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,

Totagamuwa Vihara, Telwatte

Purana Totagamuwa Raja Maha Vihara

At modern Telwatte (pronounced th-el-what-the) on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka, lies an old Buddhist Monastery that was once one of the great universities of southern Asia. It is the Purana Totagamuwa Raja Maha Vihara (Ancient Totagamuwa Royal Great Monastery), and stands at the centre of the ancient village-complex of Totagamuwa (pronounced thot-a-gum-oo-were). On the premises are archaeological remains and early modern Buddhist art, including the only statue in Sri Lanka of Ananga, the South Asian Cupid. 

The vihara is the cult centre in lowland regions of the god Natha, for whom there is a shrine as well as a statue in the main image house.

God Natha

Natha is said to be the Bodhisatva Avalokiteshvara and his name means 'no form' and also 'Lord'. He was the guardian god of Sri Lanka and the State. His worship faltered after the collapse of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815.

In addition to its Dutch-period  and British period Buddhist art and architecture, the Totagamuwa Vihara has been a significant player in Sri Lanka's lively religious past and is well worth the visit. 

Getting there

The Totagamuwa Vihara is located a little  inland, off the 91st kilometre post on the Galle Road. It can be reached via the Kurundugahahetkme exit of the Southern Expressway, via Ambalangoda or via Batapola. It is within easy walking distance of the Telwatte Railway Station.

Map of Totagamuwa

The monastery is within easy reach of the many hotels in Hikkaduwa and is also accessible from the Bentota and Ahungalle resort areas.

Ancient roots

The monastery was said to have been founded by the Norman King William the Conqueror’s long-lived Sri Lankan contemporary King Vijayabahu I, who founded the Vijayaba Pirivena (Vijayabahu Buddhist University) on the site in c. 1055-1110. However, it is possible that a monastery had existed on this site much earlier. 

Stone inscription from ancient monastery

The ancient chronicle the Culavamsa (Part II) mentions a long pasada (palace) of 20 metres (created by King Vijaya Bahu III (1232-1236 A.D). It was renovated by King Parakrama Bahu VI (1410-1468), as related by the Culawamsa (Tr. Geiger):

In the vihara of Titthagama where the big, long pasada [palace] forty-five cubits in size, erected by the great Vijayabahu, had fallen into decay, King Parakkamabahu himself built a beautiful, long pasada of thirty cubits in size, two storeys high, provided with lofty spires, glorious with bright-hued painting, and assigned it then to the venerable Grand thera Kayasatti who dwelt in the Vijayabahu-parivena. He also granted him a village, called Salaggama, on the banks of the river forming the boundary (of the monastery), making it a possession of the parivena. In fair Titthagama he had a park laid down, provided with five thousand cocopalms.

By way of comparison, the Bible (I Kings 6.2) mentions that the Temple of Jerusalem built by Solomon was sixty cubits long.

The park with its cocopalms represents one of the earliest mentioned coconut plantations in the world - the earliest was possibly that laid out by King Aggabodhi I (5th-6th century AD) near Mannar.

Goddess Tara (British Museum)

In the Kotte era (1410-1597), the Vijayaba Pirivena was one of the most famous universities in the Orient, teaching Sinhala, Tamil, Pali and Sanskrit language and literature as well as Buddhist philosophy. At this time the Vijayaba Pirivena also taught Mahayanic and Tantric practices and dabbled in sorcery and astrology; it instituted the worship of Mahayana-derived deities, such as Natha, Tara, and Vibishana. Reference

Totagamuwe Sri Rahula

The celebrated poet-monk Totagamuwe Sri Rahula (1408-1491) was the chief incumbent during the rule of his paternal uncle King Parakramabahu VI. He was born Wickremasundara Kumara Jayabahu to Prince Jayamahaladana Kumara Wickremabahu (otherwise known as Demeta Kumara - Bushbeech Prince) and the Keerawella Princess Sunethra, in Demetenna in what is now the Kegalle District.

Ven Totagamuwe Sri Rahula, from a  stamp issued in 1977

He was the author of some of the most celebrated poetical work of mediæval Sinhala literature, including the Kavya Sekeraya, the Paravi Sandesaya and the Sælalihini Sandesaya. Learned in seven languages, he espoused unorthodox and Mahayanist beliefs, including 'white magic', contending that the central problem of Buddhism, the alleviation of human suffering, required any help it was possible to obtain, including that of deities. He appears to have believed that Natha was his personal deity (ishta devata).

Sri Rahula was involved in a controversy with a contemporary, more orthodox practitioner of Theravada Buddhism, the author of the poetical Buddhist work, the Loweda Sangarawa, Ven. Vidagama Maitreya, who argued that the aid of deities was unnecessary to liberation from suffering, and who hence condemned their cults. This controversy has come down in folk-lore as personal animosity between Sri Rahula and his guru, Maitreya.

In the third line of the first stanza of the Loweda Sangarawa, 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. Maitreya may have been indulging in a pun, as 'Thith gam andura' means 'the darkness of Tithagama/Totagamuwa'.

