Ellin Pollachek

Author & Photographer

www.ellinpollachek.com

I was between appointments which meant that I was between Nepal and India which is not at all unlike being between the devil and the deep blue sea. Actually anything east of Missouri is heaven as far as I'm concerned and so I decided to use the open time slot to my advantage and visit the Garden of Eden.

Ceylon, or Sri Lanka as it is officially called, has a written history that goes back 2500 years and an oral one that dates back to Adam. Legend has it that when God expelled his first couple from Eden it was to Lanka that they came: it being the closest thing to God's own paradise. The island even has a footprint to prove it. The fact that it is almost inaccessible, that one has to travel twelve miles on foot to reach the 7362 foot peak known as Sri Pada doesn't count. The footprint does exist.

There are other legends as well. Some are documented and others are not. For instance, it is an historical fact that Prince Vijaya landed in Sri Lanka in c. 543 B.C. on the very same day that the Buddha died. What is not documented however is whether or not he was really the son of a lion and a beautiful princess. Regardless of the truth Vijaya founded the first Sinhalese (Sinha means lion) community and from that point on the people of Lanka, who anthropologists say were related to the Australian aborigine, mixed their blood with that of an Aryan.

I arrived just as daylight was being skimmed away by a palette of mauves and a spray of lavender. The air was fleshy with the romance of the tropics and the fragrance of curry and baked breads filled the air but my appetite was more for the land than the food. Curries don't thrill me and bread, well, it sits a little too comfortably on my hips.

I chose the sandy beach behind my hotel and while there is nothing unusual about the feel of cool sand on one's toes, every time I experience it the sensation feels brand new, so natural and perfect. As I walked along the coastline a ballet of coconut palms graced the horizon. They turned their lacy crowns upwards toward the stars and then stretched their long necks towards the Indian Ocean. Sinhalese legend has it that the palms yearn for human voices and the lullaby of the waves and it is towards this that they bend.

A family of fishermen greeted me with a sincere smile. I knew it was sincere because it wasn't accompanied by an open palm. Such is the nature of the island; a juxtaposition of past and present, a people so well rooted in themselves that they have somehow remained immune to the inanities of the present.

The land is old and the pace is slow, and it is no legend that Sri Lanka dates back to the pre Cambrian geologic era. In other words the island can be traced back 4 billion years. And not for nought. Whether it be history or God, the land is resplendent with gems.

In the mining areas of the hills, in towns like Ratnapura, the miners dig through the. earth's fertile surface until they uncover the ilium or the gravelly layer which lies just beneath the surface. They sift the gravel through straw baskets until only precious and semi-precious stones are left. The results are generously displayed in the shop windows of Colombo's gem dealers. Unset rubies, sapphires, topaz and amethysts catch your eye and seem to say "buy me, buy me, buy me." I was tempted by a twelve carat orange ruby but the gem dealer told me it wasn't for sale. Although I didn't see it, I know that Sri Lanka is home for one of the world's most beautiful sapphires: it's forty-two carats.

Sri Lanka is associated with a lot of labels like "world's oldest" and "world's largest" and "world's first" but most of them are outside of Colombo. Although I was on a tight schedule I wanted to see some of them.


Anuradhapura was my first stop. After a hot and rather bumpy ride my guide and I arrived in one of Sri Lanka's oldest cities. Founded in 400 B.C. it remained a thriving capital for 1400 years, Today, however, all that remains are grey stones, partial monuments to a city that once was great. Time and wear had levelled them and neat little ivy roots had eaten their way into the structures for so many years that I had trouble discerning what might have once been a stupa and what might have been a bedroom wall; the difference being the shape-a stupa round to a flat wall. The stupa, by the way, dates back to before the time of Buddha. Originally it was a large mound of dirt used as a burial ground for royalty and their possessions. The Buddhists added cement or stone as a facade, made a square base and have been calling it their own ever since. Because stupas, or dagobas as they are called here, are considered holy, most have remained pretty much intact. But Anuradhapura has little that resembles a complete structure. There is a moonstone, a guardstone and a Bo tree. A cutting from the tree under which Buddha received enlightenment was planted here a century or so after his death and Anuradhapura has remained the spiritual, if not the actual, capital of the island ever since.

"Where is it?" I wanted to know. My guide pointed toward some tall brush and a stand of devotees selling prayer flags, lotus blossoms and orange Limca sodas. We trekked the distance and I found that the Tree was just a tree and I felt just as unenlightened as before I saw it. Sensing my disappointment my guide treated me to an orange Limca and a pink lotus blossom and we rode on.

My guide drove me down the road to a stupa, an enormous dome which dominated the area. The Ruwanweli Seya, the "Great Stupa", is a marvellous monument to the Buddha, and then to Dutugemunu himself, who had it built in the 2nd century. A large stone wall that stood waist-high surrounded the stupa and on it were a level repetition of silver elephants. It’s the mimetic quality appealed to the child in me.

Even to my untrained eye Polonnaruwa emerges as more modern than Anuradhapura. The buildings are bright red brick, thick with privacy and years of untrodden vegetation. It is prettier than the more ancient capital and I can feel the ghosts of the past, the lives and the deaths that surrounded the reign of King Parakrama Bahu. (Aren't these names something else?)

Although Polonnaruwa was ruled by many it was under King Parakrama Bahu (1153-1186 A.D.) that it flourished. Rather than setting his sights on conquering, he went about constructing. He built upon the emotional and spiritual needs of the people and as a result achieved a certain kind of immortality. The great king managed to eliminate taxes, made Buddhism more accessible to the common people and built colleges. As the steamy fingers of day worked their way through my curls I sensed the man and his dreams and felt lightheaded.

