Arthur C. Clarke
The Fountains of Paradise
To the still unfading memory ofLESLIE EKANAYAKE (13 JuIy 1947 – 4 July 1977) only perfect friend of a lifetime, in whom were uniquely combined Loyalty, Intelligence and Compassion. When your radiant and loving spirit vanished from this world, the light went out of many lives.
NIRVANA PRAPTO BHUYAT
Politics and religion are obsolete; the time has come for science and spirituality.
Sri Jawaharlal Nehru, to the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science, Colombo, 15 October 1962.
Foreword
“From Paradise to Taprobane is forty leagues; there may be heard the sound of the Fountains of Paradise.”
Traditional: reported by Friar Marignolli (A.D. 1335)
The country I have called Taprobane does not quite exist, but is about ninety percent congruent with the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Though the Afterword will make clear what locations, events and personalities are based on fact, the reader will not go far wrong in assuming that the more unlikely the story, the closer it is to reality.
The name “Taprobane” is now usually spoken to rhyme with “plain”, but the correct classical pronunciation is “Tap-ROB-a-nee”
–as Milton, of course, well knew:
"From India and the golden Chersoness
And utmost Indian Isle Taprobane…
(Paradise Regained, Book IV)
I – THE PALACE
1. Kalidasa
The crown grew heavier with each passing year. When the Venerable Bodhidharma Mahanayake Thero had – so reluctantly! – first placed it upon his head, Prince Kalidasa was surprised by its lightness. Now, twenty years later, King Kalidasa gladly relinquished the jewel-encrusted band of gold, whenever court etiquette allowed.
There was little of that here, upon the windswept summit of the rock fortress; few envoys or petitioners sought audience on its forbidding heights.