Anuradhapura

As a cultural worker, hunting for World Heritage Sites has gone beyond just seeing sites. Rather, it has become more of experiencing them. Hence, in the Anuradhapura vs Polonnaruwa debate, clearly, I would have to give it to the former. The first capital of Sri Lanka remains very much alive today, attracting more devoted pilgrims than actual tourists. While most of the key monuments here are dagobas (local term for stupa), and the variety of architecture is not as diverse as that of Polonnaruwa's, there is a great amount of history in each of them that have been made more special by the reverence that the people continuously attach to them up to these days. In fact, the age of the original monuments here would rival those Buddhist monuments in India, which was really surprising to find out. Not only were they some of the tallest monuments ever seen in the ancient world, but they also stand as pillars as to why Anuradhapura is titled as a "Sacred City", and not just an "Ancient City" as in the case of Polonnaruwa and even Sigiriya. There are two other sacred cities in Sri Lanka which we were also fortunate to see: the Sacred City of Kandy -- also a WHS -- and the Sacred City of Tissamaharama. 

In Anuradhapura, the Sri Jaya Mahabodhi tree is the most sacred element of the city and it sits right at the center. From there, the glaringly white Ruwanwelisaya dagoba is a short walk …

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see as much of Anuradhapura as I would've liked. I only had a few hours there as I was passing through and decided that it wasn't good value to but the entrance ticket. It cost US$25 and I thought it was pretty bad value. I do regret my decision now, for the record!

Regardless, there are quite a few sites you can see from the road and you won't need a ticket for. There are also a few smaller sites within the area that just cost a dollar or two to go into, so you can get a taste of the city without buying the full ticket.

Anuradhapura is nice, because of its numerous and impressive pagodas. On the other hand it is not an easy site to visit, as the points of interest are far from each other. It's mostly pagodas you will see, so there is less diversity than in Polonnaruwa. For me this site was no match to Sigiriya or Polonnaruwa.

I have visited Anuradhapura almost six times now and each time its not that hard to find a new place that I haven't visited before. If you are visiting Anuradhapura then you should plan it before hand. If you are a tourists a tour guide is highly recommended.

If you are a tourist visiting all the pagodas might make you boring because you don't know the historical facts attached to them. If you are there for a one day visit I can suggest the following.

The Ancient bo tree

Ruwanweli Maha seya ( pagoda, considered the best in SL )

Moonstone in Queens Palace

Kuttan Pokuna ( beautifully carved pond )

Samadhi statue ( beautiful statue of Lord Buddha )

Isurumuniya Temple ( beautiful stone carvings )

When it comes to tourists my experience is they are mostly pleased at visiting Isurumuniya, because of the beautiful stone carvings.

Anuradhapura, the city of king was the capital city of Sinhalese for 1,400 years with long history of royals, wars, and religious to be one of the most important ancient cities in this region and the cradle of Buddhism outside India. Everything of Anuradhapura is Buddhism and the center of the city is the sacred city. The word “city” in this term is quite similar with Vatican City or Beijing’s Forbidden City which are the city inside the city. The sacred city was the large complex of ancient monasteries with thousands of Buddhist monks when the city was in its zenith.

The center of the sacred city is Sri Maha Bodhi, the holy tree, the symbol of local Buddhism, was bought from India 2,300 years ago, and is considered to be one of the oldest living trees in this world. Not only the holy tree, but Anuradhapura also has many big stupas, the most famous of all maybe Thuparama and Ruvanvelisaya. Thuparama is regarded as the oldest stupa in the world and is the model of Buddhist stupa in many parts of Asia. The gigantic white stupa of Ruvanvelisaya is just breathtaking with its size and hundreds of worshippers. The city is also famous for its art, the guard stone and moon stone at Mahasena and Ratna Palaces are the must see for their amazing mastery craving qualities.

Visiting Anuradhapura was quite a unique experience; I had to walk 1 km on bare foot in Sri Maha …

A fascinating place to visit, particularly the enormous stupas.

Whilst the cultural triangle ticket is expensive, it does give access to almost all of the main sites.

The ancient, magic bo tree welcomes you as you enter the main complex. Its age (2300 years?!) is something to dwell on, although we were not really sure which one of the two prominent trees was the legendary one.

The rest of the monuments are spread out over a large area. Because of that, and because they are so old, Anuradhapura is not easy to grasp as a day trip (as I did).