Anuradhapura (part 3)
After that sumptuous lunch we resumed our sightseeing tour once again, we passed by a very dilapidated metal gate and Mohamed stopped the tuktuk and I asked him where we are, and he pointed to a grassy area and said it’s the Royal Palace ruins. I cannot believe it! There was hardly anything left of it!
I immediately hied it off from there, Mohamed then told me he will bring me to somewhere quiet and peaceful and we ended up at the Elephant Pond or Eth Pokuna. Named as such not because it was used by bathing elephants but because of the size of the pond, well, it needs to be this huge if it’s supposed to be used by the 5,000 or so monks in the nearby Abhyagiri monastery.
While Mohamed waited near the pond, I ventured out towards the nearby ruins on the right side of the pond. These must be some residential dwellings for the Abhyagiri monks or their meditation halls but some of it were covered with overgrown grasses and seemed to be out of the list of the government list of treasures to be saved and kept in good condition.
However, when you go further you’ll find a huge “rice canoe” in the middle of the remains of the monk’s refectory. This is where monks used to line up to ladle out their portions of rice hence its name.
Afterwards, I hopped back on to the tuktuk and we stopped over at the ruins of Rathnaprasada. Although the main entrance pillars and the guardstones are still intact, it was sadly left untended except for a few cows grazing in the open field in the center of the ruins.
I am almost tired out from too much monastic ruins by now but I still have a few places to visit. I proceeded on to Mahasena’s Palace to have a look at its famous moonstone, there is nothing left of any particular importance in that place except for the moonstone I think. Normally, all Buddhist dwellings or temples will semi-circular moonstones at the entrance steps towards the temple.
I almost want to give it a miss coz I was already tired from too much walking around. I just couldn’t resist checking the 4th century Samadhi Buddha which is located right in the “meditation forest”.
Then we moved on to the Abhyagiri Dagoba which was created sometime around the 1st or 2nd century BC although this has rebuilt a few times.
My feet are really burned off from too much walking -- barefoot!
There were still some more ruins and temples around the area but I begged off and told Mohamed that we should move on now to the last few places in the itinerary coz I am in desperate need of a cool fruit juice or a very cold bottle of Coke!
On our way out of the main temple ruins, we passed by the Kuttam Pokuna or the Twin Ponds. These two bathing tanks which were almost similar to each other although one is actually bigger than the other, were previously used by the Abhyagiri monks.
Our last stop was the beautiful Jetavanarama Dagoba with its 70 meters high massive dome which can be seen from afar. When it was built in the 3rd century BC, it was considered as the third tallest monument in the world (at its original height of 100 meters). Next to it were monastic gedage ruins which used to house at least 3000 monks in its heydays.
This place reminded of the temple ruins in the Angkor temple complex in Cambodia although nothing much remained of the original structures except for some columns and railings.
Whew! Enough of my date with the past of Anuradhapura…….time to get back and have that ice-cold softdrink I have been dreaming about…and yes of course, to put up my complaining feet!
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