Sri Lanka takes its place in Asian garden history not only by virtue of its chronicle accounts, inscriptional records and literary descriptions of gardens and natural environments, but even more so on account of the unique survival of the archaeological remains of many planned garden forms, especially from time horizons earlier than those of surviving historic gardens in other South Asian societies and cultures. The Sri Lankan relict gardens are an archaeological phenomenon little seen elsewhere in Asia from a period prior to the 13th century.<\/p>\n
Following the journey proposed by Klaus Holzhausen and the authors of this volume, one goes from surprise to surprise. First of all, there’s the unsuspected world of the great royal estates: spatial generosity here reflects a local aristocratic civilisation which found in the garden the highest point of its art. Another essential tradition presented in this volume is that of Sri Lanka’s monastic gardens. The sheer number of Buddhist monasteries scattered all over the island since almost 2000 years is incredible. Most of these sites contain rather gardens than buildings. Then there’s the more complex case of colonial gardens, those magical but often forced amalgams between a self-celebrating culture from outside and the local topography and vegetation. Last but not least – and the volume that Klaus Holzhausen, as a true prophet of the places he has traversed for nearly three decades, makes clear – is the existence of contemporary gardens that have, physically and immediately for those lucky enough to walk through them, an extraordinary force and something to teach the world.<\/p>\n
The extremely meticulous way in which Gardens of Sri Lanka<\/em><\/strong> has been elaborated and the quality of the iconic and written documentation permit readers to already be there and to discover page after page the existence of another world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A meticulous presentation of the Sri Lankan relict gardens, an archaeological phenomenon, little seen elsewhere in Asia.
13 General Introduction
\n32 Chronology of Sri Lanka’s history
\n33 Map of Sri Lanka
\n35 Royal Gardens
\n35 Introduction
\n36 Anuradhapura
\n39 Ranmasu Uyana
\n54 Sigiriya
\n73 Polonnaruwa
\n82 A Secondary Lake Surrounding the Promontory?
\nA Hypothesis
\n88 Shifting Capitals
\n89 Kandy
\n101 Monastic Gardens
\n101 Introduction
\n102 Anuradhapura
\n104 Giri (Hill) Monasteries
\n119 Centric (Metropolitan) Monasteries
\n132 Pabbata (Mountain) Vihara
\n134 Padhanagara Parivena
\n(Meditation Monasteries)
\n140 Kaludiya Pokuna Mihintale
\n152 Ritigala
\n160 Arankäle
\n166 The Bodhi Tree Shrine, a Sacred Garden
\n175 The Colonial Encounter
\n175 Introduction
\n178 Atapattu Walawwa
\n180 The ‘Royal’ Botanic Garden, Peradeniya
\n183 The Hakgala Botanic Garden
\n189 Richmond Castle at Kalutara
\n193 Roehampton Tea Estate Garden
\n196 The Girls’ School at Uduvil
\n200 Taprobane at Weligama
\n205 Modern and Contemporary Gardens
\n205 Introduction
\n206 Bevis Bawa’s Gardens
\n206 The Brief Garden
\n215 The Gardens of the Sigiriya Village Hotel (the older part)
\n217 Geoffrey Bawa’s Gardens
\n218 Lunuganga
\n224 The Kandalama Hotel, near Dambulla
\n229 Laki Senanayake’s Gardens
\n229 Diyabubula (the artist’ own garden)
\n234 The Gardens of the Sigiriya Village Hotel (the second part)
\n236 The Boulder Garden Hotel
\n241 Afterword
\n243 Bibliography
\n247 Glossary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":56894,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[21062],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-56893","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-natural-world","7":"author-edited-by-klaus-holzhausen","8":"author-edited-by-senake-bandaranayake","9":"publisher-silvana","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"shipping-taxable","14":"purchasable","15":"product-type-simple"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n