The Lankatilaka is the most architecturally ambitious of the brick-built image houses at Polonnaruwa — a cathedral-like vaulted hall whose walls still stand more than 17 metres high, although the roof and the colossal Buddha image inside are now in ruin. You walk in through a vast doorway carved with celestial beings to find the headless standing Buddha at the end of the long inner sanctum.
The lines of the brick walls and the proportions of the entrance are still striking after eight hundred years. The exterior is decorated with row upon row of niches that once held smaller seated Buddhas, most of them now gone. Allow time to walk both sides — the east face is the most photogenic.