Anuradhapura is a major city located in north central plain of Sri Lanka. The city is now a World Heritage Site famous for its well-preserved ruins of the ancient Sinhalese civilization.
While Mahavamsa place the founding of the city in 437 BCE, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it a major human settlement on the island for almost three millennia and one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Asia. It is the cradle of the Hydraulic Sinhalese civilization, Theravada Buddhism, and the longest-serving ancient capital of Sri Lanka that has survived for 1500 years.
The main reason for the historical city of Anuradhapura to become a sacred city was the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi.Accordingly, the oldest tree of the whole world with a written history is the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi.
The Ruwanweli Maha Seya, also known as the Mahathupa , is a stupa (a hemispherical structure containing relics) in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Two quarts or one Dona of the Buddha’s relics are enshrined in the stupa, making it the largest collection of his relics anywhere. It was built by Sinhalese King Dutugemunu in c. 140 B.C.