~Wesak 2600~

On 18th, the day following wesak we thought of paying a short visit to the "Kelaniya temple". Some how we ended up visiting the "Ridi Wiharaya", Kurunegala. It was not a well planned trip (actually it was not planned at all :D) But it was a good one. These are a few shots I caught on my way from Kelaniya to Kurunegala.

This is the Kelaniya Temple which was a lot crowded, so it kept me from taking plenty of good shots. Hope to pay another leisurely visit on another day to take more photographs.

These two photos (above) shows a little much less crowded temple at Madarawa which we came across as we took the Waliweriya road to Gampaha. The second picture shows the 'Asia's biggest Buddhist Sherman Place { Dhamma Shaalaawa} made out of stone'.

Then after a few hours we reached Kurunegala and then reached our destination the "Ridi Wiharaya" (110kms from Colombo). It is said that this "Ridi Gama" area was famous for silver as the sinhala name speaks itself and former King "Dutugemunu" dug up the silver in order to build the "Maha Saaya", the "Ruwanwali pagoda" and built this temple as a tribute.

The surrounding was actually wild and rocky but natural looking; seemingly not yet disturbed by modernization.

The paintings inside the temple were really old and needed some serious conservation.

The "sandakada pahana" or the moonstone at the vihara entrance showed characteristics that it belonged to the Anuradhapura era.

There's some specialty in these tiles below. They were donated by the dutch who invaded our country in 1640's. These present some of the stories in the Holy Bible. Amazing ha!!

These were taken by the Bo- tree.

Finally came home around 9.00 p.m. capturing this as the last of that day at our village temple.