1 (1928), 105–11.

[7]:

Wickremeratne, ‘Shifting Metaphors’, 45.

[8]:

Hocart, ‘The Four Quarters’, 156.

[9]:

Robin Coningham, ‘Contestatory Urban Texts or Were Cities in South Asia Built as Images?’ Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10 (2000), 348–54; Duncan, The City as Text.

[10]:

Robin Coningham and Ruth Young, ‘The Archaeological Visibility of Caste,’ in Case Studies in Archaeology and World Religion, ed. Tim Insoll (Oxford: Archaeopress, 1999), 84–93.

[11]:

Coningham and Young, ‘Archaeological Visibility’.

[12]:

Nicholas Dirks, ‘The Invention of Caste: Civil Society in Colonial India,’ in Identity, Consciousness and the Past: Forging of Caste and Community in India and Sri Lanka, ed. Heralivala Seneviratne (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 120–35; Nicholas Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Ursula Sharma, Caste (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999).

[13]:

Coningham and Young, ‘Archaeological Visibility’, 92.

[14]:

Gunawardana, Robe and Plough, 190.

[15]:

Dias, Growth of Buddhist Monastic Institutions, 115.

[16]:

Coningham et al., ‘The Anurādhapura (Sri Lanka) Project’; Coningham et al., ‘The State of Theocracy’; Robin Coningham, Prishanta Gunawardhana, Mark Manuel, Gamini Adikari, Ruth Young, Armin Schmidt, Krishnan Krishnan, Ian Simpson, Christopher Davis and Cathy Batt, 249 ‘Response to Goonatilake,’ Antiquity 85 (2011), 1065–6 7; Coningham and Gunawardhana, Anurādhapura, Vol. 3.

[17]:

Coningham et al., ‘The State of Theocracy’.

[18]:

Coningham, ‘Archaeology of Buddhism’ (2011), 940; Coningham et al., ‘Discussion’.

[19]:

Indrapala, The Evolution of an Ethnic Identity.

[20]:

Pawuludevage Leelananda Prematilleke, Alahana Parivena, Polonaruva: First Archaeological Excavation Report (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1982); Alahana Parivena, Polonaruva: Second Archaeological Excavation Report. (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1982); Alahana Parivena, Polonaruva: Fourth Archaeological Excavation Report (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1985); Alahana Parivena, Polonaruva: Sixth Archaeological Excavation Report (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1988).

[21]:

Paranavitana, ‘Art and Architecture’, 79; H. Ratnayake, ‘Hindu Bronzes from Jetavanaramaya, Anurādhapura: Bronzes from Jetavana 1984–Circumstances of the Discovery,’ in Essays in Archaeology: Sirinimal Lakdusinghe Felicitation Volume, eds. P. Gunawardhana, G. Adikari and R. A. E. Coningham (Battaramulla: Neptune Publication, 2010), 265; Thantilage, ‘Anurādhapura Period Bronzes of Sri Lanka’.

[22]:

Ratnayake, ‘Hindu Bronzes’.

[23]:

Coningham, ‘The Excavations at ASW2’.

[24]:

Harry Charles Purvis Bell, Plans and Plates for Annual Report, 1893 (Eleventh and Twelfth Reports) (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1914), Plate XII.

[25]:

Krista Gilliland, Ian Simpson, Paul Adderley, Christopher Burbidge, Alan Cresswell, David Sanderson, Robin Coningham, Mark Manuel, Keir Strickland, Prishanta Gunawardhana and Gamini Adikari. ‘The Dry Tank: Development and Disuse of Water Management Infrastructure in the Anurādhapura Hinterland, Sri Lanka,’ Journal of Archaeological Sciences 40 (2013), 1012–28.

[26]:

Robin Coningham and Prishanta Gunawardhana. ‘Looting or Rededication? Buddhism and the Expropriation of Relics,’ in Appropriating the Past: Philosophical Perspectives on the Practice of Archaeology, ed. Geoff rey Scarre and Robin Coningham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 293.

[27]:

Debala Mitra, Buddhist Monuments (Calcutta: Samsad, 1971), 52; Himanshu Prabhu Ray, ‘The Apsidal Shrine in Early Hinduism: Origins, Cultic Affiliation, Patronage,’ World Archaeology 36 (2004), 343–59.

[28]:

Beal, Travels.

[29]:

Paranavitana, Inscriptions of Ceylon, Vol. 1.

[30]:

Ramachandran, Memoirs, 71.

[31]:

Tessa Bartholomeusz, Women under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

[32]:

Strathern and Biedermann, introduction in this volume.

[33]:

We are grateful to the British Academy and Central Cultural Fund for their generous financial support for our recent fieldwork in Polonnaruva, and to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for sponsoring our previous fieldwork at Anuradhapura. We are also extremely grateful to the Central Cultural Fund and Durham University for further institutional support. Thanks also to Dr Zoltan Biedermann, Dr Alan Strathern, UCL Press, Professor S. Pathmanathan, Professor Jagath Weerasinghe, Professor Gamini Adikari, Professor P. Pushparatnam, Dr Arjuna Thantilage, Dr Mangala Katugampola and Professor K. Krishnan for their advice and comments on earlier draft of this chapter.