The island's capital from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, after Anuradhapura was abandoned.
Its high point was the reign of Parakramabahu I (1153–1186), who unified the island, rebuilt the irrigation network on a scale not attempted before or since in the pre-modern period, and left the city its principal monuments. The Culavamsa records the statement usually attached to him — that no drop of rain should reach the sea without first serving people.1 The capital was abandoned within decades of his death, and the dry-zone irrigation civilisation contracted with it.