Angurukaramulla Viharaya, also known as Bodhirajarama Viharaya (Sinhala: අඟුරුකාරමුල්ල පන්සල, බෝධිරාජාරාම විහාරය), is a Buddhist temple situated in Negombo in Gampaha District, Sri Lanka.
History
A land to construct a Buddhist temple at Angurukaramulla is said to have been first donated in 1868 to Kirimetiyawe Revatha Thera. But as it was not enough to build the temple, the land where the present temple stands was bestowed for that purpose by a person named Simon de Silva Mudali. There is a ruined library building in the temple premises which, according to the on-site plaque, was declared open in 1941 by Sir Andrew Caldecott, the Governor of British Ceylon from 1937 to 1944 (Briggs, 2018).
Image house & Vatadageya
The temple is popular among all local and foreign tourists for its large number of paintings and sculptures in the image house. The image house is 103 ft. long and 38 ft. wide and contains a valuable collection of arts and images done in the 20th century by an artist named Jayoris Gurunnanse. The marble Buddha statue in Bumi-sparsha Mudra and the long frieze comprising life-size figures of every Sinhalese monarch beginning from legendary Vijaya to King Vikrama Rajasinghe are notable among the sculptures in the image house.
The three-storey Vatadageya shrine that houses the Stupa is said to be the first such kind of structure built in Sri Lanka after the demise of the Sinhalese monarch in 1815.
Attribution
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References
1) Briggs, P., 2018. Sri Lanka. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN: 9781784770570. p.134.
Location Map
This page was last updated on 18 June 2022