"Godamunne
Ambalama : Pilgrims' rests may be as old as south Asian civilization.
Asoka, the greatest emperor of India -some historians say of the world -in
about 230 BC issued orders carved on stone or iron columns, for the planting of
avenues of trees and for building shelters, for the comfort of Pilgrims. Asoka
was following a tradition of his forbears founded by kings from the Code of
Manu of prehistoric times. These meritorious acts of the ancient kings withered
away on time's wind, even as Asoka's great palace on the Ganges River,
described by contemporaries as built with wood columns sheathed in beaten gold
and harbouring aviaries of brilliantly coloured singing birds.
Wayfarer's rests on Sri Lanka, many of them
several hundreds of years old, have been kept close to their youth by the
continuous replacements of decaying parts and are among the oldest wood
structures on the island. Prominent families of a locality will donate and
maintain a shelter, or they are put up by the villagers, as a place to rest and
meet. A close look at a map of the Sri Lankan hills tells without words the
intimate part the Ambalamas play in village life: on one section of land 3
miles by 2 miles, there are in one instance 7 ambalamas and 9 shrines.
One at least of the small shelters is a minor work
of art; the Godamunne ambalama has charm and poise. The roof is square and like
a tiled umbrella covers a stone platform about the size of a king-size bed (PI.
34). The construction is Simple: merely four huge foundation timbers joined to
make a rectangle that has been raised to seat height from the stone plinth on
four big boulders; four columns at the corners support heavy plain beams
grained like watered silk, that support the roof. Its carved wooden pillars are
damaged to some extent by having been chipped away with knives. It is said that
the wooden pillars of the Hanguranketa palace destroyed by fire by the Dutch in
the 17th century were used for the construction of this wayside resting house.
The British soldiers who camped in the neighbourhood after the anti-British
rebellion of 1818 have used this as an abattoir. Placed on a rise overlooking a
valley of rice fields near Kandy it is a tranquil, timeless little-heaven from
a tropical downpour.
Rajasinha II, sixth king of the Udarata (The
old name for the Kandyan Kingdom), the tyrant who captured the Englishman,
Robert Knox, in 1657, was an astute ruler who managed to fend off both the
Portuguese and the Dutch. Rajasinha was one of the few kings of Kandy whose
palace was not burned to the ground by either The Dutch or the Portuguese. Both
his father and grandfather lost so many of their palaces in Kandy that they at
last put up sham palaces that would keep the rain off but could be quickly
evacuated in a crisis. Rajasinha, however, with justifiable confidence, built
not only a substantial Kandy palace, but an additional palace pleasance down
river at Hanguranketa. The king relied on a spy network that reported every
move in the hills and intercepted every letter. Nothing got past them. His
strategies followed closely the Six Positions of Diplomacy as satirically
proclaimed in the Panchantra story by the king of the Owls in dealing with the
enemy, the Crows, namely: Peace, War, Change of Base, Entrenchment, Alliances
and Duplicity. Rajasinha went through all of them, and when Robert Knox fell
into his hands he was engaged in Duplicity. He appeared to encourage European
trade, but European ambassadors who managed to slip past The Dutch monopoly
guards and came to Kandy to talk business found themselves detained
indefinitely although in princely style, provided with maid or men companions
as they preferred, but allowed no contact with their governments or families.
Knox describes the king: he loved animals, was a good swimmer and horseman
and did not persecute Christians, although he was not free from some of the
vices of the Roman Emperors. His mother was a Catholic, his father an
ex-Buddhist monk and his Wife, from whom he lived apart, a Hindu.†In fact no
wives were permitted in Kandy, even those of the dignitaries who lived at
court. Knox says the king was “.....a firm, able ruler (who) kept his
crown for 52 years ..... a shrewd tactician." As he grew older he became
disillusioned and whimsical. Having aided the Dutch to dislodge the Portuguese
(see Positions of Diplomacy -Five) he complained he had "given pepper and
got ginger." 'The King", says Knox. "taketh great delight...to
see his captive ambassadors brought before him in fine apparel, their swords at
their sides, with great state and honour..... He kept one miserable ambassador
at a village not far from the riverside palace at Hanguranketa -and that brings
us back to the ambalama at Godamunne. The villagers there say that during one
foray against Kandy, the Dutch set fire to the Hanguranketa palace, and
townspeople rescued from the flames the four columns now in the little shelter
at Godamunne."
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