Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
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The past is never far away when you visit the ancient city of Anuradhapura on a full moon day.
A Buddhist pilgrim in white clothes walks barefoot on a dusty road. Monks in saffron robes chant at dawn. Foreign tourists from Taiwan to Canada also join local worshipers in rituals that have been performed here almost uninterrupted for more than 2,000 years.
Anuradhapura, located in the north-central plains of Sri Lanka, was the island’s first major capital. It is still one of the holiest cities in the Buddhist world and is known as the first place outside India to adopt Buddhism. The vast archaeological park is dotted with monasteries, reservoirs, and pagodas, some of the most ambitious religious monuments ever built.
Towering above it is the giant bubble-shaped dome of Jetavanaramaya. The structure was so huge that when it was completed in the early 4th century AD, it ranked as the third largest man-made structure on Earth, after the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Completed around 301 AD using an estimated 93.3 million mud bricks, the stupa was originally approximately 122 meters (400 feet) high, making it one of the tallest structures in the ancient world.
After centuries of decay, abandonment, and restoration, Jetavanaramaya stands today at a height of approximately 71 meters (233 feet). Although still monumental, it is just over half its original height. Nevertheless, it remains the largest brick building ever built.
Its mass is so vast that archaeologists estimate that its bricks could be used to build a 3-foot-tall wall stretching from London to Edinburgh or New York City to Pittsburgh.
However, Jetavanaramaya is little known outside Sri Lanka. Unlike the pyramids, they were not continuously visible throughout history. Jungle growth, changing religious priorities, and selective preservation gradually buried the monument and much of its story, and one of the ancient world’s greatest engineering achievements was all but forgotten.
lost and rediscovered
Jetavanaramaya does not refer to the stupa itself, but to the center of a vast monastic complex known as the Jetavana Vihara, designed to house hundreds of monks. All structures within the complex were oriented toward the stupa, so that monks faced the stupa first when they stepped outside their residences, and it served as a daily reminder of devotion and cosmological order.
“About 200 monks lived here,” explains Godamne Pannaseekha, a bespectacled monk from Anuradhapura, a senior archeology official, and a leading modern expert on the Jetavanaramaya.
“People came to offer robes, books, food, everything to earn merit,” he says, walking slowly clockwise around the base of the stupa and pointing to the lower terrace where offerings were once made. “This was a living religious city.”
However, Jetavanaramaya was controversial from the beginning. The temple was reportedly built without the monks’ consent on land traditionally associated with a Maha Vihara, a Theravada Buddhist temple. The complex later became associated with the Sagarika sect, which follows Mahayana teachings.
No Mahayana chronicle of ancient Sri Lanka remains. Even today, Sri Lanka is a predominantly Theravada Buddhist country. As a result, much of the history of Jetavanaramaya, including the political and doctrinal tensions surrounding its creation, has had to be reconstructed indirectly, leaving historians with incomplete and sometimes disputed versions.
The technical challenges involved in building Jetavanaramaya were immense. Unlike the stone pyramids of Egypt, this massive structure is made almost entirely of mud bricks. Adobe bricks are a much more vulnerable material to erosion and collapse.
“It takes probably 10 bricks to replace one stone block,” says Anura Manatunga, a senior professor of archeology at the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka. “That means millions of bricks need to be precisely prepared, transported and laid.”
Archaeologists have identified ancient brick kilns in and around Anuradhapura, confirming that large-scale brick production took place in the region. However, there is still nothing that can be positively associated with Jetavanaramaya or that can be reliably dated to the early 4th century.
Moving this much material would have required extraordinary organization and effort. The historical record here is not so clear. Some sources suggest that the work relied on voluntary labor, and others indicate that enslaved people were also used.
Pannaseekha said ancient texts suggest that King Mahasena, who built the stupa, supplemented the local labor force with prisoners of war captured during military campaigns in India.
“Not only believers and believers, but also people brought in as slaves were used to build the pagodas,” he says.
Although there are no records of specific mention of animals at Jetavanaramaya, historians believe that elephants and bullock carts were almost certainly used, as they were at other major construction sites in Sri Lanka, including the city’s holiest stupa, Ruwanwelisaya, built centuries earlier in 140 BC.
Elephants are thought to have carried the bricks and trodden the soil for the foundations, a technique used in traditional architecture on the island until relatively recently.
Scaffolding may have relied heavily on bamboo, tied together with coir ropes made from palm fibers and jungle vines. Metal was used sparingly and as a tool rather than a structural element.
