Anuradhapura
— — the city the bodhi tree kept.
Not only on a wall.
“An ancient capital in the dry zone of north-central Sri Lanka, held together for more than a thousand years by a tree and a set of great white stupas. The Sri Maha Bodhi is the oldest planted tree in the world with a recorded planting date. Pilgrims circle in white. The reservoirs the old kings cut still water the rice.
Anuradhapura, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Anuradhapura sits in the dry zone of north-central Sri Lanka, roughly 200 kilometres north of Colombo at an elevation around 81 metres. Founded in the fourth century BCE and capital for more than 1,300 years, the city was inscribed by UNESCO in 1982 as one of the country's sacred cities. The ruins cover a sprawl of stupas, monasteries, palaces, and the reservoir tanks the old kings built to hold the monsoon water. The modern town sits beside the archaeological park rather than inside it.
The great stupas, dagobas in Sinhala, dominate the skyline. The Ruwanwelisaya, built by King Dutugemunu in the second century BCE, holds its white dome above the inner sacred area. The Jetavanaramaya, completed around the third century CE, once rose more than 120 metres and ranked among the tallest brick structures in the ancient world. The Abhayagiri and Mirisawetiya stupas mark the other quarters of the old monastic city. Beside them the Sri Maha Bodhi, planted in 288 BCE from a cutting of the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, still grows behind a gold railing.
The site is best walked early, before the dry-zone sun comes up over the tanks. Visitors enter the inner sacred area barefoot and in white, and the Sri Maha Bodhi enclosure asks for quiet. A bicycle rental from the modern town covers the long distances between the stupas; cars are kept to the outer roads. The pilgrim crowd thickens at full moon, especially Poson in June, which marks the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Hotels and guesthouses cluster east of the ruins along the road to Mihintale.