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Climbing Sri Pada-By Uditha Devapriya Source:Island Photos by Dhananjaya Samarakoon When they weren’t climbing Sri Pada or conversing with kings, the earliest foreign travellers to Sri Lanka were dwelling on gems, rubies, topazes, sapphires, and moonstones. From Pliny and Cosmas to Fa Hsien, Odoric of Pordenone, de Marignolli, Friar Hethoun, Marco Polo, Ibn Batuta, and de Castanheda, it was all rubies and gems: Fa Hsien saw a Buddha image “in green jade more than 20 cubits high”, “a great ruby” that shone “like a bright star at night” which Marco Polo described as “a span long and as thick as a man’s arms.” Polo, a merchant who had served at the court of Kublai Khan, wrote of ambassadors being sent by that emperor to the king of “Zeitan” who asked him to yield this ruby in return for “the value of a city.” The king refused, informing them that it ...