Totagamuwa

View northward along coastline from Seenigama breakwater

Totagamuwa (pronounced 'thot [short 'thought'] -er-gum-oo-were') is the name of an ancient complex of villages just north of Hikkaduwa on the south-western coast of Sri Lanka. It is situated in the Wellaboda Pattu (division) of the Galle District.  

Getting there

Totagamuwa is located along the Galle Road. It can be reached via the Kurundugahahetkme exit of the E1 Southern Expressway (via Ambalangoda or via Batapola) or the Baddegama exit (via Aluthwela). It is within easy walking distance of the Telwatte Railway Station. It is also within walking distance of Hikkaduwa.

Map of Totagamuwa

History 

The old Totagamuwa village stretched from Madampetota (modern Madampegama) in the the north to Molaputota (modern Totagamuwa) in the south, from the coast in the west to Metiwiltota in the east. In colonial times, hamlets within the village were separated administratively from each other, and the Totagamuwa name was given to the Molaputota hamlet. These hamlets  expanded to become villages in their own right, and should more properly be considered urban neighbourhoods.

 The modern Totagamuwa area is an extended island surrounded by sea and wetlands; the villages in the area, are (in order of distance from Hikkaduwa): 

Totagamuwa (Molaputota)	Telwatte
Kalupe	Melawenna
Werellana	Kahawa
Seenigama	Akurala
Pereliya

In addition, inland beyond the wetland boundary are Weragoda, an important village associated with the Devol cult and Meetiyagoda - the location of the local Police Station and the site of an important source of kaolin clay and of Moonstones.

A noticeable fact about this stretch of coastline is the absence of churches. The area was solidly Buddhist after the departure of the Portuguese; Totagamuwa being the site of a higher ordination ceremony for Buddhist clergy in 1772. It was at the very kernel of the modern Buddhist revival which began in the late 19th century.

In 1953, the Totagamuwa area was one of the epicentres of the unrest leading up to the Great Hartal (general strike), and a focal point of insurrectionary action during the Hartal itself.

What's in a name?

Rose-ringed Parakeet, the symbol of Totagamuwa

 'Totagamuwa' is derived from Tota (landing, ford or crossing) and gamuwa (village). It is mentioned in the Culawamsa as Titthagama (Pali for 'landing village'), which says it lay beside a stream known as the Sima Nadi ('Boundary river', probably the modern Molapu Oya river).

There may be a pun in the 15th Century Buddhist Sinhala poetic work the Loweda SangarawaI, which might refer to the village. In the third line of the first stanza, it says the Buddha is

 Thith ganandura duralana dinidanan

(The Lord of the day - the sun - who dispels the thick darkness of heresy)

The ancient Sinhala for 'heresy', thith, comes from the Jain Sanskrit word for a 'crossing over', thirtha (which in Sinhala has the same secondary meaning of  'a sacred place'),  for which the Pali is thith - having the same root as in thitthagama. The author, Ven Vidagama Maitreiya, a strictly orthodox Theravada monk, had a controversy with Ven Totagamuwe Sri Rahula, a practioner of deity-worship bordering on Mahayanism. The possible pun lies in that the similar-sounding 'Thith gam andura' means 'the darkness of Titthagama/Totagamuwa'.

Incidentally, the phrase Thith ganandura has come down to modern Sinhala idiom as 'thittha kalu' (bitter black) congruent with the English 'pitch dark'.

Tsunami

The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 affected the Totagamuwa area badly. Coral mining had depleted the reefs which protected the beaches from erosion, and the tsunami found no barrier in its path as it rushed up to the shore. The massive wave continued about a kilometre inland, destroying entire villages in its path.

Seenigama after the Boxing Day Tsunami

At Pereliya, the tsunami crashed into the Samudra Devi ('Queen of the Sea') train, causing the deadliest railway accident in history, in which over 1700 died. 

Tsunami-recked train at Pereliya

Just south of the site of the accident, the Japanese Honganji Tsunami Vihara was built, to commemorate the disaster. There was built a replica of one of the famous Buddha statues from Bamiyan in Afghanistan, blown up by the Taliban government  in March 2001.

Replica of Bamiyan Buddha,  Honganji Tsunami Vihara

The 16.5 metre (54 ft) statue, gifted by the Higashi Honganji Temple Maintenance Foundation in Kyoto (京都の本願寺維持財団), Japan, stands on a 1.5 metre (5 ft) base, built according to the Japanese Daibutsu tradition. Around the plinth are inscribed the names of the victims of the Pereliya railway tragedy.