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

Body of St Francis Xavier

There are many who believe that Sri Rahula gained his knowledge by drinking an overdose of 'Saraswathi' oil (Saraswathi is the goddess of music, arts,culture and knowledge). Hence his body did not decay after death. The Portuguese, it is said, took his body and, substituting it for the body of St Francis Xavier, laid it to rest at the Basilica of Bon Jesu in Goa. There are several variants of this legend, such as this example, including - interestingly - some Roman Catholic ones!

Modern era

In the 16th century, the superstitious Portuguese conquistadors destroyed the monastery and the university, killing many monks in the process. Apparently only several stone inscribed pillars have survived this destruction.

Inscribed stone pillars from the original Vihara

In 1765, the Ven. Wehella Dhammadinna Thera recognised some of the ruins and instructed his pupil Ven. Pallatara Punyasara remain there and resurrect the temple. In 1772 it was the scene of the first ceremony of higher ordination to take place outside the auspices of the Siam sect. 

Ven Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala (right) with US colonel Henry S Olcott

In 1840 the Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala, a star of the Buddhist-Christian Panadura debate, the first principal of the Vidyodaya Buddhist College in Colombo and a leading figure in the Buddhist revival, was accepted into the order here - the building at which this occurred still exists.

Buildings and Art

The modern monastery contains the following buildings: 

Purana Buduge (Old Image House)

Completed in 1799, this was the original image house built under Ven Punyasara. It lies between the new image house and the dagoba.

Purana Buduge (Old Image House)

The outer passageway surrounding the inner sanctum contains a fresco representation of the Mara Yuddhe (the Mara War, in which the Buddha is assailed by the armies of Death, the Buddhist equivalent of Satan). 

Mara Yuddhe (the Mara War)

The inner sanctum contains statues of the Buddha, representing him conventionally in the standing (educative), sitting or Samadhi (meditative) and recumbent or Nirvana (absolute perfection of the process of liberation). The Buddha statues appear to be newer than the older frescoes, probably replacing the originals. The recumbent Buddha is stylistically older (early modern) than the other two, and may merely be a restoration of the original.

Recumbent Buddha from Old Image House

Recently, several of the original Dutch-period frescos in this building, which had later been painted over with newer frescos) have come to light, notably one of the Buddha's two main disciples, the Arahant Moggallana, who is seen worshipping the standing Buddha.

The Arahant Moggallana

There are also several other frescos, notably of the Jataka story which explains the 'hare in the moon', the Oriental equivalent of the 'man in the moon'. Also notable are the fading fresco of god Vishnu and the exquisitely painted ceiling of the inner sanctum.

Aluth Buduge (New Image House)

This building was completed in 1805.

Aluth Buduge (New Image House)

In the outer passage surrounding the inner sanctum are statues of deities, notably the only representation in the island of the God of Love, Ananga.

Ananga, the South Asian Cupid

The deity is clearly identified by his bow his left hand and his arrows made of flowers (surely less harmful than the wood and metal ones apparently used by Cupid), which induce those struck to fall in love, in his right. Also notable is the statue of Natha, of which deity this monastery is a cult centre.

God Natha from the New Image House

Note the two lions rampant acting as supports for the torana (pandal or gateway) in which Natha stands. These are adapted from the lions rampant used by Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) and are symbolic of the God's role as guardian of the state. An excellent example of the VOC lions from Galle are here.

Poyage (Ordination House)

Poyage (ordination house)

Built in 1815, this was the building in which Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala was ordained as a monk. 

Natha Devale (Shrine of Natha)

Built in 1780.  Because of the decline of the Natha cult, the main deity now shares this with other deities of the modern Quaternity (Sathara Varam Deviyo - gods of the four warrants), Vishnu and Kataragama. A notable absentee is Pattini, who receives obeisance in the Seenigama Devol Shrine.

Natha shrine with newer Vishnu shrine in the background

Vishnu Devale (Shrine of Vishnu)

Completed in 1906. Vishnu is identical with the deity Upulvan, who is said by the ancient chronicle Mahavamsa to have been entrusted with the protection of Buddhism in Sri Lanka by the Buddha Gautama himself.

Dharmasalava (sermon hall)

Completed in 1905, the sermon hall is still used for preaching and the chanting of the scriptures.         

Dharmasalawa (Sermon Hall)

There is also a Bodhi (a sacred Bo-tree) planted in 1780.

There are also several more modern buildings, including a museum and a reading room, but mainly residential.  The vihara was slightly damaged in the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004, only the surrounding parapet wall being affected seriously. Reference: ICOMOS report

As one of the first Buddhist monasteries in the low-country areas to be resurrected following the depredations of the Portuguese, and as a repository of the religious art and architecture of the early modern era, the Totagamuwa Vihara  should be a greater attraction than it is. 

