Anuradhapura

city in Ceylon and administrative center of North Central Province. The population of Anuradhapura was 29,400 in 1963. It has a railway station and is situated at a highway junction. It is the center of an important rice-growing region and also a site of Buddhist pilgrimages.

Ancient Anuradhapura (fifth century B.C. to the early 11th century A.D.) was the capital of the first Sinhalese state. At the beginning of the 11th century it was destroyed by the rulers of the southern Indian Tamil state of Chola, who seized Ceylon. Many monuments from the ancient city have been preserved in the center and environs of modern Anuradhapura. These are the remains of the oldest Buddhist temples and monasteries in Ceylon—the bell-shaped stupas (dago-bas) of Thuparama (third century B.C.) and Ruanvelli (second to first centuries B.C.) with stone statues of the Buddha (fifth century A.D.), Issurumuniya (a monastery carved in the rocks with remarkable reliefs on its outer walls; fifth to eighth centuries A.D.), palaces, reservoirs, and so forth. A natural preserve has been established in Anuradhapura. Several ancient monuments are being restored.