Place · Buddhist temple · Sri Lanka
Kelaniya
The Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara Buddhist temple on the Kelani river 11 kilometres from Colombo, Sri Lanka — one of the most sacred Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka, holding one of the Solosmasthana (16 holiest sites) marked by the Buddha's third visit to Sri Lanka in the eighth year after his enlightenment. The traditional foundation of the Kelaniya temple is 500 BCE; the current structure is 13th-century with Dutch-period (18th century) and 1927 Solias Mendis-painted mural restorations. The 1927 murals by Solias Mendis depicting Jataka tales and the arrival of Buddhism to Sri Lanka are among the finest 20th-century Sri Lankan Buddhist art. The annual January Duruthu Perahera procession commemorates the Buddha's visit. The temple remains an active pilgrimage with over 2 million annual visitors.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 6.955, 79.921
Connections (1)
- PilgrimageAdam's Peak / Sri Pāda
Kelaniya and Adam's Peak are both sites the Mahāvamsa attaches to the Buddha's three legendary visits to the island. One is a riverside temple near Colombo repainted in the 1930s with a nationalist history of the island; the other is a summit whose single footprint four religions claim. Solias Mendis painted the Kelaniya murals in the 1930s, deliberately reviving an older Sinhala idiom, at exactly the moment independence was being argued for.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kelaniya”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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