Kotte Gal Ambalama | AmazingLanka.com

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Kotte Gal Ambalama at Pitakotte Junction

The Pita Kotte Gal Ambalama is a significant historical wayside rest hall located at the Pita Kotte junction in Sri Lanka. It serves as a rare surviving architectural relic from the Kotte Kingdom (14th–16th century), specifically associated with the reign of King Parakramabahu VI.

Kotte, the country’s one-time capital of Sinhalese kings, was a grand and beautiful city where literature and art flourished.

Contemporary Sinhalese literature, in particular the Sandesa poems in their highly conventional descriptions of Kotte, refer to several splendid edifices which adorned the city. The Royal Palace was described as a mansion of five stories, and the Temple of the Tooth was a building worthy, in its architectural grandeur, of the venerable object which it housed. There were shrines dedicated to various gods within the walls, and several Buddhist monasteries were located outside. The Portuguese too had written admiringly of the magnificence of these palaces and shrines.

Sadly, there is very little, if any, monumental evidence left for us of Kotte’s past splendor. The only substantive remains are being found in the Veharakanda at Baddegana, which ‘Heritage’ spotlighted last week. A few other archaeological sites that have been identified can hardly show anything worthwhile or are in such a state as to be hardly recognizable.

The Kotte rampart, which has been referred to in many works of history, is still partly undiscovered, even though it is mixed up in a mess of modern households, sometimes marking a rear boundary or sometimes the front or even at times a part of a modern foundation.

Have you heard of Rampart Road in modern Pita Kotte? Well, this road is the landmark if you ever think of visiting these old walls.

The conversion of Kotte into a fortress was the act of Minister Alakeswara during the reign of King Vikramabahu III of the Gampola Kingdom about 1370-1375.

Kotte was well protected by these ramparts at that time, while on two sides ran streams, one of which was the Diyawanna Oya.

The Nikaya Sangarahaya carries the following account. “He (Alakeswara) caused a great moat, very broad and fearfully steep like a precipice, to be sunk round Darugama, and as a solid defense, he caused to be erected bordering the moat a wall of stone. He caused the space at the top of the wall to be decorated like a creation of Visvakarma and protected it by fixing in various places various fortifications.”

Well, today what remains is a mere kabook wall that is barely identifiable, and if you manage to find your way to it through the jumble of private residences, you may discover a familiar black archaeological department board, authenticating the fact. We reached the site through the garden of a friendly resident to whom this once glorious antiquity served as a rear parapet. The nice gentleman helped us up a ladder over his vegetable beds to get onto the rampart itself and walked us along it, looking into either the backyards or front yards of the neighboring houses.

It was difficult to imagine that it was this very same rampart as the great monk poet. Thotagamuwa Sri Rahula is described in a flight of poetic fancy as a ‘Ruvan Thanapata,’ or a gold bra worn by a sensuous damsel of Lanka at the peak of her blossoming youth.

This reference is found in the Salalihini Sandesa, which he wrote during the reign of King Parakramabahu VI, who was the first king to make Kotte the seat of government. He was the greatest of the Kotte kings and the last Sinhalese sovereign to exercise effective control over the whole island.

It was also during his reign of more than a half-century (circa 1415-1470 ) that Kotte was transformed from a fort (Kotte meaning “fortress”) into Jayawardenapura (the victorious city), a city prosperous and proud and magnificent to behold.

Sri Rahula in the Salalihini Sandesaya says thus: “Know, noble friend, the great city of Jayawardena, an abode of great men adoring and attached to the Triple Gem, a city that by its teeming opulence drives the Devas’ city into insignificance, a city that has fittingly established its name by victories repeatedly won.”

Along another by-road of Pitakotte, in the quiet of a garden shaded by Na trees, are the ruins of the tomb of Alakeshwara. And of course, along the main Pita Kotte road are two other spots of interest.

The Diya Agala, or the outer moat, can today be seen as a deep and overgrown ditch marked by an archaeological department board in front of the Isurupaya building.

The historic Gal Ambalama, or travelers’ rest, goes back to the period of Parakramabahu VI.

Kotte Gal Ambalama has a special significance since it was reputed that there was a secret path leading to the king’s palace from behind it. And it was in this ambalama that royalty and important persons had to wait till they obtained permission from the palace to enter this secret tunnel. Sadly, the present state of this antiquity needs consideration.

by Kishanie S. Fernando
Daily Mirror

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The Kingdom of Kotte

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