₨500 — Five Hundred Rupees
The artwork
Front: A Kandyan drummer in cloth headdress and a second musician sit at the right, geta bera drums across their knees, worked in olive and plum intaglio. At the left edge stands a small Ves dancer in full silver headdress, mid-step. Between them, the bank's name in Sinhala, Tamil and English over a rosette of temple ornament, with the denomination spelled out in Sinhala, the two ministerial signatures and the date 2004-04-10.
Back: A spray of large frilled orchids in pink and carmine fills the left half, drawn botanically and printed over a pale sunburst. Behind it, in gold and green, the curve of a great dish and its lattice access tower rise from open ground. The right panel carries the bank's name in all three languages, a 500 in a lotus medallion, and a small wading bird among leaves in the clear paper.family of Sri Lankan designs.
In circulation
Part of the trilingual series Sri Lanka introduced in 1991, printed with fresh dates through the 1990s and 2000s — this one carries 10 April 2004. It was superseded from 2011 by the current "Development, Prosperity and Dancers" family, after which the older 500s were gradually withdrawn from till use.
Details
- IssuerCentral Bank of Sri Lanka, named on both sides in Sinhala, Tamil and English
- CurrencyRupee (₨)
- DenominationFive Hundred Rupees
- Collectedon the Sri Lanka journey, 2005
- Series1991 trilingual series; this note dated 10 April 2004
- SignatureTwo signatures, the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Central Bank
- SecuritySerial number in two positions, H/92 prefix; watermark window in the right-hand panel