However, hardly any of the guidebooks mention it, despite its proximity to the Hikkaduwa resort area. This is a pity, since its rich heritage should make a visit almost mandatory.

Pattini Devale, Panama

After the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, I made several trips to Pottuvil on the East Coast of Sri Lanka with loads of supplies for the displaced people. On one such trip, in early April, I continued south to the village of Panama (pronounced paa-nuh-muh).

Over 200 years ago, on the 13th of September 1800, an Englishman, William Orr, Esq (a civil servant) visited Panama on the way from Tangalle in the south to Batticaloa in the East. According to his report to the British Governor,

Paoneme contains sixty inhabitants, who cultivate seventy-three amonams of paddy ground.

The following year Thomas Anthony Reeder, surgeon of the 51st Regiment of Foot (who was to die soon after, during the 1st Kandyan War) travelled in the opposite direction. According to his journal,

Panoa is situate on a plain surrounded by jungle. Here are some cultivated fields, and several large stocks of paddee.

A year later, the British Governor himself, the Hon. Frederick North (later 5th Earl of Guilford), followed the southward route. He was accompanied by the Inspector of Hospitals in Ceylon, Thomas Christie, Esq, who reported that

Panoa is a considerable village, and the country round it abounds with paddee fields.

What these descriptions - which appear in James Cordiner's A Description of Ceylon (London, 1807; Dehiwela, Tisara Prakasakayo, 1983) - show (apart from the recognised inability of the English to tackle with any accuracy the phonetics of foreign place names) is that Panama's chief attraction was its paddy fields. The surrounding jungle was far more notable to these perfidious Albionians: Christie was highly excited by the sight, en-route to the village of

a herd of wild hogs, and an alligator, both of which allowed us to approach very near.

Rock, fields and tank at Panama

When I visited the place, however, it was in the knowledge that it possesses a Devale (temple) of the goddess Pattini. The shrine, on a rocky spot on the shore of a tank, is a Buddhist one. However, Hindu shrines of Pattini also exist, although she was not originally a Hindu deity.

Main Pattini shrine (larger photo available here)

Pattini is a goddess of fertility, who may originally have been a middle-eastern deity, Potnia. Mogg Morgan calls Pattini one of the many names of Isis, pointing out that in both cases the male consort is killed and dismembered, but brought back to life by the female deity.

Pattini was said to have been born from a mango and to have destroyed the city of Madurai by tearing off her breast and casting it on the ground, a sort of divine nuclear hand-grenade.

Image of Pattini in the shrine. The doorway to her right leads to the inner sanctum

Pattini was married to Palanga, a mythical ancient South-Indian version of Prince Philip. Palanga appears to have done little except hang around being dissolute with a pretty young mistress and get himself killed by a wicked king. Nevertheless he is propriated as 'Alut Deviyo' ('the New God'), having his own shrine next to his more powerful wife's.

Palanga's shrine (larger photo available here)

Originally Pattini and her consort did not have elaborate temples to house them, the present structures having been built in the 1920s. Instead, two large tamarind trees served as shrines.

Tamarind tree (original Pattini shrine)

In addition to the two large temples, two smaller shrines have been built to the Parakasa Deviyo, the guardian deities of the temple precinct - who punish those who misbehave on the premises.

Shrine of one of the two guardian deities (Parakasa Deviyo) (larger image available here)

One of the central rituals of the Pattini cult is the Ankeliya, the Horn Game, which is similar in concept to the town games of Uppies and Downies in Britain - including it being a male-only sport. In the Ankeliya, two opposing teams, the Udupila ('Upper team') and the Yatipila ('Lower team') try to break the horn of the opposing team in a game of tug-of-war.

Horn tree and channel for the 'thunderbolt tree' (another, larger photo of the Horn Tree available here)

The Upper team tie their horn to the 'horn tree', which grows about equidistant from and slightly behind the shrines of Pattini and Palanga. The Lower team tie their horn to a large tree trunk about 4.5 m (15 ft) long, pivoted in a 2 metre (6 ft) long channel and held in position by logs called 'haepini kandan' ('female cobra trunks'). This tree trunk is called a 'Thunderbolt Tree' (henakanda - cf Anaconda). Paranthetically, these Milliganesque references to snakes in what is, after all a fertility ritual should make a psychoanalyst positively drool.

Closer view of the channel for the 'thunderbolt tree'

The two horns are hooked together and two ropes are tied to the 'thunderbolt tree'. The two teams tug on the ropes, moving the the 'thunderbolt tree' forward and bringing tension to bear on the two interlocked horns until one of them snaps. The winning team - the one whose horn doesn't break - gets to yell obscene songs at the vanquished team; certainly worth more than a cash prize.

To see some photos of the ritual, go HERE.

If you want to visit Panama, it is quite close to the lovely Arugam Bay, which has a few hotels. If you want to learn more about Pattini, you can go to this website or read Gananath Obeyesekere's excellent anthropological study, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984; ISBN 0-226-61602-9). And here is an interesting take on Pattini in the context of modern Western society.