The kingdom of Lanka at Polonnaruwa

Who rules

Name

Lilavati

Title

Queen (reigning consort of the line of Parakramabahu I), ruling through the general Kitti

Since

1197 (the Culavamsa gives her three years 'without mishap'; the English Wikipedia dates her first reign 1197 to 1200)

Born

not known

Family

First queen consort of Parakramabahu I; the English Wikipedia names her father 'Sirivallabha Pandya' and her mother Sugala, with a brother Manabharana (the Ruhuna house that rose against Parakramabahu in 1156 to 1160). No children are known. She is crowned by the general Kitti after he deposed Codaganga (Chodaganga, a nephew of the previous king).

Confidence

medium

Succession after Parakramabahu I (died 1186), as the Culavamsa chapter 80 gives it and the English Wikipedia summarises it: Vijayabahu II (about a year), killed by Mahinda; Mahinda deposed; Kittinissanka, i.e. Nissanka Malla (1187 to 1196); then Vira Bahu (one day), Vikramabahu II (about three months), Codaganga (about nine months), then Lilavati. On this reading the dates are reconstructed from reign lengths, not dated one by one.

Overlord

none; the island has no overlord in 1200, although Chola kings claim Ilam in their praise-poems

What the realm holds

• Polonnaruwa: the walled city, Parakrama Samudra and the Topa, Giritale, Minneriya and Kaudulla tanks, the Hatadage and Vatadage with the Tooth Relic, the royal palace block
• Rajarata: Anuradhapura (a monastic city), Mihintale, Tissa Wewa, Nuwara Wewa, Kala Wewa and the Yoda Ela canal; Kantale tank and the road to Gokanna (Trincomalee); Padaviya at the northern edge of the tank country
• Maya Rata (Dakkhinadesa), the middle country: Panduwasnuwara (Parakramapura) as the second seat, Ridi Vihara, Dambulla's cave temple
• Ruhuna in the south-east: Tissamaharama (Magama), Mahanagakula (Ambalantota), Kataragama, Dondra; the Sinhalese state rules it as a province with a memory of independence
• Malaya Rata (the central highlands), including the pilgrim road to Sri Pada, held loosely
• Ports: Mahatittha (Mantai) opposite the shoals, the Jaffna islands (customs at Uraturai, the island Kayts), Gokanna (Trincomalee), landings on the south-west coast (Galle, Beruwala, Colombo, Kalpitiya)
• The pearl banks off Arippu and the northern pearling coast, the gem gravels of Ratnapura, the elephant kraals of the Bintenna

How it was acquired

Inherited and fought over. Vijayabahu I took the island from the Cholas in 1070 and made Polonnaruwa the capital; Parakramabahu I reunited Rajarata, Maya Rata and Ruhuna by 1153 and put down the Ruhuna risings of 1156 to 1160 and the Mantota rising of 1168 to 1169. The Culavamsa's succession after him is the one given above.

Allies and rivals

Pandya: a long entanglement (Parakramabahu I's war of 1167 to about 1177 for Parakrama Pandya ended in Chola favour; Rameswaram's sanctum was rebuilt with Sinhalese money). Chola: a wary neighbour; no Chola army in the island since 1070. Kalinga kin: Nissanka Malla's widow Kalyanavati and his younger brother Sahassamalla are alive on the English Wikipedia's dates, but whether the family holds places at court is not shown; the claimant Sahassamalla, a younger brother of Nissanka Malla of the Okkaka (Ikshvaku) line, is, on the likely course, the man who puts Lilavati down on 23 August 1200 (one page gives the day; see the likely-course block).

Burma (Pagan) and Cambodia: a war and a later cordial settlement with Burma in the reigns of Parakramabahu I and Nissanka Malla, and Nissanka Malla's missionaries to Cambodia (English Wikipedia, undated); nothing is dated to 1200. Mercenaries: the Velaikkara companies are named in Vijayabahu I's Polonnaruwa slab inscription of the eleventh century and the campaign board makes them the guard of the Tooth temple; that they are the guard in 1200 is the campaign board's reading, not a dated fact. The Tamil, Kerala and Kalinga companies are a real power at court on the brief's reading, and the pages we read name only the Velaikkara.

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 Lilavati has been queen for three years, which the Culavamsa calls 'without mishap' (English Wikipedia). Kitti governs. The great tanks of Parakramabahu I are in being (Parakrama Samudra beside the capital, the Yoda Ela canal to Anuradhapura, the Rajarata tank chain); how well they are kept, and how the north-east monsoon of 1199-1200 (October to February) has filled them, no page we read says. The danger is political: a queen set up by a general, a Kalinga claimant waiting, mercenary companies who can be bought, a south-east province that remembers independence, and a capital whose water depends on works upstream (the Elahera anicut and its canal) that an enemy could cut.

