Kotte regains lost glory

The Raja Maha Vihara and the ‘Na’ tree (left)

 Colombo remains the commercial capital but one may ask what exactly is meant by Kotte being the administrative capital other than the Parliament being here

By D.C. Ranatunga

Thirty-one years ago this month – 11 February 1985 to be exact – Sri Jayavardhanapura (as spelt by Professor Senarat Paranavitana in ‘History of Ceylon’) was formally declared Sri Lanka’s administrative capital.  It was a return to the capital of the 15th Century Kingdom of Kotte.

Colombo remains the commercial capital but one may ask what exactly is meant by Kotte being the administrative capital other than the Parliament being here. The offices and official residences of the President and Prime Minister remain in Colombo. Many ministries are also housed in Colombo. Meanwhile, over the past few years a large number of government offices have been shifted out of Colombo, particularly to Battaramulla and other locations around Kotte.

It has been reported how at a public meeting held at the E.W. Perera Park at Welikada in December 1976, the UNP candidate for Kotte, Anandatissa de Alwis made a special request from his party leader J.R. Jayewardene (he was then Leader of the Opposition and was gearing up for the next general election) that Kotte should be made the political capital when the UNP comes to power. (Ananadittssa de A won the election in 1977, became Speaker and later a Minister in the JRJ Government.)

History after Polonnaruwa

Looking at the history after Polonnaruwa, before Kotte being firmly established as a kingdom, there was a constant change of capitals with the Sinhalese kings moving from one place to another due to insecurity. Dambadeniya, Yapahuva, Gampola and Kurunegala have been the country’s capital from time to time. There had also been regional kingdoms where princes had held sway without allegiance to a king. In the 14th century, there were three centres of political power: Vikramabahu at Gampala, Alakesvara at Rayigama and Arya-cakaravari at Yapapatuna (Jaffna). 

“Of these potentates, the Arya-cakaravari excelled the other two in military power and material resources, and caused tribute to be brought to him from the Highlands and the Lowlands and from the nine seaports,” says Dr. Paranavitana. Thus he was obviously more powerful the other two.

On realising that Arya-cakravarti was gradually dominating the scene by getting the other territories to pay taxes, Alakesvara (also known as Nissanka Alagakkonara) decided to put a stop to it. As a challenge he decided to establish a stronghold in a strategic position in the vicinity of Colombo to the south of Kelani Ganga at the place which came to be known as Kotte, ‘the Fort’. 

“The land was naturally defended by marshes on all sides except for a narrow neck of land on the south. A double line of moats was thrown across this neck of land and walls of laterite were built enclosing the irregular area on all sides. Defence structures in accordance with the art of military engineering of the day were erected all along the walls and these were manned by trained warriors. Alakesvara provisioned the fortress, which was given the name of Jayavardhanapura, with the stores necessary to withstand a prolonged siege. Having thus completed his preparations for war, he drove out the tax collectors of the northern potentate,” Dr. Paravavitana describes. 

According to this narration, ‘Kotte’ and ‘Jayavardhanapura’ are two distinct names though the capital is today referred to as ‘Sri Jayavardhanapura Kotte’.  Historian Professor W.I. Suraweera mentions that the fortress built was named ‘Jayavardhanapura Kotte’ meaning ‘fortress of the ever-victorious city’. 

When the tax collectors were driven out, Arya-cakravarti retaliated by sending a large army both sea and land but they were routed by Alagakkonara’s forces. This was around 1373 AC. Alagakkonara continued to rule from Rayigma with Kotte remaining as a fortress. In addition to the fortress, he had built four ‘devales’ facing the four directions dedicated to the guardian deities of the island – Upulvan, Saman, Vibhishana and Skandha Kumara.

Kotte as capital

It was Parakramabahu VI (1412-67), after residing at Rayigama for three years after becoming king, who shifted the capital to Jayavardhanapura where he built a new palace and a Temple of the Tooth to house the Sri Dalada, the Tooth Relic of the Buddha. By this time it had been firmly established that whoever was in possession of the sacred Tooth Relic was the legitimate ruler of the country.

