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The recorded history of Sri Lanka predates the advent of Buddhism to the island 2,500 years ago. By the 3rd century BC, Sri Lanka had developed a thriving ‘hydraulic’ civilization. Water was channeled by means on an intricate network of canals between hundreds of reservoirs, some of which (such as the 2,270 ha. Parakrama Samudra at Polonnaruwa) required great skill at dam construction.  This in turn enabled agriculture independently of seasonal rainfall, leading to a extremely prosperous civilization bolstered by a benign system of social values adopted from Buddhism.

Common to all these early civilizations was Buddhism, which arrived from northern India in the third century BC. Buddhists argue that theirs is a philosophy and not a religion; nevertheless, a form of worship is practiced, centering around dome-shaped stupas or dagobas, which enshrine Buddhist relics. The largest of these, the Jetavanarama at Anuradhapura, stands almost 122 m tall, almost the height of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, and rather taller than the third pyramid at Giza in Egypt. A tree species closely associated with the life of the Buddha, bo (Ficus religiosa), is worshipped by Buddhists, an example being present in almost every temple.

Centered first at Anuradhapura and later at Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka’s expansive north-central plains, these civilizations have left a rich inheritance of archaeological ruins, much of which is remarkably well preserved. Another civilization flourished in the island’s south-east, around the present-day Magampattu, concurrently with the Anuradhapura civilization. The promise of Anuradhapura faded with the capture of that kingdom by the Chola dynasty of south India in 1017. The new rulers relocated the capital farther east, to the more secure site of Polonnaruwa, which also offered a better refuge from the plague of malaria which had come to blight Anuradhapura. By the 13th century, a succession of unstable Sri Lankan rulers and incessant invasions from south India spelled the end of the Polonnaruwa kingdom. Sri Lanka entered a dark age, and the focus of civilization drifted south, into the central mountains, where dense forests, isolation and the natural fortifications that mountains afford gave rise to a more secure existence.

Until then, Sri Lankans had been averse to settling in the rain forests of the south-western quarter of the island. Now there was no choice. Continuing internecine strife between  contending rulers however, made government inherently precarious, and a succession of minor kingdoms continued to shift their headquarters around the central hills for several centuries, always aided in some measure by south Indian influence. The last king to claim rule over the entire island (albeit tenuously) was Parakramabahu VI, who reigned in the kingdom of  Kotte, near the present-day Colombo. With his death in 1467, Sri Lanka was thrown into divisive political turmoil, ripe for the picking by Portuguese seafarers who by then were traveling the world in search of wealth. Sri Lanka’s rich supplies of spices, principally cardamom and pepper, were to be decisive factors in attracting colonial domination.

In the course of the 16th century the Portuguese tightened their stranglehold on Sri Lanka’s maritime provinces. The Sri Lankan kings took refuge in Kandy, which remained defiant and independent until 1815. In the mean time, the Dutch began a campaign to rid the island of the Portuguese and take for themselves the lucrative spice trade. By 1658 the Dutch had taken control of the entirety of maritime Sri Lanka, and were to hold this for more than a century. In 1796 the British drove the Dutch out of the island and began a systematic campaign, by military strategy and intrigue, to gain control of the entire island. In this quest they succeeded in 1815, when they banished Sri Lanka’s last king, Sri Wickrema Rajasinha.

With the fall of the Anuradhapura kingdom to the south-Indian Chola dynasty, the capital city moved to Polonnaruwa, which was protected by natural barriers on three sides

Anuradhapura-period sculpture is among the finest in Asia during this period

The Ruwanwelisaya dagaba at Anuradhapura, one of the oldest and most splendid examples of this architecture in Sri Lanka.

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