Wealth

Rice from the tank country (the maha crop sown on the October to February rains and cut in February and March; the yala crop from stored water), elephants from the Bintenna kraals, gems from Ratnapura, pearls from the Arippu banks (March and April), salt from the Puttalam lagoon, cinnamon not yet proven as an export, customs at Uraturai and Mahatittha. Coinage: the kahavanu of Parakramabahu I and Nissanka Malla and small silver massa pieces. The monasteries hold estates; the crown's debt to them is heavy.

Military

No figure is given. The crown's army (organised by Parakramabahu I into branches under Lankapura Dandanatha, with auxiliaries from tribal and minority groups), the mercenary companies (Velaikkara and the rest), the elephants, and a navy that Parakramabahu I raised in 1165 and used against Burma. The strength is in the water works and the Tooth, not in the walls of Polonnaruwa, which have never been tested against a landing force.

Threats

• A coup by the Kalinga faction (Sahassamalla), 23 August 1200
• A Ruhuna rising, which can feed itself off the southern tanks when Rajarata cannot
• The mercenary companies changing hands
• A South Indian landing (Pandya or Chola ambitions; Magha's landing of 1215 is a later event)
• Cutting the Elahera anicut or the Yoda Ela, which starves the capital

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 23 August 1200Sahassamalla is consecrated at Polonnaruwa and Lilavati is put out (by her co-ministers, as the English Wikipedia has it).Depends on: The Kalinga faction at court, the mercenary companies standing aside, and the Tooth Relic changing hands; his date is read from his own slab inscription, converted by modern epigraphists to 23 August 1200 (we have not seen the stone, and the conversion from a regnal-year and lunar-fortnight date to the Julian calendar is theirs). Stopped by: Kitti and the mercenaries holding firm for Lilavati; a Ruhuna rising that draws the Kalinga prince away; the Tooth being removed to Ruhuna or Panduwasnuwara.
2. 1202 (outside 1200)The general Ayasmanta deposes Sahassamalla and sets up Kalyanavati; later Chola, Pandya and Kalinga interventions follow (1209, 1210, 1212, 1215).Depends on: None of this has happened by 1 January 1200. Stopped by: A stable Sahassamalla.
3. December 1199 to May 1200The Sri Pada pilgrim season (from the December full moon until the south-west monsoon in May).Depends on: The season. Stopped by: Nothing.

Places of note

• Polonnaruwa, the capital: Walled city with the Tooth Relic house; Parakrama Samudra on its west.
• Panduwasnuwara, the second seat: Parakramabahu I's southern seat in the Maya Rata.
• Elahera anicut, the capital's life line: Amban Ganga weir feeding the northern canal chain.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry polonnaruwa and the calendar give Lilavati's fall on 23 August 1200 'by Sahassamalla's slab inscription'; the English Wikipedia on Lilavati gives the same day but its Sahassa Malla page gives only 1200 to 1202 and does not mention the inscription. Treated as a later event with the conversion uncertain.
• The campaign board entry jaffna-peninsula says Polonnaruwa's writ 'reaches the ports and the customs and stops'. That is a reasonable inference, not a record; the English Wikipedia (Jaffna kingdom) dates the Jaffna kingdom from 1215 and calls its origin obscure.
• Brief: Sahassamalla is 'a younger brother of Nissanka Malla'. The English Wikipedia page agrees; his position on 1 January 1200 (in the island or not) is not stated and we could not find it.
• The English Wikipedia on Lilavati names her father 'Sirivallabha Pandya'; we treat the 'Pandya' as a probable conflation and say so.

Evidence: The Culavamsa chapter 80 is a thin and compressed chronicle for these years; its reign lengths are reconstructed (Geiger), and the Polonnaruwa inscriptions of Nissanka Malla are boastful. The tank country and the monasteries are thickly evidenced.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Each province is drawn as 'held' or 'pledged'; the Vanni and the Jaffna peninsula are drawn as pledged because the sources give no governor and no kingdom of Jaffna exists before 1215.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Lesser Chronicle (the continuation of the Mahavamsa), Dhammakitti and later monks of the Mahavihara tradition (the first continuation about the 13th century (chapters 37 to 79), carried on in stages to the 18th century). The only narrative source for Lanka in 1200. Read online
• Epigraphia Zeylanica: lithic and other inscriptions of Ceylon, Various (the Polonnaruwa kings' chanceries), edited by D. M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, H. W. Codrington and S. Paranavitana (inscriptions of the 3rd century BC to the 18th century; the series ran from 1904). Prints with translation the stone records of the Polonnaruwa kings who held or lost the throne around 1200. Read online
• South Indian Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India), Various (Chola, Pandya and other chanceries and temple scribes), edited by E. Hultzsch, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri and successors (inscriptions of the 7th to 17th centuries; the series ran from 1890). The temple inscriptions printed here are the primary record of the Tamil country in 1200. Read online
• The Book of Roger (the Pleasure of Him who Longs to Cross the Horizons), Muhammad al-Idrisi (completed 1154 at Palermo). The nearest Arabic geography in time to 1200 for the Indian Ocean. Read online
• A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online