Travel Day 1123 – Anuradhapura and Mhintale, SRI LANKA
Since I had to stop my explorations of Anuradhapura yesterday due to the heavy rain, today I liked to do two things: seeing more of the historical sites that didn’t require a ticket and visiting the sacred hill temples of Mihintale…
White Ambasthale Dagoba in Mihintale, Sri Lanka
Mihintale was considered a sacred place for Buddhists in Sri Lanka because it marked the place where Mahindra, son of the great Indian Emperor Ashoka, appeared before the king of Anuradhapura, King Devanampiyatissa, during his deer hunt. This appearance which happened in 247 BC marked the beginning of Buddhism in Sri Lanka as Mahindra, who was sent by his father to spread the teachings of the Buddha, was first testing King Devanampiyatissa’s intellect and when considering him a worthy disciple, converted him to Buddhism…
Nowadays Mihintale was an equally as ruined place as Anuradhapura was and in order to reach it, I had to catch a local bus on the main road and then climb up the almost 2000 steps to the top of the hill. Of course there was an entrance fee for foreigners again, but the 500 rupees seemed almost like a steal in comparison to what I had paid to enter other ruined places in Sri Lanka…
Statue of King Devanampiyatissa in Mihintale, Sri Lanka
The area on top of the hill wasn’t very large, but it was a really nice setting and when I arrived, there were only locals present who had come to do their worshiping. While the big white Mahaseya Dagoba was towering over all the ruins, the main sight for me was the smaller, unpretentious Ambasthale Dagoba which reminded me strongly of the nice Thuparama Dagoba in Anuradhapura. Even if the Ambasthale Dagoba was a quite small and simple structure, it too had the randomly arranged columns around which may have carried a wooden roof at some point…
Also this dagoba was of specific significance as it marked the very spot where Mahindra appeared and the close by statue of King Devanampiyatissa represented the place where he had stood while receiving his first Buddhist teachings. Besides this important spot, I made sure to also visit the ancient bodhi tree, walk up to the Mahaseya Dagoba and literally climb up to a meditation rock with fine views over the area…
Food Trough to feed 500 Monks in Mihintale, Sri Lanka
On the way down I stopped at the Relic House and the monk’s refectory which was said to have fed up to 5000 monks from the area. All that remained today was a huge trough that once used to contain all the food that was served to the monks in their begging bowl. The same kind of trough I had seen yesterday at the Abhayagiri Monastery in Anuradhapura, suggesting that both monasteries had been of similar size at one point…
After returning to Anuradhapura, I managed to see a few more ruined sights in the south, such as the unspectacular Isurumuniya Vihara, the nice Mirisavatiya Dagoba and the famous Sri Maha Bodhi Tree. There was still more to see, but at some point I just rested by the lake and thought that the Cultural Triangle of Sri Lanka had been great to visit, but I really had seen enough ancient ruins and big dagobas for a while…
Find all Mihintale Photos here.
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