23 April 2019 12:10 am Views - 788
Aruggoda was once referred to as Arakshagoda. After Alakeshwara, who ruled Rayigama at the time of Vikramabahu III, destroyed a fleet of ships belonging to Arya Chakravarthi in Panadura, it is said he stationed his troops at Arakshagoda to ensure the protection of the Raigam Kingdom. This, reputedly the highest point in the region, was later to be the site of the Indrasararamaya. Local folklore has it that Arakshagoda changed throughout the years and decades, from Arakgoda, Arukgoda, Aruggodawila, and finally to Aruggoda. We can, of course, never be sure, but what we can be sure of is that Parakramabahu VI of Kotte turned it into a viharagam.
With the ordination of a new Buddhist order under Welivita Saranankara during Kirti Sri Rajasinghe’s rule, 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 and found an abode at the Muthugala Viharaya in Dambulla, where he oversaw the restoration of the Kelaniya Temple. Given his influence several disciples gathered around him, and to one of them, Sangharakkitha, he devolved the responsibility for the welfare of the rest before he passed away at Kithaladeniya Viharaya.
Okgamuwe Buddharakkitha was one of Aththadissi Thera’s other disciples, and among Sangharakkitha’s disciples was Waththawe Indrasara. As with his teachers, Indrasara had been committed to the restoration of temples that had been destroyed by the colonial powers, in that interlude when Buddhism, after the fall of the Dutch, was flourishing. Given the enormity of his task he was regularly travelling 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 would have stationed his troops at in Maha Aruggoda.
Building of the temple
The problem was that they lacked a Chief Prelate. So upon seeing Indrasara Thera, a group of residents who were at the Panadura courts prevailed on him to take up the position. After listening to their plea, the monk agreed, and moreover agreed to the site they had selected; the hill on which they were to build the temple overlooked a wel yaya from where, to this day, you can spot Sri Pada. The rest of the story is predictable; for over four decades, the villagers toiled 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 mati (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 fully built; through his will Indrasara Thera transferred the surrounding areas to the viharaya and to 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 it being a stronghold, its reputation seems to have gradually diminished. It had been run as an “agency” of the Asgiriya Chapter, and in keeping with the practice of the time had admitted those of the higher castes (though low castes had been allowed the lesser privilege of the upasampadawa). Later it had become the centre from which the Kotte fraternity of the Asigiriya Chapter would operate; a network of 18 temples. The Indrasararamaya at one point had taken precedence among those 18, so much so that it was at Aruggoda where the upasampadawa and the ordination ceremonies for the people of the region had been carried out.
On the other hand, 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 by the Malvatta Chapter, Bentara Aththadissi’s clan met at the Kotte temple (the Chief Incumbent of which had been 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.
Waning power of the Kandyan Chapter
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 jack 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 in spite of this alignment. 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 (this explains the vacant spaces adjoining the statues of the deities).
Today, as I wrote before, the reputation of the temple has somewhat, gradually, diminished. Kitsiri Malalgoda skirts around it in his Buddhism in Sinhalese Society, and 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, moreover, among the four villages donated to the Pepiliyana Viharaya in 1454 AD. The history of the Indrasaramaya hence 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” of the viharas in the hill country. The Buddha images are perhaps among the most prominent here: the reclining statue has been considered as the largest in the low country. It does not take away from the profusion of other paintings and statues, though, including several new images donated by the Thai government.
Located a good 90 minutes from Colombo, Aruggoda is 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, 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 thus tells us a lot about how places of worship are bonded to the places they occupy. In more ways than one.
NB: I am indebted to Anura Bamunusinghe, whose book Indrasararamaya Maha Viharaya is a virtual treasure trove of facts pertaining to the temple.