Polonnaruwa

Polonnaruwa began as a secondary settlement of the Anuradhapura kingdom, valued because it commanded the crossings of the Mahaweli river and lay out of the direct path of invasions from South India. When the Chola empire took the island's north in the late 10th century it made Polonnaruwa its centre of government, and the Hindu shrines scattered among the Buddhist ruins, along with bronzes now in the museums, date from that period. In 1070 Vijayabahu I drove the Cholas out but kept the city as his capital rather than returning to Anuradhapura.

The city's great age came under Parakramabahu I, who ruled from 1153 to 1186. He rebuilt it on a grand scale, enclosing a citadel and palace, laying out monastic quarters and parks, and joining several older tanks into the Parakrama Samudra, the sea of Parakrama, whose embankment still shapes the town. Nissanka Malla, who ruled from 1187 to 1196, added the Vatadage's setting, the Nissanka Latha Mandapaya and the Rankot Vihara, and left inscribed slabs across the site recording his own merits.

Decline was quick. Dynastic disputes and a devastating invasion in the early 13th century broke the kingdom, the irrigation works silted up, malaria spread, and the court moved south-west. The city was left to the forest for six centuries. British officials and, later, the Archaeological Survey cleared and recorded the ruins from the 19th century, the reservoir was restored in the 20th under dry-zone resettlement schemes, and in 1982 the ancient city was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Polonnaruwa is a district town in a farming country, and its culture is that of the dry-zone Sinhalese village rather than of a tourist town. The temple and the tank order the year: ploughing and transplanting follow the rains, and poya days, the monthly full moons, are public holidays when alcohol is not sold and families go to the temple in white.

The ruins themselves are living religious ground. Pilgrims come to the Gal Vihara and the stupas with lotus flowers and oil lamps, particularly at Vesak and Poson in May and June, when lanterns hang outside houses and roadside dansal hand out rice and sweet drinks free to travellers. The monastic tradition is strong in the district, and the forest hermitage at Dimbulagala has long been a centre of meditation practice.

Everyday manners are those of rural Sri Lanka: a slight bow rather than a handshake for monks and elders, shoes left at doorways, food eaten with the right hand, and an insistence on feeding guests. The district has a mixed population, with Sinhalese in the majority alongside Tamil and Muslim communities in parts of the countryside, a pattern shaped by the 20th-century colonisation schemes that brought settlers to the newly irrigated land. Cricket is followed closely, and the evening walk on the bund, with the water turning pink and egrets on the shallows, is the town's social hour.

The town proper holds only a few tens of thousands of people, and the wider Polonnaruwa district several hundred thousand. Most of them farm. The district is one of Sri Lanka's main rice bowls, irrigated by the restored ancient tanks and by the Mahaweli development scheme, and two paddy seasons, maha and yala, set the rhythm of work. Fishing on the reservoirs, cattle and buffalo herding, and banana and vegetable growing fill out the rural economy.

Kaduruwela, a few kilometres east, is the main trading town, with the bus stand, the wholesale market and most of the shops; the older town near the ruins is quieter, with government offices, the hospital, schools and guesthouses. Tourism supports a modest but important share of local livelihoods — guides, drivers, bicycle hire, hotels at Giritale and Minneriya — and it fell away sharply during the pandemic and the country's 2022 economic crisis before recovering.

Days begin before dawn in the fields and end early. Two problems shadow the district. Elephants raid crops and occasionally kill farmers, and electric fences and night watch huts are a common sight on the edges of the paddy land. Chronic kidney disease of uncertain cause is unusually common among farmers in the north-central dry zone, and clean drinking water schemes have become a local political issue.

Dry-zone cooking in Polonnaruwa is built on rice grown a few fields away, eaten as a plate of rice with several curries: dhal, a green such as mallung, a fried vegetable, a pol sambol of grated coconut with chilli and lime, and often a fish. Freshwater fish from the tanks, particularly tilapia, is fried crisp or cooked in a red curry of chilli and goraka, and dried fish adds salt to village meals.

Away from the rice plate, the district eats much as the rest of the dry zone does. Kurakkan, finger millet, is made into dark roti and a savoury porridge; green gram and cowpeas from the chena plots are boiled and served with coconut; jackfruit and breadfruit are cooked as vegetables in season. Buffalo curd, set in unglazed clay pots and eaten with kithul treacle or jaggery, is sold along the roads and is the standard dessert, and wood-apple juice is the common roadside drink.

Short eats — vadai, fish buns, rolls and patties — fill bakery counters in the afternoon, and in the evening kottu, roti chopped on a hot plate with vegetables, egg and meat, clatters out of small shops in Kaduruwela and the town centre. Hoppers, bowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice flour and coconut milk, are a breakfast and supper dish, often served with an egg in the middle. Thambili, orange king coconuts, are opened at stalls by the roadside for their water.