Senake Bandaranayake

The city of Kandy, a World Heritage site, is located at an elevation of 600m in the central mountains of Sri Lanka. The historic city lies in a valley surrounded by mountains, in a triangular formation created by a sharp bend in the middle reaches of the country's longest river, the Mahavali Ganga. It is best known as the last capital of the kings of Sri Lanka from the 17th to the 19th centuries, until the conquest of the Kandyan kingdom by a British occupying force in 1815. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The archaeology and history of the central mountain region goes back to pre- and protohistoric times. Nearly 40 prehistoric sites are found within a 5 to 30 km range of Kandy, while some distance away to the west are major megalithic sites associated with the protohistoric iron age culture of the early and middle First Millennium BC. Recent archaeological surveys in an area to the northeast of Kandy have also revealed the existence of unique early agricultural settlements using rubble-walled terraces and basic irrigation facilities. These settlements are located in the saddles between mountain peaks rather than in valleys. The earliest dated historical site in the immediate vicinity of Kandy is in the suburban village of Gurudeniya, where the remains of an early Buddhist monastery have been found, dated by inscribed bricks to the 3rd or 2nd century BC. Several other inscription sites also show that the suburbs of' the present city of Kandy were inhabited during the early centuries of the present era. Throughout the Early and Middle Historical Period (circa 3rd century BC to 13th century), i.e. the classic period of the Sri Lankan civilization, Kandy and the central mountains remain a peripheral region known as the 'Malaya rata', important on account of its mineral resources and rain forest products, and also for its role as a strategic rear area especially during periods of civil unrest and foreign invasion. The area becomes one of central importance in the Late Historical Period (13th to 19th century AD), when the city of Gangasiripura (modern Gampola), also on the Mahavali river, 24 km upstream from Kandy, is established as the capital of the principal Sri Lankan kingdom from 1341 to 1408 AD. It is during this Gampola period that Kandy first comes into historical view - as an urban centre, Senkadagalpura, the city of Senkadagala. In the late 15th century, this becomes the capital of a regional kingdom, under its first King Senasammata Vikramabahu (ca. 1474-1511), the founder of the Kandyan dynasty. The second Kandyan kingdom was established by Vimaladharma Suriya 1 (1592-1604), With the conquest and occupation of the other Sri Lankan kingdoms of Kotte, Jaffina and Sitavaka by the Portuguese and the Dutch, from the late 17th century onwards Kandy becomes the principal political centre of Sri Lanka, and the Kandyan kingdom the only surviving independent political formation in the island. The name 'Kandy' itself is an abbreviated and anglicized form of the term 'Kanda-uda-pas-rata' - i.e. 'the Five-Counties -in-the-Mountains', which formed the inner core of territorial divisions around the city. CONTEMPORARY URBAN CORE Kandy in its present form constitutes the only surviving example of a living premodern Sri Lankan city, greatly modified during the latter half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century and much obliterated by modern accretions. However, it still retains some of the essential aspects of its historic morphology and landscape and a large number of temples and other traditional and period monuments. CONSERVATION ZONES This metropolitan urban area and its hinterland can be divided into several concentric zones. A clear grasp and evaluation of' these zones are essential to a discussion of the heritage management issues. Six clear zones, with their major constituent elements, can be identified in the following way: (1) The sacred and royal centre. The major heritage management and conservation effort in Kandy has been directed at the sacred and royal centre, from a period just prior to and after the declaration of the city as a World Heritage site. Today as in the past, this area forms the core of the historic city. It contains: (a) the Temple of the Tooth [Note 1]; (b) several buildings - which are the remains of the royal palace complex; and (c) the sacred square containing three of the four devala, or shrines dedicated to the gods, who form as it were the protective deities or retinue of the Buddha [Note 2]. Prominent buildings in the palace complex are the old palace itself, the Audience Hall, the Octagon (now a library attached to the Tooth Relic Temple but originally an elevated pavilion overlooking the palace square and serving as a gallery for royal audience, and a 'water palace' on the edge of the lake, incorporating the Queen's Bath. Apart from these monuments, the area also contains a number of period buildings from British times, including the Law Courts and St. Paul's Church. The British adopted a deliberate policy of' occupying and dominating, both administratively