Out of Place

Histories of urban settlement typically focus on conditions of stasis, when continuous habitation in a particular locality enabled the accumulation of physical evidence. In Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was called (before 1972) such idealized conditions are traced to specific periods where urban form is essentially modeled along religious lines. They occur at the two ends of its ‘indigenous’ history prior to British colonization (1815). ¹ The first period of the monastic cities of Anuradhapura (4 BCE -11 ACE) are well-documented in a path-breaking thesis by Senaka Bandaranayake who spatialized the political geography of their evolution in his influential book Sinhala Monastic Architecture (1974). The remains at Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa (11–13 ACE), which provide formative urban histories are preserved by UNESCO within a cultural triangle conserved for their archeological heritage (The Cultural Triangle 2004). Their evidence of monumental stupas, palace complexes, hospitals, and reservoirs testify to their longevity and stasis. Abandoned at different periods, due to invasion or drought, the history that follows is of multiple, smaller kingdoms and movement across the island’s geography to the southwestern seaboard. This history culminates with the creation of the last indigenous capital at Senkadagala (Kandy, 1590s to 1815). In The City as Text, geographer, James Duncan (1990), interpreted the design of this city, which resisted both Portuguese and Dutch colonizers, falling to the British in 1815, as a visual or cartographical text based on dominant religio-political tropes such as the mandala. Both Anuradhapura and Kandy have been described as sacred cities, in the UNESCO World Heritage listing.