Queen Swanapali (or Swarnamali Devi) was the spouse of King

Pandukabhaya of Anuradhapura Pandukabhaya (474 BC – 367 BC) was King of Upatissa Nuwara and the first monarch of the Anuradhapura Kingdom and 6th over all of the island of Sri Lanka since the arrival of the Vijaya; he reigned from 437 BC to 367 BC. According to many hist ...

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 ...

. She was the daughter of prince Girikandasiva, a powerful son of King Panduvasdeva with eight brothers. When she first met Prince Pandukabhaya, she was serving food at a

paddy field A paddy field is a flooded field (agriculture), field of arable land used for growing Aquatic plant, semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in sout ...

. She served food to Pandukabhaya on a Lotus leaf, and the leaf turned golden. Because of this incident, princess Pali came to be known as Swarnapali.(swarna=gold)

See also