and architecturally, the politico-religious centre of the Kandyan Kingdom. The main palace was turned into the residence of the British Government Agent, the Law Courts were built above the Tooth Relic Temple and the church, with its high neo-Gothic tower, attempted to dwarf the devalas and dominate the sacred square. To the east of the square, and overlooking the inner city, was built a neo-Classical 'palace' with landscaped gardens, as a residence for the British Governor. Despite this attempt to occupy and dominate the central architectural landscape of the capital, the strong lines of Kandyan urban planning and the distinctive royal and religious architecture have retained their authority over this urban space. Conservation and management measures. As a result of the recent conservation measures, which have freed the Kandyan buildings from the accumulated urban clutter of nearly two centuries, the clear morphology of the original square has been retrieved, without the removal of the colonial buildings. This area was one of the main foci of the UNESCO - Sri Lanka Cultural Triangle Project. Research and conservation are nearly complete and the area has now been almost entirely restored and protected - one of the major achievements of conservation management in Sri Lanka in a very crowded and busy urban centre. (2) Inner city and ancient street grid. One of the most difficult, and most important, areas for research, conservation, restoration and management, is the old inner city area, immediately abutting the sacred and royal square. The rectangular street grid in this zone dates from the 17th and 18th centuries (and possibly earlier). It is one of the few surviving examples of inner urban planning in Sri Lanka, which goes back, historically and archaeologically, to grid planning in the ancient city of' Anuradhapura, where early urbanism first manifests itself around the mid-1st millennium BC. This area contained the city residences of the Kandyan nobility and officials. Archival records and plans - and elements of the surviving fabric - show an extremely well-organized network of' elite urban housing. These houses, with extensive internal courtyards and rear gardens, fronted directly onto the street grid. This settlement pattern provides important historical data for the study of premodern urbanism in Sri Lanka. Only the shadow of this urban landscape survives in the vestigial remains of less than twenty valavvas or 'urban villas', the best preserved of which is a house used as a prison since British times, but now soon to be preserved and reorganized as a house museum. The greater part of the present urban fabric is a crowded, commercial 'high street architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the broad pattern of the earlier street houses. A considerable degree of' modern rebuilding, new and badly-designed construction, and facade-remodelling, has changed the historical character of this entire area. Also within this urban fabric are a number of late 19th - early 20th century period houses of character, including the well-known Queen's Hotel, occupying the northern end of the palace square, the Olde Empire Hotel, the Magistrate' Court building (now the information centre of the Central Cultural Fund), an elaborate east iron fountain erected in 1875, and rows of lawyers offices facing the Pattini temple. These have already been scheduled and brought under the preservation scheme. Conservation and management measures. The imposition of more rigorous planning controls, and some degree of restoration and redesigning have been proposed, as a consequence of a program of architectural history research and documentation. A 'clarification' and restoration plan has been prepared for the street facades of the principal north - south street [Note 3]. 'Authentic' conservation, however, can only a carried out in cases such as the Ahalapola Valavva house museum project, associated with the British Period prison mentioned above. The buildings facing the Palace Square, including the Queen's Hotel, are effectively scheduled, and some owners have financed the conservation and restoration of their properties. (3) Lake, monasteries and urban forest. One of the most distinctive features of Kandy is its lake, the kiri muhuda or 'Milky Ocean', a creation of the last king of Kandy, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha (17XX-1815) and his inspired architect, Devendra Mulachariya. Devendra Mulachariya is credited with the planning of the lake, of the Octagon viewing pavilion, and the highly original concept of the 'Cloud Wall' surrounding the edge of the lake and of the moat running alongside the Tooth Relic Temple and the royal palace. On the opposite side of the lake from the Tooth Relic Temple and the palace is the Malvatta temple complex, one of the two headquarters monasteries of the Siamese sect, the oldest and largest division of the Sri Lankan Buddhist monastic order. Behind the Malvaltta monastery, rises the high mountain range, flanking the city and the lake on the south. The lower part of' this range forms one of the most