Travel Sri Lanaka

Visiting Places atArugambay Beach Sri Lanka

2011-09-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

Arugam Bay is situated on the Indian Ocean in the dry zone of Sri Lanka's South-East coast. The Bay is located 220 km due East of Colombo. It is a popular surfing and tourist destination. Many of the buildings were destroyed in the 2004 tsunami.Due to its popularity among tourists thearea has managed a slow recovery by private initiatives only.The main road through town has not been repaved yet.By April,2008 no help has been received from any official source or International organizations. An exception is uncoordinated support for fishing folk as well as many school rebuilding programs, sadly resulting in a continuation to provide only separatist schools for each Community

provide only separatist schools for each Community

Arugam Bay is far away! 7 hours drive from Colombo, it has until fairly recently only attracted a tthts. There are now almost dayly flights to Ampara with Sri Lankan Airlines sea planes. They are presntly applying for a licence to land on Pottuvil Lagoon. The ISA (International Surfing Association) staged Arugam Bay's first international surfing competition in the summer of 2004, and despite the shocking destruction of the Tsunami, returned again in 2005 to give the battered local economy a boost. 2005 was a difficult year for Arugam Bay as it was one of the worst hit areas of the country. The post Tsunami recovery has by and large been very quick despite the remoteness of the area. many NGO's and private organisations like ourselves (LankaRealAid) have help rebuild the area and some of the guest houses are now much better than before the wave. Both north and south of Arugam Bay there are undoubtedly some of the most beautiful beaches in the whole of Sri Lanka.

Visiting Places at Anuradhapura

2011-09-06T09:54:00.000-07:00

Sri Maha Bodhi

It is hard to believe - but there is no shadow of doubt at all - that this small tree with limbs so slender that they must be supported on iron crutches, is the oldest historically authenticated tree in the world (2,250 years).

It has never since been without its hereditary attendants and the care, to the very end, of the country's kings. As lately as the reign of King Keerti Sri Rajasingha, a wall was built around the tree. In 1966 it was enclosed in a golden railing.

The great ancient Sinhalese Buddhist monuments of Anurdhapura are clustered around this Peepal tree (ficus religiosa) called Sri Maha Bodhi, a sapling of the Peepal Tree at Buddha Gaya, Northern India in whose shelter Gautama Buddha attained supreme enlightenment.

The sapling was brought to Sri Lanka by Buddhist nun Sanghamitta, the daughter of King Asoka of India in the 3rd Century B.C. To the north of the well protected and well adorned tree are three great monasteries: the Mahavihara, the Abhayagiri and the Jetavana.

Visiting Places at Anuradhapura

2011-09-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

Brazen Palace

Today, all we have are 1600 stone pillars in 40 rows of the Brazen Palace. A great gleaming roof, made of copper, slanting down to all four sides from the centermost point gave shelter to 1000 windowed chambers in 9 stories rising to a height of 150 feet.

Says the Mahavamsa, the great historical Chronicle of Sri Lanka: “A thousand well-arranged chambers were in the pasada, overlaid with various gems and adorned with windows. The king had a gem-pavilion set up in the middle. It was adorned with pillars consisting of precious stone, on which were figures of lions, tigers and so forth, and shapes of devatas. A bordering of pearl network ran round the edge of the pavilion and thereon was a coral vedika.” (Ch. 27)

That was during reign of King Dutugamunu, ‘The Hero of the Nation”. Such was the splendor of the monumental Brazen Palace built on the location of chapter house called Mahamucala Malala consecrated by Maha Thera Mahinda, the apostle of Gauthama Buddha who devoted his lifetime to propagating Buddhism in ancient Lanka.

Adjoining Lohapasada or Brazen Palace are ruins of Alms-hall called Catussala of the Buddhist monks of Mahavihara monastery. At the eastern corner of these ruins is a rice boat, a 45 feet long vessel cut into a slab of rock that could contain alms to at least 3000 monks at a time. The rice boat corresponds well the narration of the Chinese Buddhist scholar Fa-Hsien. According to him, there were 3000 monks at Mahavihara monastery at Anuradhapura.

Visiting Places at Anuradhapura

2011-09-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Ruwanweliseya

The construction of Ruwanweliseya was prophesied by the great Buddhist missionary Maha Thera Arhath Mahinda, who brought Buddhism to Sri Lanka from India during the reign of King Devanampiya Tissa (250-210 BC). Having heard of the prophesy of Maha Thera Mahinda to the effect that a great Stupa would be built by a great king at a certain location at Anurdhapura, King Devanampiya Tissa had an inscription pillar planted at the said location narrating the prophesy.

A little more than a century later, the inscription pillar was destined to be found by a fitting hero: King Dutugamunu (101-77 B.C.), who rescued the Sinhalese Buddhist nation from the Dravidian invader. “The Hero of the Nation” wasted no time and commenced the construction of Ruwanweliseya also named Maha Stupa or Ratnapali Stupa or Swarnamali stupa.

Following the declaration of the king that no work at the great stupa should go unrewarded, a streak of luck dawned on the pious king: a rich vein of Silver was discovered at a village subsequently renamed Ridigama meaning Village of Silver in Sinhala. The construction of stupa cost the king 6.4 million coins in wages alone.

At a circumference of 370 feet and a height of 180 feet, Ruwanweliseya, the third largest stupa of Sri Lanka, is the focal point of the Maha Vihara, the first monastery of Sri Lanka. It is believed a considerable amount of relics of Buddha is enshrined in this glorious stupa, built in replicating the shape of a bubble of water. At the eastern entrance to the stupa is a statue of King Dutugamaunu. According to the records made by Fa Hsien, the Chinese Buddhist monk, who toured Sri Lanka in the 5th century CE, Maha Vihara monastery housed no less than 3000 Buddhist monks.

Since the death of King Dutugamunu, “The Hero of the Nation”, the great stupa had been renovated by a succession of Sinhalese king till King Nissanka Malla (1187-1196 AC). By the 19th century, Anurdahapura, once the greatest monastic city of the world, also named Anurogrammon, by the Greek cartographer Claudius Ptolemy (90-168 AD) was deserted;Ruwanweliseya was in ruins.

In the year 1893, a patriotic and pious Buddhist monk called Naranvita Sumanasara Thera supported by a community of humble villagers in the region, took upon the Herculean task of reconstructing the great stupa. The community resulted in forming a society called Ratnamali Chaityawardhana Society.