Verdant beauty of royal bathing pond at Galebedde

By Mahil Wijesinghe

Monaragala, one of the major cities in the Uva Province is steeped in history. It was an ancient city of the Ruhunu Kingdom and is full of legend, romance and history. Studding the entire province is a vast complex of ancient temples, devales, rock cave shelters, hermitages and dagabas which date back to the medieval kingdom of Anuradhapura.

During my recent visit to Monaragala's interior, we took photographs of some of the historical places that were venerated by kings and queens centuries ago. Today, they lie covered by dense foliage sans any human presence. We saw the pristine glory as well as the ruins of invaluable historical sites made of brick and stone now vandalised beyond recognition by unscrupulous individuals.

The Galebedde royal bathing pond was my first destination. It was an ancient pleasure garden of queens set in a beautiful, serene environment.

The verdant mountain range of Maragala, rich in cool water springs, rising to the sky through the plain landscape of drought-ridden Monaragala is like a dressed up glamorous maiden silently awaiting admiration from everyone.

One sunny morning Jagath Sirisena, Range Forest Officer (RFO) of Monaragala and I were in Galebedde just 20 kilometres from Monaragala town lying between Monaragala and Siyabalanduwa on the A4 highway under the shadow of the Maragala mountain range.

Although the cloudless blue sky provides no protection to the plain landscape of Monaragala from the scorching sun, the village of Galebedde is abundant with greenery and water resources.

This unique historical village of Galebedde proudly hides a magnificent creation called Galebedde Royal Bathing Pond which was used by queens and princesses of a bygone era.

A marvel of ancient bricks and stone and a work of massive magnificence, the bathing pond in Galebedde has evoked awe and admiration especially because of its ancient hydraulic water engineering management system.

The Galebedde pond

It has inspired research by historians, scholars and archaeologists in Sri Lanka. If you travel to the Eastern part of the country via the A4 highway just passing Moneragala town within half and hour you can reach Galebedde village and on the right side of the road one will notice the usual Archaeological Department notice board which leads to the royal bathing pond of Galebedde.

History has it that this royal bathing pond was once a part of a pleasure garden of the nearby royal palace constructed in the 12th century AC by one of the kings of Ruhuna and it was the home of Queen Sugala, a mother of one of the late rulers of Ruhuna. It is believed that the pond was used by Queen Sugala. Mostly the queen used it to bathe and play water sports.

The name of queen Sugala is widely used in ancient chronicles relating to the work done in ancient times in the Pahala-Uva and Ruhuna province.

The Galebedde royal bathing pond is unique because it has a specific design unlike the ponds in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. This bathing pond contains five platforms. To build the entire structure, ancient engineers have used square granite and bricks.

Four beautiful stone- sculptured lion heads have been built equally on the four sides of the pond and engineers have created underground tunnels to direct water through the mouths of the four lions to the pond. It is an awe-inspiring mechanism and is a unique feature in the pond.

Besides each lion's face are two beautiful nude female figures sculptured in stone. Each platform, up to the fourth from bottom of the pond is filled with water.

All these four platforms were built with square granite and the fifth platform, which is above water level, was entirely built with brick.

The water flow up to the fourth platform where the lion figures stand, and the excess water is directed beneath the pond. No one can see where the excess water flows. On the surface of the pond, the fifth platform, there lies a huge toilet slab in the corner made of stone and carved out of beautiful floral designs and also two foot prints and a place to keep a water pot in front.

Although the ancient water flowing system is not exactly functional today, the Department of Archaeology has renovated the pond recently and it works fairly well now. During our visit to the pond, I was able to photograph the water flowing through the lion's mouth to the pond as done in the bygone era.

This royal bathing pond is one of the finest examples of our ancient art of stone sculpturing and hydraulic water engineering of our ancient sculptors and engineers of the past.

We left the pond with thoughts that these priceless monuments must be preserved for posterity. It is our responsibility to protect the ancient glory from any type of destruction.