The Indrasaramaya in Aruggoda

By Uditha Devapriya

In his book on the rock and wall paintings of Sri Lanka, Senake Bandaranayake questions whether the southern tradition of Buddhist temple art was derived from or inspired by the Kandyan tradition. Though displaying an entirely different character from Kandyan art, low country temple paintings nevertheless shared certain affinities, in particular its depiction of Gautama Buddha and his disciples. Yet such affinities intersected with certain unique traits, such as its depictions of the underworld.

Though we know very little about the culture in the Maritime Provinces in the 18th century, we know that with British annexation of the low country and later the Kandyan kingdom, Buddhist art underwent a pivotal transformation. This accompanied what Bandaranayake notes as “the transmission of Buddhist leadership” to the low country.

Such transformations had a profound impact even on temples in the Maritime Provinces linked to the monastic chapters of Kandy. Yet though connected to Kandy, their association with the latter chapters did not erode their independent character. As Kitsiri Malalgoda has noted, geography played as much a role in the formation of different Buddhist sects as did caste, which is how high caste laymen in the South felt inclined to offer alms to Salagama-affiliated Amarapura Nikaya rather than the Govigama-affiliated Siam Nikaya.

A similar disruption transpired in the mid-19th century when a breakaway faction in Kotte threatened the monopoly of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters in the Siam Nikaya. Not surprisingly, certain low country played a significant role in these developments. Malalgoda notes several of these temples, including one rather unlikely Viharaya situated in the border between the Colombo and Kalutara districts, in Aruggoda.

The Rajavaliya refers to Aruggoda as Arakshagoda. After Alakeshwara, a Minister in the reign of Vikramabahu III of Gampola, destroyed a fleet of ships belonging to Arya Chakravarthi in Panadura, it is said that he stationed his troops at Arakshagoda to ensure the protection of the Raigam Kingdom. This was reputedly the highest point in the region.

Local folklore has it that Arakshagoda changed throughout the years and decades, from Arakgoda, Arukgoda, Aruggodawila, and finally to Aruggoda. We can never be sure, but what we can be sure of is that Parakramabahu VI of Kotte turned the region into a viharagam.

Although Aruggoda doesn’t contain a significant Catholic population, along the Panadura-Ratnapura road it begins with a Christian cross: a kurusa handiya between Pamunugama and Alubomulla. The entire area, which borders on the Bolgoda Lake, is linked to Panadura through Hirana. In the 19th century the Buddhists of Panadura had agitated for a viharaya in their vicinity; the Rankot Vehera had not yet been built. The temple, the Indrasararamaya, would be built in the vicinity and quickly became pivotal to the spread of Buddhism in the surrounding areas and beyond, though it took a cool half a century to be complete.

With the ordination of a new Buddhist order under Welivita Saranankara during Kirti Sri Rajasinghe’s reign, the links between various temples and pirivenas gained strength. Among Saranankara’s pupils was Dehigaspe Atthadissi, who the records say was quite close to Kirti Sri Rajasinghe and who took up his teacher’s work. He sought shelter at the Muthugala Viharaya in Dambulla, from where he oversaw the restoration of the Kelaniya Temple. Given his influence several disciples gathered around him; to one of them, Sangharakkitha, he devolved the responsibility for the welfare of the others, before passing away at Kithaladeniya Viharaya.

One of Sangharakkitha’s disciples was Waththawe Indrasara. As with his teachers, Indrasara had committed himself to the restoration of temples that had been destroyed by the colonial powers, particularly in that interlude when Buddhism was flourishing after the fall of the Dutch.

Given the enormity of his task Waththawe Indrasara Thera regularly sojourned from one place to another. It so happened that one day, on a pilgrimage from his abode at Mathugala to Galle, he passed Aruggoda. The inhabitants there had been planning on building a temple; the site proposed was to be on the same higher ground that Alakeshwara had reputedly stationed his troops at in Maha Aruggoda.

The problem was that the village lacked a Chief Prelate. Upon seeing Indrasara Thera, a group of residents at the Panadura courts prevailed on him to take up the position. After listening to their pleas, the monk agreed, and agreed to the site they had selected.

From then for over four decades, the villagers worked hard to complete the temple. It wasn’t easy, not least because the most typically used material for the construction of such sites included pol leli and meti (much more formidable than gadol), the latter of which had to be transported from Kandy. Nevertheless, at the time of the monk’s passing away in 1852, the temple had been built; through his will Indrasara Thera transferred the surrounding areas to the viharaya. By then he had, moreover, a retinue of 18 disciples, all of whom would, through their own disciples, provide the impetus for the building of temples in adjacent areas.

