Rajaguru Sri Subhuthi Maha Viharaya (Sinhala: වස්කඩුව රාජගුරු ශ්රී සුභූති විහාරය) is a Buddhist temple situated in Waskaduwa in Kalutara District, Sri Lanka.
History
This is the temple where the renowned Pali scholar-monk Rajaguru Sri Subhuthi Thera (1835-1917 A.D.) resided. He was cited often
in the works of the 19th century European and American scholars of Buddhism, such as Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893 A.D.), Robert Caesar Childers (1838-1876 A.D.), and Michael Viggo Fausböll [(1821-1908 A.D.) Mukherjee, 2018]. In recognition of Subhuthi Thera's scholarship and his participation in Orientalist research, bureaucrats in British India once presented him a fragment of an alms bowl believed to have belonged to the Buddha himself, which had been discovered from the ruins of a Stupa at Nala Sopara in Maharashtra by the Indian archaeologist Bhagwan Lal Indraji [(1839-1888 A.D.) Mukherjee, 2018]. He also received some relics of the Buddha discovered from the excavation works carried out on Piprawa Stupa in 1898 by William C Peppe.
Sir Robert Chalmers, the Governor of Ceylon from 1913 to 1915 is said to have learnt the Pali language from Subhuthi Thera at the library of this temple.
A protected site
The birthplace of Subuthi Thera and the Seema Malakaya building located in the premises of Rajaguru Sri Subuthi Vihara in the Kalutara Divisional Secretary Division are archaeological protected monuments, declared by a government gazette
notification published on 22 November 2002. References
1) Mukherjee, S., 2018. Relics in Transition: Material Mediations in Changing Worlds. Ars Orientalis, 48. pp.20-42.
2) The Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. No: 1553. 22 November 2002.
Location Map
This page was last updated on 14 May 2023
