Pavatkulama (Pavakkulama) Reservoir

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Pavakkulama (Pavatkulama) Reservoir in Vavuniya
photo by Mahamed Raasheed

Pavatkulama Reservoir is the largest ancient reservoir found in the whole of Vavuniya district. According to a notice board installed by the Irrigation Department, Its embankment is 10,364 feet (3.2 km) long and has a gross capacity of 27,000 acre feet (33 million cubic meters).

Lewis quotes Henry Parker on this reservoir in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society – Volume XIII (1893-1894) ;

Another tank of Sinhalese construction, which probably dates from pre-Christian times, is Pavatkulam, which was the most important reservoir in the Wanni : —

The bricks employed at two of the sluices are of a much older type than those of the Padawiya sluice, which was built at the end of the third century a.d. Unfortunately there are no inscriptions in the immediate neighbourhood, nor is there any local tradition regarding the originator of the work ; this is doubtless due to the occupancy of the place by the Tamils after they seized upon the district. If Sinhalese had always lived at it, the ancient Sinhalese name of the tank might have been preserved. This reservoir is such an important one that it is almost certain to be mentioned in the old historical works, if we only knew what name it bore. ……………..

……. In the bunds are found the remains of ancient stone sluices, which were usually provided with a bisokotuwa, or valve-pit, built of ” long slabs of stone of considerable breadth and small thickness, laid on edge and fitted together with great care.” Behind the stonework is a backing of brickwork.

There are five of these sluices with bisokotuwas still to be seen at Pavatkulam, and Mr. Parker says, ” so far as I am aware this is the only tank in the Island with more than four.”

The builder of the Pavatkulama Wewa reservoir remains unknown. However, the oldest bricks among all the sluices are found in the southern low-level sluice gate. The size of these bricks suggests a construction date no later than the first half of the 1st century BCE. These brick sizes closely resemble those found in the early dagabas of Rohana, including the Sandagiri Dagaba at Tissamaharama, which was built by King Kavantissa in the first half of the 2nd century BCE. (Parker, 1909, p. 376)

Speaking of the well-preserved Bisokotuwas of the slice gates of Pavatkulam, Parker (1909, pp. 379-382) writes;

“Since about the middle of last century open wells called valve-towers when they stand clear of the embankment and valve-pits when they are in it have been built at numerous reservoirs in Europe. Their duty is to hold the valves, and the lifting gear for invoking them, by means of which the outward flow of the water is regulated or totally stopped. Such also was the function of the bisokotuwa of the Sinhalese engineers; they were the first inventors of the valve-pit, more than 2100 years ago.

It will be readily understood that in an age when iron-casting was unknown, and even the smallest plates of iron could be heated only with difficulty in the early forges, no iron or iron-bound sluice valves were made, and that it must have been no easy task to control the out-flow of the water at reservoirs which had a depth of thirty or forty feet as was the case at several of the larger works. Yet the similarity of the designs of the bisokotuwas at all periods proves that the engineers of the third century BC if not those of an earlier period, had mastered the problem so successfully that all others were satisfied to copy their designs.…………..

It was this invention alone that permitted the Sinhalese to proceed boldly with the construction of reservoirs that still rank among the finest and greatest works of the kind in the world.”

The Pavatkulama Wewa reservoir consists of two adjoining smaller reservoirs, connected similarly to the ancient Kala Wewa and Balalu Wewa system. The current Pavatkulama is the result of a 1958 combination of the ancient Pavatkulama Wewa and Olukkulama Wewa (Olu Kulama Wewa).

Unfortunately, the ancient Bisokotuwas of the reservoir is forgotten today except for the ancient stone carving of a five-hooded cobra, the protector of the water resources.

References

Lewis, J.P. (1895) ‘Archaeology of the Wanni’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, XIII (1893-1894), pp. 151–178.
Parker, H. (1909) Ancient Ceylon – An Account of the Aborigines and of Part of the Early Civilisation. London: Luzac & Co.

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