Close by, next to the mass grave of the victims, is a memorial to the casualties of this, the worst natural disaster to strike Sri Lanka in recent times.

Seenigama

Totagamuwa, virtually paralysed for months after the cataclysm, finally stirred back to life. Much of the credit for the rejuvenation of the area must go to foreign donors, especially to the international sports personalities who gave of their time and money to help rebuild the village of Seenigama. Much of this work was co-ordinated by the charity Foundation of Goodness. The village has a new cricket oval courtesy of  England's Surrey County Cricket Club and a new swimming pool, built by the charity foundation of Canadian rock star Bryan Adams.

Seenigama Oval, with Bryan Adams' pool at the left rear

Seenigama is home to the island shrine of the god Devol, the Devol Devale. The island was originally on land, but it became detached due to heavy erosion of the coastline during the latter half of the 20th century.

The original Devol Devale

There is a parallel shrine on land, where most activities in connection with the cult take place now. However, on the island is the stone boat (on which the god was supposed to have arrived in Seenigama from Puhar on the Cauvery river). Devotees use this boat as a miris gala, (flat grinding stone) which is used to grind away curses made against them their enemies.

Devol Perahera

Every year in August the shrine has its festival, with the main Perahera (religious procession) in the Southern province, and the Devol Maduwa, a night-long ritual with singing, dancing, religious re-enactments and fire-walking. The festivities link Seenigama with the Devol shrine at Weragoda.

Kusumaramaya Vihara, Seenigama

Devol Maduwa ritual

A short way inland from the Seenigama Junction, past the railway station, is the Seenigama Kusumaramaya Vihara. It was to this monastery, on a small hill, that many of Seenigama's villagers fled from the oncoming tsunami.

Totagamuwa Vihara

North of the Tsunami Honganji Vihara, at Telwatte, is the Purana Totagamuwa Raja Maha Vihara (Ancient Totagamuwa Royal Great Monastery), an old Buddhist Monastery. It was once one of the great universities of southern Asia. On the premises are archaeological remains and early modern Buddhist art, including the only statue in Sri Lanka of Ananga, the South Asian Cupid.

Purana Totagamuwa Raja Maha Vihara

Telwatte Sanctuary

The Totagamuwa monastery is in  the Telwatte Sanctuary, established as nature reserve in 1938. The sanctuary is home to wild boar, mouse deer, porcupines, parrots, jungle fowl, water birds, reptiles, amphibians and insects. It has an area of 1,425 hectares of both wetland and dry land - the latter mainly being under crops. The tsunami depleted the area of much of its vegetation and, while much of it has grown back, many bird habitats remain depleted. A project has been started to conserve the area.

Wetland, Telwatte Sanctuary

The sanctuary abounds in Rose-ringed parakeets (Psittacula krameri). A famous so-called "messenger poem", the Gira Sandesaya (Parrot Message), recording a message couriered by a parrot from the King in Kotte to Totagamuwe Sri Rahula at the Totagamuwa monastery. For this reason the Rose-ringed parakeet has become the symbol of Totagamuwa and of the sanctuary.
Incidently, the same poem says of the monastery

"Tuni yatiyen hunu paeti lehenun raegena
Situ atiyen pimbae aenga pirimaeda semena
Malagetiyen paen powamin atinatina
Siti paetiyen heranun gen weyi sobana."

"That monastery is adorned with young novice priests picking up tiny squirrels fallen from trees, feeding them with water from leaf-cups while cuddling them and stroking their bodies gently."

So it is fitting that the monastery be included within a nature reserve.

Akurala

Before the Tsunami, Akurala was the symbolic centre of the coral-lime industry. For generations, villagers had mined coral, both from the seabed and from ancient deposits inland. Lime kilns and mine pits dotted the countryside. Cement shops all over Sri Lanka advertised 'Akurala Lime'.

Beach at Akurala

However, the Boxing Day Tsunami filled the in many of the landward lime pits with rubble and corpses. The mining of the seabed for coral stopped immediately, as the causal link between damage to the reef and Tsunami damage was apparent.

Akurala has a small, reef-protected beach where swimming is safe. Unfortunately, the destruction of the reef has made the rest of the beach, all the way to Hikkaduwa, unsafe for swimming,