On Taprobane

"From Paradise to Taprobane is forty leagues; there may  be heard the sound of the Fountains of Paradise."  -Traditional; reported by Friar Marignolli (AD: 1355).  And also the quote that starts The Fountains of Paradise

A note on the name of this blog and also why we wanted to go to Sri Lanka.  The name Taprobane (with the ee sound at the end) is what Sri Lanka was know as by the Roman Empire in its hey-day.  It is also the name that Arthur C. Clark gave to the island that was 90% Sri Lanka, with some minor geographical quirks (it was on the equator was that main thing), in his book, The Fountains of Paradise.  In the introduction to the book, Clarke wryly notes that the stranger and more outlandish something was, the more likely it was based on reality.  We read The Fountains of Paradise on our last trip in Southeast Asia and even considered going to Sri Lanka after we left Malaysia before settling on Laos.

Clarke, as many people know, lived most of his life in Sri Lanka and was actually given the highest civilian honour by the Sri Lankan government for spreading positivity about the place (he was also knighted by the English government).  Obviously there was something that kept him here besides the scuba diving which was one of his passions.  One thing that we have thought of, since being here ourselves, is that he probably had a pretty good view of the stars here (we certainly do), which I imagine would be a plus for a Science Fiction writer.

In any event, The Fountains of Paradise takes place about 200 years from now in a time of sustained peace (Clarke was an optimistic Sci-fi writer).  He describes places in Taprobane that had exact parallels with Sri Lanka.  When we heard these descriptions we were mightily interested.  The story centres around an old Taprobanian diplomat (Rajasinghe) and an engineer (Vanevar Morgan) trying to make a space elevator on the summit of a mountain called Sri Kanda (or Sri Prada, its name in reality).  It also kind of parallels the activities of Morgan with that of an ancient King of Taprobane named Kalidasa, who build a castle all to himself on a smaller mountain looking at Sri Kanda.  On this mountain he commissioned some of the most fantastic frescos of women and goddesses in the world.  I forget what it was called in the book, but in Sri Lanka this place is called Sigiria and is considered (so we were informed by the people at the Lavinia Art Gallery) to be the 8th wonder of the world.  The admission price is pretty steep (and so are the stairs apparently), but it would sort of be like going to Cambodia and not seeing Ankor Wat.  In the story, Rajasinghe lived beside the Taprobane Sigiria and spent a good deal of time describing it to us.

But the thing that really got us interested was the description of Sri Kanda (that is Sri Pada).  Early in the book Morgan makes his way to the monastery at its summit to catch the dawn.  From the summit he can see the shadow of the mountain slowly appear on the sea of clouds below him as the sun rises.  We plan to walk up Sri Pada to catch such a dawn.  The scene is described beautifully and both of us listened with rapt attention to it.  We hope to be able to write our own description of it.

It was that description that haunted us and was one of the main reasons why we picked Sri Lanka as our destination.

Calling this blog Searching for Taprobane, is kind of like saying we are searching for Clarke's optimistic vision of the future of the country and the world.  While it seems unlikely that we will find a place that is without tension or strife, we have already found glimmers of hope in the places we have been so far, that it is possible to move together into the future with compassion and the willingness to overlook the differences of others.