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by Derrick Schokman

The UNESCO - Sri Lanka Project to excavate and restore the ancient Jetavana Vihara in Anuradhapura is nearing completion. The stupa, which is the most outstanding monument in this complex, is now receiving a final facelift.

The Jetavana stupa was the creation of King Mahasen (274-301 AD) who favoured the Mahayanist form of Buddhism, which became very popular in the middle and late Anuradhapura periods.

It is the biggest and tallest stupa in this country, with a circular base 367 feet in diameter and an original height of over 300 feet.

Investigations at the site have revealed that a foundation of brick 28 feet deep overlies a layer of concrete. The stupa itself was a solid mass of bricks. Well baked bricks of large size were laid in a mortar of adhesive clay. The brickwork was then covered with a coating of lime plaster and painted white.

Emerson Tennent (Ceylon - 1960) laboriously calculated that the bricks used to build the stupa could form a wall one foot thick and ten feet high from London to Edinburgh, a distance of 400 miles. This gives some idea of the vast amount of bricks that were expended on this work.

The painted frontispieces or vahal kadas with deeply carved animals, and human figures representing divinities, relieved the stupa of its stark whiteness. A few painted slabs showing a line of geese and vestiges of lapis lazuli blue traced to the original construction have been cleaned and conserved.

Some of the stone slabs of the extensive platform of the stupa (salapatala maluwa) contain inscriptions dateable to the 8th and 9th centuries, indicating that they have been donations by dedicated devotees. The paving however was not completed. Very probably the work was interrupted by invasions in he 11th century.

With the collapse of the Rajarata civilization, nature took over and the monuments crumbled before the advancing jungle tide. The Jetavana stupa, all its grandeur gone, was reduced to what looked like a thickly forested hill, crowned with its square terrace and broken pinnacle.

Excavations conducted by the Cultural Triangle Project since 1981 have brought to light a large collection of artifacts, most of which were buried at the foot of the northern and eastern vahalkadas or ayakas and the stone-paved salapatala maluwa. Some artifacts buried in thick clay can be dated back to the original construction.

There were intaglio seals of semi-precious stones and glass portraying human heads, local animals and birds. Also Roman, Indian, other foreign coins and fragments of glass belonging to goblets, bottles and other containers offered in enshrinements, along with a large haul of beads ranging in size from a mustard seed to 4 to 5 cm long made of glass, precious and semi-precious stones, crystal, agate, carnelian, ivory, bronze, shell, gold and silver.

Among other items were pendants, tooth and bone amulets, shellcraft, turned ivory, bronze and glass bangles and a great abundance of rings and signet rings. There were also bronzes of Buddhist and Hindu influence, comprising decorative hooks, kohl sticks, nails, hinges, swastika-modified articles, ornaments and statues. Among gold objects of fine workmanship were small jugs and a necklace with barrel-shaped beads with gold sheets and flat disc beads.

It was the practice during that period to have sacred verses from the Mahayanist doctrines inscribed in Sanstrict on metal plaques (dhamma dhatu) and deposited in the brickwork of stupas. In the Jetavana stupa seven gold leaves of such a text were discovered, dateable to the 9th century.

This collection of artifacts, now known as the Jetavana Treasures," is preserved for public viewing in the Jetavana Site Museum.

Its richness and variety makes it one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in the world, and a valuable source of evidence of Sri Lanka's relationship with other Asian cultures in ancient times.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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