Kala Wewa ( Sinhala:කලා වැව) built by the King Datusena in 460

A.D The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian calendar, Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means 'in the year of the Lord', but is often presented using "our Lord" instead ...

, is a twin reservoir complex (Kala Wewa & Balalu Wewa) which has a capacity of 123 million cubic meters. This reservoir complex has facilitated with a stone made

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...

and three main

sluice Sluice ( ) is a word for a channel controlled at its head by a movable gate which is called a sluice gate. A sluice gate is traditionally a wood or metal barrier sliding in grooves that are set in the sides of the waterway and can be considered ...

s. From the central major sluice, a 40

feet The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...

wide ''central conveys'' water to feed thousands of acres of paddy lands and ends at the historical capital Anuradhapura city tank Tissa Wewa meandering over at a slope of 6 inches per mile and is another wonder of primeval

hydraulic engineering Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the mov ...

facility in ancient

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

History

This

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

was built by the King Dhathusena who ruled the country during 454 – 473 CE in the 5th century.

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

invaders who arrived from

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...

ruled the north part of the country during the period from 429 to 455 AD. King Dhathusena defeated the invaders and united the country and then he wanted to rebuild the irrigation system by constructing several

tanks A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine ...

canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...

, etc., in and round the kingdom of

Anuradhapura Anuradhapura ( si, අනුරාධපුරය, translit=Anurādhapuraya; ta, அனுராதபுரம், translit=Aṉurātapuram) is a major city located in north central plain of Sri Lanka. It is the capital city of North Central ...

. After completion of construction of Kala Wewa, the king built another tank called ( si, බලලු වැව) nearby and connected the two tanks together making the biggest tank in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. King Mahinda II who ruled the country during 777 – 797 CE expanded the tank further. Water of the tank was transferred to the Thisa Wewa ( si, තිසා වැව) in

by an ancient long canal called

Jaya Ganga Jaya Ganga (French: ''Jaya, fille du Gange'') is a feature film made by writer, filmmaker and screenplay writer Vijay Singh. The film stars Asil Rais and Smriti Mishra as leads. Based on Vijay Singh's first novel ''Jaya Ganga, In Search Of the ...

alias ( si, යෝධ ඇල) which has a fine slope of one foot per mile but according to some historians it is one inch per mile.

Legends

King Dhathusena was very keen on information with regard to a spot very suitable to construct a tank to be the massive one in the history of

. There are some

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

on how the king was able to find a place for the tank he imagined. There was a man called who left his family and went to live in the jungle due to his wife's unbearable and repeated insults and disrespects towards him. After some years in the jungle he was well accustomed with wild animals and lived with a flock of deer. One day a hunter suddenly noticed this strange man living with animals in the jungle; went to the palace and told the king that it seems that this strange man lives in the forest in order to guard an unknown treasure there. King sent his army to catch him. was caught and brought to the palace. When the king questioned him of the treasure, revealed his true story and told real reason for his leaving the city and living in the jungle. Then king asked him of any interesting thing he had seen while living in the jungle. said, "No sir, I have not seen anything interesting but in a brook somewhere in the jungle, water is being blocked by the flora called that has been grown across that stream. According to this legend, it was the spot wherein the king created the Kala Wewa.

Renovation

First restoration to the tank is done by

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Parakramabahu I Parākramabāhu I ( Sinhala: මහා පරාක්‍රමබාහු, 1123–1186), or Parakramabahu the Great, was the king of Polonnaruwa from 1153 to 1186. He oversaw the expansion and beautification of his capital, constructed extensiv ...

in the 12th century. The tank was renovated several times in the past as in the period of

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Sir

William Henry Gregory Sir William Henry Gregory PC (Ire) KCMG (13 July 1816 – 6 March 1892) was an Anglo-Irish writer and politician, who is now less remembered than his wife Augusta, Lady Gregory, the playwright, co-founder and Director of Dublin's Abbey Theatre, ...

(1872–1877 and Sir

Arthur Hamilton-Gordon Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Baron Stanmore (26 November 1829 – 30 January 1912) was a British Liberal Party politician and colonial administrator. He had extensive contact with Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. Career Gordon was ...

(1883–1890). After the British rule in the country and in 1958, the tank's bund was reconstructed connecting the tank with ''Balalu Wewa''.

Size

Its

circumference In geometry, the circumference (from Latin ''circumferens'', meaning "carrying around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. That is, the circumference would be the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out to ...

is and has a total area of at full capacity.

Length Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Interna ...

of the

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...

is and the

height Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is abou ...

is .LankaLibrary Forum :: View topic – Kala Wewa (Reservoir) – 470 AD
/ref>

Attraction

There is a 12 meter high standing

statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

created by same ruler. This statue is named after the

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

it is situated so it is called

Avukana Buddha statue The Avukana statue is a standing statue of the Buddha near Kekirawa in North Central Sri Lanka. The statue, which has a height of more than , was carved out of a large granite rock face during the 5th century. It depicts a variation of the Abhay ...

( si, අව්කන බුදු පිළිමය) and it can be seen over-looking at the

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

near by.

Purpose

The

served as one of largest

irrigation tanks In Sri Lanka and India an irrigation tank or tank is an artificial reservoir of any size. They are part of a historic tradition of harvesting and preserving rainwater in the region. Often an embankment such as a mud bank was constructed across a sl ...

in ancient time. While supplying water also for the small

in rural areas on the way, the

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

Jaya Ganga carried water from Kala Wewa and stored enough water in the Thisā Wewa for the

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of then

capital city A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, Department (country subdivision), department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city ...

of Anuradhapura.well Being one of main storages in the Mahaweli Irrigation Scheme since 1976, the

serves to the

in the North Central Sri Lanka. It is used for

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

and the

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

, specially the

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

in its

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

, is the main sources of

silage Silage () is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops which have been preserved by fermentation to the point of acidification. It can be fed to cattle, sheep and other such ruminants (cud-chewing animals). The fermentation and storage p ...

for the herds of

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

in the area.

Route

The way to

via

Dambulla Dambulla ( si, දඹුල්ල ''Dam̆bulla'', ta, தம்புள்ளை ''Tampuḷḷai'') is a town situated in the north of Matale District, Central Province of Sri Lanka. It is the second largest populated and urbanised centre aft ...

reaches ''Kekirawa'' in the Kekirawa Divisional Secretariat and from there the distance to the

is .

References

{{coord, 8, 01, N, 80, 31, E, region:LK_type:city, display=title Bodies of water of Anuradhapura District Reservoirs in Sri Lanka Lakes of Sri Lanka