Jetavanaramaya reflects the height of ancient Sri Lankan engineering knowledge. Its huge hemispherical shape distributes weight efficiently and its foundation is carefully prepared. Ancient chronicles describe how builders flooded the excavated ground to observe absorption. This is a basic but effective soil test.
If you look at the fallen part of the pagoda, you can see further ingenuity. Pannashiha points out the presence of hollow cylindrical chambers within the ruins, suggesting an early understanding of ventilation.
Despite this sophistication, the passage of time has taken its toll. Earthquakes, monsoon rains, and centuries of neglect caused parts of the stupa to collapse. The last major renovation took place in the 12th century during the reign of Parakramabahu I.
Recent restoration work has introduced cement into some of the outer layers, but archaeologists now believe that this decision may have accelerated rather than prevented deterioration. The original mortar used for laying bricks consisted of a mixture of finely crushed dolomite, limestone, sifted sand, and clay.
The excavations also uncovered shariahs embedded throughout the stupa at various structural levels. These housed sacred relics and ritual deposits, reinforcing the role of the Jetavanaramaya not only as an architectural feat but also as a sacred edifice built from the inside out.
Among the most important discoveries related to Jetavanaramaya are a gold panel depicting an image of a bodhisattva and an inscription of a portion of the Heart Sutra, the foundational text of Mahayana Buddhism. This panel, now housed in the National Museum in Colombo, was written in Sanskrit using the ancient local script.
They provide valuable physical evidence of the practice of Mahayana Buddhism in ancient Sri Lanka and suggest that Jetavana was once a center of international Buddhist thought, connected by doctrine and trade routes within and outside India.
Pannaseekha stands at the base of the stupa and gestures towards the damaged spire.
“Historical accounts suggest that diamonds were once placed on top to deflect lightning during monsoon storms,” he says.
The spire itself is rare. “It resembles a tower,” he points out. Some scholars believe that this shape may reflect technological influences from Rome or the wider Mediterranean world, transmitted through trade networks in the Indian Ocean.
Whether symbolic or functional, much remains unknown about its structure.
“We can see small remnants of decorative motifs, including a Naga motif in the shape of a cobra hood,” Pannashiha added, pointing out the intricate carvings at the base. “But we still don’t know exactly how they got stuck in place.”
grandeur and dedication
The gigantic scale of Jetavanaramaya invites comparisons with Ruwanwelisaya, a nearby gleaming white stupa that has far greater religious significance for Sri Lankans today.
Ruwanwelisaya is believed to house some of Buddhism’s most revered relics, including part of the Buddha’s remains. It remains a center of pilgrimage and national religious life.
Although smaller than the Jetavanaramaya in its original form, Ruwanwelisaya has been continuously maintained and is now taller than the truncated structure of the Jetavana, over 100 meters (328 ft) tall.
While Jetavanaramaya represents architectural boldness and doctrinal debate, Ruwanwelisaya embodies continuity of faith.
One of the country’s most respected religious figures and chief priest of Rwangwelisaya, Itarawetungwawe Gunanatilaka Thero, has noticed a steady increase in the number of foreign tourists visiting Anuradhapura in recent years.
“First there was a civil war, then there was a pandemic,” he says. “However, over the past two years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of foreign tourists visiting our sacred sites.”
Travelers can also observe or participate in any of the nine puja ceremonies each day. The first ritual begins at dawn.
If you visit on a full moon day, thousands of pilgrims will arrive and wait patiently to enter Rwanwelisaya and Sri Maha Bodhi Temple. The temple surrounds a sacred fig tree, which is believed to have been grown from the sapling of the tree on which Buddha was enlightened.
Perhaps the most shocking fact about Jetavanaramaya is that nothing like it was ever built again. For nearly 700 years after its completion, no other stupa of comparable scale was attempted in Sri Lanka.
“This was the last truly huge pagoda,” Manatunga said. “Subsequent builders, not only here but also in Southeast Asia, adopted the same bubble-shaped geometry, but not on this scale.”
Jetavanaramaya stands today as evidence of an ancient society that was able to organize labor, materials, and engineering knowledge on a scale comparable to any civilization of its time.
Its relative obscurity outside of Sri Lanka may be one of history’s greatest oversights. It is a reminder that some of the most extraordinary achievements of the ancient world were not carved in stone, but were shaped by clay, dedication, and human ingenuity.