"It is the flower," my guide told me. He told me it was the Mee-Mal flower that intoxicated me and that the local people believe it to be the jungle's pooja or offering to the memory of Parakramabahu.
It was all a part of a dead city and a legendary man. But I wanted something whole. Surely, even in the Garden of Eden, there must have been an entirety.

Sigiriya came to me as legends often do. It rose from the centre of the earth; an orderly eruption on an expanse of flatland. The fragrance of the MeeMal flower was gone and jasmine replaced it. Fields of okra and mace and peanuts emerged.

Women with sarongs wrapped high around their thighs walked barefoot through rice paddies and I sensed that not much had changed since Prince Kasyapa built the fortress 1500 years ago.

History verifies that a stroke of ill-fate got Prince Kasyapa entangled with his vindictive and vengeful cousin Migara. Migara's mother had been burned alive because of her son's cruelties to his wife. King Dhatu Sena, Kasyapa's father, had ordered the burning and this so infuriated the cousin that Migara convinced the King's very own son to rise up against his father. The result was that Kasyapa had his father walled up in his reservoir and left to die. The year was 477 A.D.
Migara was happy. Kasyapa not. In fear that his brother Moggallana, now in India, would come down to avenge his father's murder, Kasyapa built a fortress in the sky. He shaped it like a lion and remained a self-imposed prisoner there for eighteen years. The inevitable finally happened. Moggallana made the trip down from India and Kasyapa had to meet his younger brother on the battlefields of Ceylon. As irony would have it, some think it due lo his confusion, Kasyapa died by his own sword.

Time and subsequent wars have done to the lion fortress what they did to Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa but because of the solidity of the mass the feeling remains. Past the large paws and into his jaws we climbed. The incline was 85 degrees and so was the temperature and I was grateful for our first stop.

The "Mirror Wall" gets its name from the glaze of lime, egg whites and wild honey which tried to create a mirror finish. Travellers blind to anything other than their ultimate destination will see nothing but their own reflection on the wall. Those of us who are a bit more reflective (and with a guide to tell us to be so) will be seduced by the beautiful paintings that even the persistence of 1500 years could not erase. "Cloud Maidens" and "Lightning Princesses" as they are called, were graffitied onto the wall by those impatient and artistic journeymen to the king. The drawings are the pride of all of Sri Lanka and it is no wonder why. The artists captured more than just the facade of the beautiful young women; they captured their life and their spirit as well. So fine is the artwork that the tourist is told that the sheer gauze tops are invisible to the eye. I, of course, don't believe it and contend that the gauze tops are much like the emperor's new clothes.

The rest of the climb was strenuous but short enough not to be agonizing. The wind mesmerized me, whispering messages; softly at first than louder. Although I couldn't make out the words I suggest they had something to do with eternity. Below me Ebulia Rosea flowers lit up the countryside with droplets of pink, yellow and blue. In the far-off distance, yellow stucco houses harmonized with orange-tiled roofs: It all struck me as everlasting and reminded me that nature prevailed where man never could.

In pursuit of the everlasting I had my driver take me into Sri Lanka tea country. Although the British introduced it to the island just 140 years ago Sri Lanka has become the world's second largest producer of the brew exporting more than a million pounds daily.

We steeped towards Nuwara Eliya, over the voluptuous cleavage of Mt. Pedro. Lime green leaves and air fragrant with sweet smelling teas orchestrated the panorama. We wound around the hills passing young girls carrying large baskets of tea on their backs. An occasional splash of sun lemonized everything-creating a halo over an already hallowed land.

The terrain was totally unselfconscious, almost brash in its vibrancy and for all that it was I loved it, wishing only that a silver cloud might entertain the flawless blue sky.

I spent the night in Kandy just so I cQuld see the procession of locals who came to pay homage to the famous tooth relic. Story has it that the tooth was taken out of the Buddha's mouth when he was about to be cremated and brought to Kandy in 344 A.D. The storybook city has enjoyed lavish patronage ever since, and while the actual tooth is displayed only once every four years, the three-foot high gold coffer which holds it is on display daily.

Upon entering the Temple of the Tooth, hug-eyed idols greeted me, some showing red tongues, others masking primitive hauntings and terrifying nightmares and I was reminded that this was not my home. I was a stranger in a strange land. The only thing familiar was the air. It was warm and voluptuous and rich with an overflow of flowers. Buddhists carried white frangipani flowers and silken lotus blossoms and if it weren't for these particular offerings I could have been anywhere: Egypt, Bali, Goa or Haiti. But I wasn't. I was in the land that gave birth to the legend of Robinson Crusoe. I was in the land which had been likened to Eden and I wanted to stay on but I couldn't.
I was between appointments and before I hurried on I wanted to touch paradise. After all, if not here, where? I remembered how the cool sand felt under my overtrekked toes and I remembered the sevenstory high lobby of the Lanka Oberoi, the long banners that hung from its centre in the colours of the island: blood red, sun yellow and daylight. Then I realized something else.

Like Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura and even Sigirya; like all great structures, the hotel also had a single man behind it. Perhaps that is what is meant when we are told that we are created in God's image, that we too yearn for something everlasting. Out of his intimations of immortality man has created monuments and although they have been ravaged by his brother they still outlast the flesh. With all of his faults man is still the connection between the world of the ancients and that of the moderns.

I had the bellboy bring my dinner out to the pool area: two lobster tails, a salad and asparagus. I sat alone thinking I could be anywhere but I wasn't. I was in Sri Lanka with the sea breeze cutting through my hair and the coconut palms reaching outward over the Indian Ocean. For a moment, Just a moment, I, like the palms, yearned for the lullaby of human voices.