Bambaragasthalawa revisited

Story and pictures by Mahil Wijesinghe

Our destination was Bambaragasthalawa in the Yala East National Park, better known as Kumana National Park and was part of a six-member group. After a challenging eight- hour drive from Colombo, we approached Okanda, the entrance of Kumana National Park. On the way to Kumana, we glimpsed flocks of Painted Storks making a picturesque site, and elephants having a morning feed near the lagoon. The journey was tiring, but the morning breeze blowing across the rock boulder of the Okanda Devale soothed our weary bodies on this warm and sunny day.

Entering the park we were fortunate to see a Black Necked Stork in one of the lagoons. We were briefed by our guide that there were only seven in the entire country. Crocodiles, wild buffaloes, eagles, elephants, tuskers, wild boar, deer and many kinds of birds caught our attention as we drove along the sandy tracks of Kumana jungle to reach our destination.

Ruins

A routine trip to Kumana to enjoy not only the fauna and flora but also visit the ancient ruins, artefacts and monuments led to a tragic discovery. This was our second trip to Kumana. Our maiden journey was in 2013, when we explored ancient archaeological sites such as Bambaragastalawa and Bowattagala which are spread around Kumana.

The Bambargasthalawa rocky outcrop lies nearly eight kilometres west of Okanda, and the main rock ends in an unscaleable peak spread out in the surrounding jungle, with immense boulders and enchanting caves with drip ledges and rock cut flights of steps lying in groups. Many of these caves provided natural shelter for meditating Bhikkhus during the 2nd and 1st Centuries BC.

From this early beginning, Bambaragasthalawa prospered and it grew into an important monastic shrine. It reached its peaks many centuries later during the late Anuradhpura period, when a reclining Buddha statue was discovered constructed in one of the larger caves. Very few such statues made of bricks and sand and lime plaster exist. This reclining or sleeping statue is built in the tradition of the Anuradhapura era (4th -10th Century AD) most probably the 9th Century AD.

Inscriptions

The other examples of the statues of the reclining Buddha can be found in Buduruwayaya, Pidurangala, Habassa and Mailla. The inscriptions on the rock cave face above the statue, indicate that the rock cave had been donated to Buddhist monks and inhabited by them. Archaeologists believed that those inscriptions had been done in 2nd and 3rd Century BC and the statue would had been built after that period.

It was vandalism of the worst kind on a precious Buddha statue at Bambaragasthalawa in Kumana that we stumbled upon. In our first visit to Bambaragasthalawa, we found the head lay smashed to bits and the stomach dug out. Some parts of the bottom of the statue have decayed and ancient bricks had surfaced due to heavy rains.

Belief

Treasure hunters had searched for gems and valuables from time to time, not caring about the rare statue. There is a common belief that precious gems and objects of value may have been embedded in statues. We found the statue in a pathetic state while on our first visit to the site in 2013 caused by digging from head to toe by vandals.

In January when we revisited the Buddha statue of Bambaragasthalawa, we found that the destroyed statue has been retouched and reconstructed by the officials of the Department of Archaeology seven months ago as part of the project initiated to boost tourism in Kumana National Park. They are yet to give the final touches to the statue as it lay in a primary stage, Kumana Park warden Suranga Ratnayake told us when we met him at his office in Okanda.

Probably, most of the destruction of the reclining Buddha statue of Bambaragasthalawa had taken place after Kumana was opened to the public following the ceasefire. Projected in the LTTE map in the Eastern Province, Kumana became a jungle hideout of its fighters. Compared to the other sites of Kumana, the LTTE fighters did not damage any of the artifacts of Kumana except scribbling on the rock caves with their names in Tamil language.

Sprinkling

Kumana has a generous sprinkling of drip ledged caves in areas such as Kongala, Bowattaghala and Kiripokunahela with evidence of ancient Buddhist monasteries. We also found stone pillars, remnants of ancient Stupas, early paintings in Bowattagala and Kiripokunahela with stories abounding in the area that there had been a monastic complexes for Bhikkhus of the Anuradhapura era.

The rock inscriptions in the ancient sites of Kumana provide the proof of meditating Bhikkhus had inhabited these drip-ledged caves as long ago as the 3rd, 2nd and 1st Centuries BC. The ravages of time have left most of them in ruins in the jungle, now home to wild animals.