Japanese Peace Pagoda (Ampara)

The Peace Pagoda, also known as Japan Sama Cetiya (Sinhala: අම්පාර ජපන් සාම චෛත්‍යය), is a Japanese-styled Stupa situated on the verge of Ampara Wewa in Ampara District, Sri Lanka. The site can be reached by travelling along the Inginiyagala - Ampara road, about 3.5 km distance from Ampara town. It is one of the five Japan Peace Pagodas in the country.

A Peace Pagoda is a Buddhist stupa erected to inspire peace and most of the peace pagodas in the world built since World War II (1939-1945), have been built under the guidance of the Japanese Buddhist monk Nichidatsu Fujii (1885-1985), the founder of the Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist Order. He constructed 80 of these pagodas around the world after World War II, including at Hiroshima and Nagasaki (McIntosh et al., 2019).

The Peace Pagoda at Ampara was constructed with the objective of commemorating the 99th birthday of Nichidatsu Fujii. It was declared open on 28 February 1988 with the participation of then Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene (1978-1989).

The temple consists of a large Pagoda, a Mahayana-style image house and a Bodhi tree. The Pagoda with a retinue of 99 small pagodas is surrounded by a wide ambulatory supported by arches and pillars and adorned with two sizeable golden Buddha statues; one in Sri Lankan and the other in Japanese style.