Sri Lankan Ancient Ruins

The moonstone is an ancient feature of the Buddhist building of all historical periods. This is a semicircular piece of stone with beautifully carving which stood at the foot of a flight of steps in most Buddhist buildings. Although the moonstone is specifically semicircular, sometimes you can come across square moonstones. It is thought that the moon stones originated as blank square stone and later developed in to a semicircular shape. This again developed to include multitude of carved decorations in later stages. But the moonstones in the religious residence where the forest dwelling monks lived maintained the blank semicircular shape.

The design of the moonstone has undergone many changes over time, but the moonstones show the highest level of creativity towards the end of the Anuradhapura Era.

In most of the moonstones of Anuradhapura Era, the outer edge is designed with a ring of flames and below that is a ring filled with 4 types of animals – The elephant, the horse, the lion, and the bull chasing each other. Some moonstones show these beasts in their own semicircular band. The next is a semi-circle of a creeper with a wavy stem with foliage (“liyawela”). Next is a line of swans with a twig of flower and a leaf on their mouth. Next is again a floral pattern and at the center is lotus with petals all around the semi-circle on the moonstone.

Located in the Anuradhapura ancient city and origin of the kuttam-pokuna is not known but it is thought to have been built during the time period of King Aggobodhi I (575-608). The kuttam pokuna or twin ponds are other amazing engineering marvels of the ancient Sri Lanka. These twin ponds Consist to the Abayagiri armic complex and most probably it has been used by the bhikkhus for bathing.

These two ponds are connected through the pipeline at the bottom, as well as the Northern one is 91 feet or 28 meters long and other one is 132 feet or 40 meters. Water to kuttam-pokuna has been supplied through underground danged system and the water is sent through the several filtering systems before it falls on the northern pond through a mouth of a dragon. The water from both ponds is drained from a small outlet in the smaller northern pond.

Made in the 4th century and about 1.75 meters high, the Samadhi Buddha statue is one of the best examples of Sri Lankan sculpture. The statue shows the Buddha sitting cross-legged in a meditating, or 'Samadhi' posture. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, derived strength from looking at a picture of this statue during his imprisonment by the British.