The Cultural Triangle: Understanding Sri Lanka's Ancient Cities

The Cultural Triangle of Sri Lanka encompasses the ancient capitals of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, and Sigiriya, along with the cave temple complex at Dambulla. These were the centres of a civilisation that, at its height, was among the most sophisticated in Asia — builders of irrigation networks that still function today, creators of some of the finest religious sculpture and architecture in the Buddhist world.

Anuradhapura is the oldest of the ancient capitals, continuously inhabited and governed for over a thousand years from the fourth century BCE. The scale of the surviving stupas — great white domes of brick rising above the forest — is genuinely humbling. The Ruwanwelisaya stupa, when it was built in the second century BCE, was one of the largest man-made structures on earth. It remains vast. Walk the sacred precinct at dawn with the monks and pilgrims. The city is still a living place of worship.

Polonnaruwa is the medieval capital, built and refined primarily in the twelfth century CE, and it is the most intact of the ancient cities. The Gal Vihara, a series of enormous Buddha images carved directly into a single granite face, is one of the supreme achievements of Buddhist sculpture anywhere in the world. The reclining Buddha alone — fifteen metres long, carved in a posture of perfect serenity — stops people in their tracks.

The Dambulla Cave Temple is a complex of five cave shrines cut into a massive rock outcrop, containing 153 Buddha statues and ceiling paintings that cover 2100 square metres. The paintings have been maintained and restored over centuries and the colours in the oldest sections are astonishing in their survival. Visit early morning when the light comes through the cave mouths at a low angle and the gilded statues seem to catch it differently every few minutes.