expensive residential quarters of the city, with terraced gardens and views over the lake. The upper reaches is now a protected forest zone, which contains the city's main reservoir. At the opposite end of the city, just beyond the northern extremity of the old street grid lies the headquarter monastery of the Asgiriya chapter. These two headquarter monasteries, to the north and south of the city, are unique survivals of a system of monastic organization and its spatial and architectural expression, going back over two millennia to the ancient mahaviharas of Anuradhapura. Another unique aspect of Kandy is the royal forest sanctuary that lies at the heart of the city, rising behind the palace and the Tooth Relic Temple. This small urban mountain range is a primary tropical rainforest, xx hectares in extent. It is part of a mountain forest system that surrounds Kandy on three sides east, west and south. Conservation and management measures. The conservation and restoration program of the Cultural Triangle is now concentrating on these monastic complexes, the work at Malvatta nearing completion and that at Asgiriya in its initial stages. Once complete, the management of the complexes will be the responsibility of the temple authorities. Monuments older than 1815 have been scheduled as protected monuments by the Department of Archaeology. There are protected by the Antiquities Ordinance, which (in theory) prohibits any changes to a protected monument without Archaeological Department permission. This legislation is now being updated and the permitted period for scheduling is to be reduced to monuments that are one hundred years old, The royal forest is a well-protected sanctuary, managed by the national Forest Conservation Department (4) The metropolitan area and suburbs. Kandy is today Sri Lanka's second largest city outside the Greater Colombo complex. It is a major business, administrative, educational and tourist (domestic and international) centre. The central metropolitan area of Kandy lies immediately to the southwest of the old city and is a continuation of that city, centred around the railway terminus, the central bus station and the city markets. This a densely populated and highly crowded area, with severe problems of traffic and pedestrian congestion, lack of space for building expansion, parking and public transport, and a largely undistinguished, contemporary urban - commercial architecture - typical of many urban centres in the developing countries of South Asia. The city itself extends in all directions (except in the protected mountain areas), and the suburbs have extended well beyond the limits of the local governing authority, the 1XX year old, popularly elected Kandy Municipal Council. In the midst of this metropolitan expansion and development are a number of quite remarkable monuments of all periods and styles, whose protection and conservation are important and urgent. These include a number of historic Kandyan temples, as well as buildings of the colonial and modem period. Mention may be made of the suburban Gangarama and Degaldoruva temples from Kandyan times, a number of bungalows of the late 19th - early 20th century in the mountain slopes overlooking the lake and along the Peradeniya Road leading southwest out of the city. Kandy also has several buildings of significance in the history of modern architecture in Sri Lanka. These include Andrew Boyd's 'Harold Pieris' house (one of the first and an outstanding example of the 'International Style' in Sri Lanka, built in 1942), the S. B. Dissanayake house designed by the owner himself (1955), and Minette de Silva's 'Karunaratne house' (1951) and Kandy Art Centre (1984). One of the most important sequences of buildings in the heart of the metropolitan centre is the Bogambara Prison, a walled prison of circa 1875 in the 'Philadelphia style', in an exceptional state of preservation and, not far away from this, a series of colonial Police barracks of about the same date - both of which are scheduled for preservation and appropriate re-use. The suburban area itself is expanding and some of its elite and middle-class buildings are expressions of the distinguished Sri Lankan School of contemporary, post-Independence architecture, best exemplified in the work of Geoffrey Bawa. Conservation and management measures. Planning controls within the Municipal Council are controlled by the council itself, in consultation with the national Urban Development Authority (UDA). A World Bank funded Metropolitan Environment Improvement Program (MEIP) is administered by the UDA and is developing an integrated approach to all aspects of urban planning, development and management. New measures to ease congestion, to improve traffic and pedestrian circulation and parking facilities. The most far-reaching plans are to develop the southwestern suburb nearest the city centre as a new urban centre, connected to the old city by a road and rail link and to form a series of 'satellite' urban centres in the Greater Kandy area, utilizing a new road system that is already in place. These are significant attempts to