by Rear Admiral Lakshman Illangakoon
(Commander, East, SLN)
Male Male thembiliya wenna pol male
Rale Rale Mudin damana diya rale
Bale Bale Rasin Deyyange bale
Galin Kotuwa Bendai Thirikuna male
I have always wondered exactly where this fort of hewn stone was built. From the poem it is quiet apparent that it was somewhere in Trincomalee. When King Rajasinghe (1629-1687), one of the longest- reigning Sinhala kings, was King of Kandy, he fought two invading forces, both predominantly powerful international maritime powers of the time. First, he fought the Portuguese, even before he became king; in the famous battle of Randenigala. He with his other brothers commanded the Sinhala army which annihilated the Portuguese army that had come to attack the Kandyan kingdom.
He fought side by side with the Dutch, his newfound ally, to get rid of the Portuguese, but was disappointed when the Dutch, instead of handing over the Portuguese positions, kept them to themselves, violating their agreement with the king. During his reign Trincomalee became a very important part of his kingdom for all Western maritime powers of any note at the time were interested in Trincomalee, because they knew it was the key to control the Indian Ocean and the East- West trade. That is why, then Prime Minister of England, William Pit (1766-1768), called Trincomalee "the finest and most advantageous Bay in the whole of India …. the equal of which is hardly known, in which a whole fleet may safely ride and remain in tranquility."
Obviously, all the nations which were interested in controlling Trincomalee at least once, built a fortress there. The Portuguese built one, in Koneshwaram in 1625, on the ruins of the ‘temple of 1000 pillars’. In addition to Koneshwaram (later known as Fort Frederick by the Dutch) there are several fortified positions in different places in Trincomalee that changed hands among maritime powers depending on the rise and fall of their empires. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the English at some point had some foothold in Trincomalee.
Sinhala armies hardly used fortified strongholds in their war tactics. Even during the time of Dutugemunu the strategy was to use flexibility; movement and siege warfare to attack enemy strong positions. Hence, we do not see many ruins of fortified positions that were built by Sinhalese armies during the long history of fighting invaders. Getting restricted to forts and fortified positions would have diminished the advantage Sinhala armies were enjoying in there familiar terrains using guerrilla guerrilla. That was why King Wimala Dharmasooriya (1591-1604) said, "Let them built it for me, and I shall soon raze them again" when the Portuguese building forts near the frontiers.
So what would a monarch from the mountains look for, to build a fort in Trincomalee to guard the harbour against invaders? Surely it was a high place with an unobstructed vista. The other important requirement would be that the location must be at the entrance or thereabouts of Trincomalee harbour.
There are several places that meet the requirements- Fort Frederick (height-150m), Chapel Hill(103m) ,Osternberge ridge (80m), Hoods tower (82m), Diamond Hill (79 m), Clappernberg (100 m) and Sober Island (70m). There are no matching locations found south of Trincomalee harbour.
So, of these probable places where did King Rajasinghe build his stone fort? Building a fort well inside the entrance does not make sense, since a fort in that part of the harbour would not allow the sentries to watch for ships approaching the harbour.On that clue Diamond Hill and Clappernberg can easily be ruled out. In the case of Sober Island, it is true that it stands like a massive rock right at the entrance to the harbour, but like elevated positions left of entrance, it too does not afford a watch over the open sea.
Now the choice has been narrowed down to Koneshwaram, Hoods Tower, Chapel Hill or Osternberg ridge. Of the four, Koneshwaram has a well recorded history of its occupants from the time it was built in 1625. And king Rajasinghe assumed the Kandyan crown only in 1629. So, the years don’t match. By the time King Rajasinghe ascended to the throne, the Koneshwaram fort had already been built and the records of Koneshwaram do not mention any involvement of King Rajasinghe in that fort.
Now we are left with only three locations and all of them are located within the naval dockyard. Chapel Hill, Hood Tower and Osternberg. However, of them only two places have ruins of a fort- Hoods Tower and Osternberg. Within the old British gun site in Hoods Tower there is a small but well built fort. It appears that this fort was repaired, modified and strengthened at different periods of times, probably in the view of prevailing threat and emerging advances in weaponry. However it is very difficult to ascertain when it was built, because of so many modifications that have been effected mostly over one another. Some even believe that this fort had originally been built by Parakramabahu the Great.
Osternberg, on the other hand, appears to be the most likely place where the stone fort of King Rajasinghe built. It is at a very high place right at the entrance to the harbor, with a commanding view of the inner harbour as well as the outer harbour. A fort on top of Osternberg would be very difficult to surprise because of the steepness of the hillock that it sits on. The present structure of Osternberg, like all the other forts in Sri Lanka, has been re-built, modified and changed by different nations during different eras. However during a recent visit, I noticed some well hewn square blocks of stones with a hole on one side being used as stepping stones at the Osternberg fort. Though I cannot say for certain, this kind of stones I have seen only in ancient building sites, built by Sri Lankan workers. These stones are, probably the remnants from the original fort built by King Rajasinghe. However, a more careful and systematic study using modern techniques should be commissioned to confirm this theory.
There is, however, another possibility. The fort of hewn stone, the poem refers to, could be the fort that was built by French Admiral De La Haye in Sober Island in 1672, during an attempt by the French to gain a foothold in Trincomalee. King Rajasinghe, after signing an agreement with the French, sent a large body of men to work together with them to build this fortified position in Sober Island. The writer of the poem may be referring to that combined effort without mentioning the French, to exalt the deeds of the King Rajasinghe, his hero.
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