Despite being a stronghold, however, the Viharaya’s reputation seems to have gradually diminished in later years. It had been run as an outfit of the Asgiriya Chapter, and in keeping with the practice of the time had admitted only those of the higher castes (though low castes had been allowed the lesser privilege of the upasampadawa). Later it became the centre from which the Kotte fraternity of the Asigiriya Chapter operated, overseeing a network of 18 temples. The Indrasararamaya at one point took precedence within that network, so much so that it was at Aruggoda where the upasampadawa and ordination ceremonies for laymen in the region was carried out.

However, in keeping with the recurring cycle of unification and fragmentation in the Buddhist order after the capitulation of the Dutch, it had also been a witness to the rise of rebel sects. Around the time of Indrasara Thera’s passing away a new schism had emerged in the Siyam Nikaya, owing to a proposal made by a monk called Bentara Aththadissi that a low country (high caste) faction be constituted. The monks of the Siyam Nikaya, which included Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala, had wholeheartedly disagreed; nevertheless in June 1855, despite the prohibition on them laid by the Malvatta Chapter, Bentara Aththadissi’s clan met at the Kotte temple (the Chief Incumbent of which was Aththadissi’s pupil) and decided to call themselves the Kalyani Fraternity. Among the monks who were allied with this splinter group had been Panadure Sumangala, one of Indrasara Thera’s pupils.

The support extended to the Kalyani monks by the Indrasaramaya didn’t end there. Malamulle Vijitha, another of Indrasara Thera’s pupils, had donated several kos trees belonging to the temple to the construction of a building for the fraternity, particularly after the priests of the Kelani Temple had refused to throw their support behind it. The rifts between the conservatives, the rebels, and the loyalists in the low country would continue for a long, long time, and during this period, the sympathies of the Aruggoda temple remained steadfastly with the rebels. From a historical perspective, it illustrates the waning power of the Kandyan chapter of the Siyam Nikaya, and the rise of a low country priesthood in the post-Kandyan Convention era.

Over the decades the Indrasaramaya gained much despite these alignments. We are told that in 1906 a ganta kulunak (bell tower) was constructed with the help of a Tamil builder called Kurupaiyyar, and that during the Korean War Manamulle Vijitha Thera suggested the setting up of a rubber plantation near the premises. Given the boom in rubber, the revenue the temple earned had ushered in new improvements, including the installation of a generator which, from six to 10 at night, would illuminate the site. The viharaya had been besieged by destruction too: in 1983, when repair work was underway, the structure supporting the makara thorana had come off. Residents hadn’t rebuilt it for fear of compelling the collapse of the rest of the Budu Madura, which explains the vacant spaces adjoining the statues of the deities today.

Presently the reputation of the temple has somewhat diminished. Kitsiri Malalgoda skirts around it in his book Buddhism in Sinhalese Society, while virtually no proper study of the temple, let alone the places around the temple, has been done despite references to Aruggoda in various old texts. There is no doubt that Aruggoda served as a viharagam at the time of Parakramabahu VI, along with other villages such as Medimala and Kuda Weligama; D. B. Jayatilake lists it among the four villages donated to the Pepiliyana Viharaya in 1454 AD. The history of the Indrasaramaya obviously predates its construction in 1806.

Leaving aside its history, what can we say of its architecture, its paintings, and its statues? The latter, it has been observed elsewhere, bear little to no resemblance to their counterparts in the temples of Kandy; they lack what is called the “bhayankara vilashaya” in the viharas of the hill country. The Buddha images are perhaps among the most prominent here: locals tell me that the reclining statue is the largest in the low country, though this remains doubtful at best.

Located a good 90 minutes from Colombo, Aruggoda is certainly fast developing: property prices are on the rise, and its proximity to Bandaragama, Panadura, Piliyanda, and also the Bolgoda Lake has served to accentuate its historical prominence. It was doubtless a place of learning and scholarship in ancient times: Vidagama, from where Vidagama Maithri Thera emerged, is not far away, and Panadura, to be the centre of the Buddhist revival, is its neighbour. The state to which the Indrasaramaya has, depending on how you view it, matured or receded tells us a lot about how places of worship are bonded to the places they occupy, in more ways than one.

The writer can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com