After visiting the creamy white Tissamaharama Chaitya, our next stop was Kirinda. Being a warm day in the drought stricken Southern part, the late morning sun rays filtered us at the Kirinda’s rocky boulders. Where ever we see, we glimpsed brownish landscape around us. We saw a herd of cattle walking in search of water near the entrance to the Yala National Park. The situation was worse when we toured in South last month.
The newly built Buddha statue on the summit
Leafing through the chronicle of Mahavamsa, it tells us that during the reign of King Kelanitissa of Kelaniya, in the 2nd century BC there occurred a tragic event that marred the chronicles of the time. It was disclosed to the king that there had been a love affair between his queen and his brother, prince Ayy Uttika. A bhikkhu in attendance to the royal household was giving a helping hand in the promotion of the illicit love affair.
As the bhikkhu was leaving the royal palace, a love letter that was in his possession to be delivered to the queen was dropped on the ground to draw the attention of the queen. The king on hearing a rustling sound turned around, when to his horror, he discovered the hand-written letter.
The king erupted into a volcanic rage of anger and decreed that both the bhikkhu and the culprit be slain by putting them in a boiling cauldron which was to be thrown into the sea. This heinous act done, the sea gods had their wrath and fury over this brutal killing of the bhikkhu and caused the sea to overflow the land, in a big tidal wave.
Sacrifice
The king, in the meantime, was disturbed over the havoc caused by the fury of the winds and sea, as the area was submerged with angry tidal waves. In the form of penitence, he sacrificed his only beautiful daughter to the sea which act would propitiate the sea gods. The peerless princess was put on board a boat built of gold and in it was etched an inscription to say that the person aboard the vessel was a king’s daughter “Devi, the daughter of King Kelanitissa, given as an offering to the sea.”
The golden boat with its fair princess which was cast adrift came ashore at a spot called Dovera, near the present Kirinda (off Tissamaharama). The fishermen seeing the boat drifting towards the shore with its occupant, the princess, brought it to the notice of King Kavantissa of Mahagama. Now the just and wise king immediately took quick action to rescue the princess. The king with his retinue of royal ministers went to the spot and gave instructions to the fishermen to bring the boat with its princess to safe landing.
The king seeing the beautiful princess, when she landed ashore, extended his royal hand to her and with tumultuous welcome led her in a grand procession to the king’s capital at Mahagama. He made her his peerless queen. As the spot where princess Devi landed had stood a monastery by the name Lanka Vihara, she was aptly named Vihara Maha Devi. This cave monastery, according to a Brahmi inscription, had existed in the first century BC.
Nuptial ceremony
Legendary Vihara Maha Devi statue at Kirinda Vihara
To commemorate the occasion, the king had built a Chaitya on the rock outcrop overlooking the sea of Kirinda. This has been restored and looked magnificent in all its splendour and sanctity. There are legends woven into the royal wedlock of King Kavantissa and Vihar Maha Devi.
It says that the wedding ceremony of King Kavantissa and Princess Devi took place at Magul Maha Viharay (lying at the Yala National Park) and to commemorate that grand nuptial ceremony that these rock cave Viharas were built in the pattern of monasteries, Dagabas and Buddha statues.
Here lies an assembly of rock cave hermitages having drip-ledges on their apex, while above these drip-ledges are etched Brahmi inscriptions, dating back to the second and third centuries BC of the Kavantissa and Dutugemunu regimes of Ruhunu Rata.
Other remains of archaeological interest are a reclining Buddha statue, a recently restored Dagaba, rock pools. On the surface of the rock outcrop are rock-cut steps and a few standing stone pillars. Until recently a group of Bhikkhunies occupied the cave.
In Lahugala in the Eastern Province lies Lahugala Magul Maha Vihara where legend says both of them were wedded there and to commemorate the matrimonial occasion the temple had been built. Even today, we can see a stone structure called Magul Poruwa in Lahugala.
Folklore relates the same story here, the marriage and the building of the Vihara and other structures as a consequence of King Kavantissa and Vihara Maha Devi. There is another belief that the Dagaba and other buildings were built at a spot close Pottuvil in the Eastern Province to commemorate where Vihara Maha Devi princess landed in the sea shore.
Legend says another tale that Vihara Maha Devi landed at the estuary of the Kirindi Oya, the ancient port of Mahagama.
Steps of history
At Kirinda Vihara, as one climbs the steps of stone carved on the rock outcrop from those epic days of King Kavantissa, one would be climbing the steps of history engulfed in this sanctified place, which one could recount step by step as one steps on the rock carved steps. Overlooking this tumultuous sea and the placid bay of Kirinda Bay (now Fisheries Harbour) which in recent time was restored with Japanese aid, and fortified by a vast assembly of rock boulders, there stands to this day, a creamy white Dagaba built on the ruins of the original Dagaba to commemorate the epic occasion of the casting ashore the boat which carried the princess.
At Kirinda, once you venture to the small, but beautiful Dagaba, you discover Kirinda’s real wonder: the way it peters out to the sea. The Dagaba, the statue of Queen Vihara Maha Devi, the shrine of god Kataragama: all these structures are balanced on huge boulders of rock that stand up to the Indian Ocean. As you climb up to the summit, in giant letters painted on the mass of rocks is the repeated warning: Muhuda Bili Ganee (the sea claims sacrifices here). It sends a chill down every pilgrim’s spine and even the most skeptical visitor cannot but believe this to be a fact, as the sea churns and roars below.