The Kotte kingdom became prosperous during his reign, literary activity was in abundance (the king himself was a writer), and there was a revival of Buddhism due to royal patronage. The most important event was the conquest of the Jaffna kingdom, thus uniting the country for the first time after the fall of the Polonnaruwa kingdom. The forces of Kotte were led by Prince Sapumal, who is referred to as a son of Parakramabahu VI though this has been disputed by some. Having won the battle of Jaffna, Sapumal was made its ruler. 

There is an interesting tale about Sapumal’s victory. He is supposed to have made a vow at the ‘Na’ tree in the premises of the Kotte Raja Maha Vihara. To this day residents in the area believe that the tree (it is still at the Vihara premises) is a very auspicious one and Sapumal’s victory over Jaffna is attributed to the power it has.

Parakramabahu VI has been acclaimed as one of the greatest kings of Sri Lanka. He earned the love and respect of the subjects during the fifty five years of his rule.

His successors were weak and the kingdom gradually began to disintegrate.  At least five kings followed him until the Portuguese arrived in 1505 during the reign of Parakramabahu VIII.  The much-spoken of palace rebellion – ‘Vijayaba Kollaya’ – in 1521 when Vijayabahu VI was king accelerated the decline of the kingdom. 

The mob led by the king’s three sons broke into the palace and plundered the king’s wealth. The eldest, Bhuvanekabahu VII ascended the throne. The other two – Mayadunne and Madduma Bandara – were given smaller territories of Sitavaka and Rayigama. With Mayadunne repeatedly waging war against Bhuvanekabahu, the latter had no alternative but to seek the assistance of the Portuguese, which they gladly did thereby establishing a firm foothold of the maritime provinces.

Meanwhile, the Diyawadana Nilame, the lay custodian of the Sri Dalada, had been told by an old man in a dream to remove the Relic elsewhere, thus sounding a warning note of what was to happen. The custodian, Hiripitiye Rala slowly took the Relic to Sitavaka and handed the casket over to Mayadunne but took the Relic away to Delgamuwa temple in Sabaragamuwa and hid it in a mortar similar to one used to crush ‘kurakkan’.  In order not to create any suspicion, he had left behind another relic in a casket at the Dalada Maligawa in Kotte to mislead the Portuguese. 

The Portuguese started converting the people to Catholicism, held regular services in a church in the inner city and started harassing the Buddhists. When Bhuvanekabahu died of gunshot injuries fired by a Portuguese guard, said to be by accident, his grandson Dharmapala succeeded him in 1551. When he was an infant, in 1540 his effigy was sent to Portugal to be installed as the heir apparent in the Kingdom of Kotte. He had been baptised under the name Don Joao. Quite young in age when he ascended the throne, he soon became a puppet of the Portuguese.

Professor Siriweera states that Dharmapala’s rival Mayadunne and his son Rajasinghe of Sitavaka championed the cause of Sinhala Buddhists and expanded the territories of the Sitavaka kingdom. They virtually maintained a state of siege on Kotte for five years from 1560 to 1565, forcing the Portuguese to abandon Kotte and move to Colombo. They took the king along with them and Kotte then became part of the Sitavaka kingdom. Kotte thus ceased to be the capital, a centre of royal authority and a fortress of defence.

It is sad that there is virtually nothing to prove that a kingdom existed so close to Colombo in the 15th Century when there is so much remaining from the earliest kingdoms of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa so many centuries ago. Only a few ruins believed to be either places of worship or mausoleums where the royalty were buried can be seen. 

The Kotte Raja Maha Vihara, which had received royal patronage as is evident from the name, obviously restored time and again, is the only place which can claim to be having a history from the days of the Sinhalese kings. The Portuguese had completely destroyed the palaces and other properties.