Buddhist Kingship, British Archaeology and Historical Narratives in Sri Lanka c.1750 1850

Abstract

The ancient city of Anurādhapura continues to be a potent icon of Sinhala Buddhist identity in war-torn Sri Lanka.1 With its famous Bo tree (Ficus religiosa), said to be a sapling from the tree under which Buddha attained his enlightenment, and dome-shaped stūpa made of brick and earth with Buddhist relics at their core, Anurādhapura is now thronged with lines of pilgrims and curious tourists.2 This essay presents a new account of how this city came to have such powerful symbolic significance. Historians have already identified Brahmachāri Harischandra's The Sacred City of Anuradhapura (1908) as crucial to this story. In the preface to this work, the early nationalist described the ancient capital thus: ‘there is no other city upon the universe that has maintained its position as a Sacred City replete with sacred objects of diverse kind, for a period of 2,200 years, except this city’.3 He added that Anurādhapura belonged to the Buddhists and that it had been built and maintained by the ‘Sinhalese nation’. Harischandra was insistent on the need to protect the ruins from the ‘vandalism’ of the colonial Archaeological Department.4 Near the front of his book, there is a photograph of him at his writing desk, dressed in white with pen in hand. In self-presentation as well as in politics, he followed closely in the steps of Anagārika Dharmapāla, arguably the most important early nationalist in Sri Lanka.

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