Lankapatuna Samudragiri Viharaya

Not to be confused with Mirissa Samudragiri Viharaya

Lankapatuna Samudragiri Viharaya (Sinhala: ලංකාපටුන සමුද්‍රගිරි විහාරය) is a Buddhist temple situated in Lankapatuna (Tamil: Ilankathurai) in Trincomalee District, Sri Lanka.

History

Popular belief

Lankapatuna in Sinhala means the "Lanka's port". The temple is located on an elevated rock that sticks out of the shoreline and lies at the mouth of the Ullakkalli lagoon. According to popular belief, this is the historic Port of Lankapatuna where Prince Dantha and Princess Hemamala set foot in Sri Lanka bringing the Tooth Relic of the Buddha in the 4th century A.D. (Medhananda, 2003).

LTTE threats  

Medhananda Thera, a Buddhist monk who visited this site in 1965 reported the ruins scattered at this place including the remnants of an ancient Buddhist Stupa of about 8 ft. tall (Medhananda, 2003). However, during the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009), this site was captured and used as a gun post by the cadres of "Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam" (LTTE), a secessionist group designated as a terrorist organization by a number of countries including India, the United States and the European Union (Klem, 2012). Following the peace talks between the LTTE and the Government in 2002, a Hindu shrine was established at this ruined site in 2003 (Medhananda, 2003). However, after liberating the area from the LTTE, the present temple was established at the site (Klem, 2012).

A protected site

The ancient Dagaba, ruined pond, oval-shaped and rectangular-shaped pickaxe marks and Pana-bemi in the Lankapatuna Samudragiri Vihara premises in the Seenathvali village in the Grama Niladhari Division of Uppural in the Divisional Secretary's Division of Seruvila are archaeological protected monuments, declared by a government gazette notification published on 7 March 2008.

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Attribution

1) Lankapatuna by Dilkas rusthy is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

References

1) Klem, B.W.N., 2012. In the wake of war. The political geography of transition in eastern Sri Lanka (Doctoral dissertation, University of Zurich). pp.131,262.

2) Medhananda, Ven. Ellawala, 2003. Pacheena passa - Uttara passa: Negenahira palata ha uturu palate Sinhala bauddha urumaya (In Sinhala). Dayawansa Jayakody & Company. Colombo. ISBN: 978-955-686-112-9. pp.319-322.

3) The Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. No: 1540. 7 March 2008. p.175.

Location Map

This page was last updated on 1 July 2022