Sundara-Mahadevi, an Odia queen in medieval Sri Lanka who was called its greatest politician, ended up in Lanka due to marriage.
Near the ruins of the royal palace at Polonnaruwa—Sri Lanka’s most important medieval city—is a rather unassuming open-aired hall. On one of its stone slabs is an inscription of a queen called Sundara-Mahadevi, or Sundari, from the distant land of Kalinga (present-day Odisha). Her unassuming stone inscription reveals a wild history of dynastic intermarriage and int...