eliminate the concentration of administrative and commercial activities and to free the historic city of congestion and modern development pressures. The only conservation measure of significance is the restriction on new construction above 2000 ft (circa 700m) in the mountain ranges overlooking the city. No scheduling or systematic documentation of the colonial or post-Independence architecture has yet been undertaken, but very important policy decisions have now been made to shift the Bogamabara Prison and to schedule and preserve the prison buildings and the Police barracks. The role of the Kandy World Heritage Committee is discussed below. (5) Botanical gardens, university park and mountains. A very special aspect of Kandy is its southwestern suburb of Peradeniya, which was a royal garden retreat in historical times. It now contains the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens, one of the world's oldest (established 1810) and most important tropical plant collections, on a ca. hectare site on the banks of the Mahavali river. Adjoining the gardens is the Peradeniya University, one of Sri Lanka's premier universities in an extensive and scenic site spread over ca. 600 ha. Behind the university rises the Hanatana mountain range, separating the university from the city. The botanical gardens and university, both institutionally and on account of their flora and riverine and mountain landscapes, are a major resource contributing substantially to the complex environmental and cultural matrix of the World Heritage city. Conservation and management measures. The botanical gardens and the university have their own well-established management systems, which take care to preserve the layout, character and environment of their respective institutions. University expansion is largely confined to terraced and landscaped area across the river. The botanical gardens are an extremely popular visitor resource and facing serious problems of parking and visitor management at weekends and holidays, which are being addressed. The idea of the expansion of the botanical gardens across the river, to incorporate the Plant Genetic Resource Centre and other institutions belonging ( as do the gardens) to the national Department of Agriculture, has recently been expressed. This would be a historic extension and would link the gardens with a mountain forest sanctuary that lies to the west of the Agricultural Department lands. (6) The Greater Kandy area. The hinterland of Kandy is a rich, constantly evolving, cultural landscape, whose rural and agricultural character still remains dominant. Densely populated and traversed by an elaborate road network, it is specially marked by its mountain landscape, the mixed vegetation of its home gardens and the terraced rice fields in the valleys. Much of its distinctive domestic architecture has been 'modernized' by the use of industrial materials and new house design concepts, but the area contains a large number of Buddhist temples of considerable historical, artistic and architectural interest. Amongst the earliest of these are the ancient rock temple of Hindagala, which has remains of early paintings dating from the 7th - 8th century AD, and two major shrines of the 14th century, Lankatilaka and Gadaladeniya. Many Kandyan temples contain a rich heritage of 18th century murals. Of equal interest is the Kandyan architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries, which represents the best surviving examples of timber architecture in Sri Lanka, related in principle to a pan-Asian timber tradition extending from Nepal, Kerala (in south India) and Southeast Asia to China, Japan and Korea. Conservation and management measure. The planning and development of the Greater Kandy area is vital to the conservation and heritage management of Kandy. The principal planning agency is the Urban Development Authority, which has formulated a master plan, in collaboration with other appropriate agencies such as the Department of National Planning, the Road Development Authority, the Central Province Provincial Council, the Kandy Municipal Council and other local government bodies. This involves the creation of two ring roads circling the city, satellite townships and road and rail links to the metropolitan area. The Department of Archaeology and the Central Cultural Fund are engaged in the conservation of' the architecture, sculpture and murals of the suburban and rural temples and other historic, protected monuments in the area. The historic temples of Lankatilaka, Gadaladeniya and Ambakke are now incorporated in the post-1997 program of the Central Cultural Fund, working in association with the Department of Archaeology. A UNESCO-supported program to document the temple murals in Sri Lanka and to formulate a conservation action master plan has just been initiated by the Central Cultural Fund. The Greater Kandy area will be one of the major target areas in this regard. HERITAGE MANAGEMENT ISSUES AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK Issues. The four main heritage management issues in Kandy are: 1. The identification, documentation, and preservation of historic buildings and of the historic environment, where there is a concentration of such buildings, as in the sacred and royal square and the inner city and central metropolitan area. Much of this is underway and considerable progress has been made in the last 15 years in the historic centre, but a great deal still remains to be done, especially in the inner city and the larger municipal area. The research aspect, i.e. the tasks of identification, documentation and investigation have been relatively neglected due to the concentration of attention in recent decades on preservation and management of previously identified monuments and contexts. 