Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Polonnaruwa
The next capital, at Polonnaruwa, survived for over two centuries and produced two more
notable rulers. Parakramabahu I (r 1153-86), nephew of Vijayabahu I, expelled the South
Indian Tamil Chola empire from Sri Lanka, and carried the fight to South India, even mak-
ing a raid on Myanmar. He also constructed many new tanks and lavished public money to
make Polonnaruwa a great Asian capital.
His benevolent successor, Nissanka Malla (r 1187-96), was the last king of Polon-
naruwa to care for the well-being of his people. He was followed by a series of weak
rulers, and with the decay of the irrigation system, disease spread and Polonnaruwa was
abandoned. The lush jungle reclaimed the second Sinhalese capital in just a few decades.
After Polonnaruwa, Sinhalese power shifted to the southwest of the island, and between
1253 and 1400 there were another five different capitals, none of them as powerful as
Anuradhapura or Polonnaruwa. Meanwhile, the powerful kingdom of Jaffna expanded to
cover a huge part of the island; when Arab traveller Ibn Batuta visited Ceylon in 1344, he
reported that it extended south as far as Puttalam.
With the decline of the Sinhalese northern capitals and ensuing Sinhalese migration
south, a wide jungle buffer separated the northern, mostly coastal Tamil settlements and
the southern, interior Sinhalese settlements. For centuries, this jungle barrier kept Sin-
halese and Tamils largely apart, sowing the seeds for Sri Lanka's ethnic dichotomy.
Descendants of Mozambican slaves brought to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese are almost
totally assimilated. Their most obvious contributions to modern Sri Lankan culture are the
folk tunes called
bailas,
love songs founded on Latin melodies and African rhythms.
Trade & Conquest
Enter the Portuguese
At the heart of the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka had been a trading hub even before Arab
traders arrived in the 7th century AD with their new Islamic faith. Gems, cinnamon, ivory
and elephants were the valued items of commerce. Early Muslim settlements took hold in
Jaffna and Galle, but the arrival of a European power, focused as much on domination as
trade, forced many Muslims inland to flee persecution.
