Vaijayantha Prasada The royal palace of king Parakramabahu- i

K

ing Parakramabahu named his palace as Vaijayantha prasadi after the abode of the Vedic God Indra. Culavamsa has a description of the palace. This says that the palace was “seven stories high & furnished with a thousand chambers. It was adorned with many hundreds of pillars painted in different colors, supplied with hundreds of akoves, radiant with ornaments of climbing plants & flowers, the height of its splendor was reached in the royal sleeping apartment, resplendent with thick bunches of pearls, white as moonbeams, adorned with a wreath of large golden lamp stands which breathed out continually the perfume of flowers & incense, the network of tiny golden bells suspended here & there giving forth a sound like five musical instruments.”

According to the above description, which is perhaps somewhat exaggerated, it would have been an immense grand building. Even today it retains three stories & if the small buildings & outhouses of the palace complex are taken into account with several stories the thousand chamber description could be basically accurate.

In the description of the palace of king Parakramabahu, the chronicle goes to say that a number of subsidiary edifices were attached to it, such as picture galleries, the alters, pavilions, etc..Which were necessary to maintain the luxury & refined life led by a great king at the time “and were calculated to engender in the minds of the people the idea with regard to the exalted and semi divine status which kingship had then acquired”

The palace of Parakramabahu & Polonnaruwa can be compared with two more palaces of the same period found at Anuradhapura & Panduwasnuwara, all three of which have the same ground plan. At Polonnaruwa, the central edifice is 150ft. square & area enclosed by galleries is of proportionate dimensions. The main flight of steps facing east leads to pillared hall which is 102ft by 42ft. we find no trace of wooden columns. But their stone bases are still visible. There would have been 36 pillars that supported the vast roof of the hall. There are also seen a series of small cells, numbering more than fifty & arranged in two or three rows surrounding the apartment other than the main hall. The upper stories of the palace were reached with the help of a broad flight of granite steps. The walls of the palace even today look thick in the central & still stand to a height of 30ft in some places. The vertical grooves on the walls, both inside & outside were meant for wooden pillars which supported the floor boards of the upper storey.

Just outside the main palace are apartments probably used by officials, bodyguards and servants. The boundary of the palace is in the south west corner of the citadel. It marked by a watch tower, the remains of which are seen even today & remind us of the strength of the fortifications. Let us now proceed towards the east of the palace to take a glance at the council chamber of king Parakramabahu the great.