2. The problems of inner city congestion, parking and the relocation of the commercial and administrative concentration that is still located in the inner city, by the development of alternative foci. In this respect, the planning stage is well advanced and implementation has begun. 3. The management of change in already protected and preserved buildings and sites, so that evolving social needs can be accommodated without vulgarization or commercialization. These issues have not as yet been addressed. 4. The development of the institutional framework and resource base for effective management. Considerable development has taken place in this regard in recent years and Kandy is the best contemporary urban centre in Sri Lanka which has seen effective heritage management intervention and the evolution of a institutional framework for this purpose. Institutions. The institutions involved in heritage management in Kandy are, principally, the Department of Archaeology and the Central Cultural Fund. The Department of Archaeology is the principal legal authority responsible for the protection of national antiquities and has a more than one hundred year history. The Director-General of Archaeology administer the Antiquities Ordinance, the principal legal instrument for the protection of archaeological sites and monument, ancient and historic artefacts, and heritage properties. The Central Cultural Fund was established in 1979. It is a statutory authority with heritage management and other functions in the field of culture. It is chaired by the Prime Minister and administered by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and includes the Minister of Finance on its Board of Governors. The CCF has pioneered the development of archaeological heritage management in Sri Lanka in recent decades. It generates its own funding resources and is a polycentric organization involving government authorities, universities and private consultants. Its principal activity has been to formulate and run the UNESCO-Sri Lanka Cultural Triangle Project, which has been considered a model for heritage management in developing countries. Other key authorities in Kandy are the Urban Development Authority, the Kandy Municipal Council and the various temple authorities, including the authorities of the Malwatte and Asgiriya temples and the Temple of the Tooth. The recently established Kandy Heritage Committee is taking on the principal coordinating role in the organization of heritage management activities in Kandy and incorporates all the institutions mentioned here. CONCLUDING REMARKS. Kandy is a test case and model for heritage management in a living urban context and a World Heritage site in Sri Lanka. The experience gained, both positive and negative, and its successes and failures will affect other cities, such as Galle, Colombo and Jaffina, which still retain some parts of their rapidly diminishing historic urban fabric in place. It will also serve other World Heritage sites such as Anuradhapura, Sigiriya, Polonnaruva and Dambulla, which are largely archaeological in character but are also located in living and rapidly urbanizing contexts. NOTES: Note 1: The temple contains the Tooth-Relic of the Buddha, which since the 4th century has been the palladium of Sri Lankan royalty. The Tooth-Relic Temple, along with the sacred Bodhi-Tree in Anuradhapura and the 'Footprint Shrine' on Samantakuta or Adam's Peak, form the three major Buddhist shrines and national centres of pilgrimage in the country. They are part of the 'Sixteen Great Places' which Sri Lankan Buddhists believe were visited by the Buddha during his lifetime. Note 2: These are the shrines dedicated to the gods Vishnu and Natha and the goddess Pattini. A fourth devala dedicated to the god Skanda / Kataragama lies slightly outside the sacred square, in the old city area to the west. Note 3: Senanayake Veediya, the former 'Trincomalee Street', and in earlier times xxxxx. REFERENCES

Bandaranayake, S.	The rock and wall paintings of Sri Lanka. Colombo, 1986
Coomaraswamy, A.	Mediaeval Sinhalese art. (2nd ed.) New York, 1956
Dewaraja, L. S.	The Kandyan kingdom of Sri Lanka. (2nd revised ed.) Colombo, 1988.
Duncan, James. S.	The city as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan kingdom. Cambridge, 1990.
Seneviratne, H. L.	Rituals of the Kandyan state. Cambridge, 1978.

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