KAMALIKA PIERIS

Kurundi vihara has the distinction of being Sri Lanka’s first contested Buddhist site. That is due to the kovil-temple” tug-of-war going on at the site, thanks to the Tamil Separatist Movement.  The kovil announcement got a lot of publicity, mostly negative. The skeptical   public wanted to know exactly when this ‘ancient’ kovil had been built at Kurundi. The answer was, in the 1980s.

The Kurundi Vihara Development Committee, set up by Cyril Matthew reported in 1981 that a kovil had been set up at Kurundi. They wrote to the government saying that a kovil had been erected at the pilimage site with concrete floor, roof and trident. They attached a photograph and asked that the kovil be removed. But the Eelam war intervened.  Kurundi was used as a bunker by the LTTE.

Santhabodhi said, in 1980 or so, the pilimage had been covered with soil and only the stone pillars were visible. Tamil Separatist Movement has put a roof on these pillars and installed a trisula (trident). When the Department of Archaeology was informed, they prohibited entry as this was archaeology reserve.

When we came in 2018, continued Santhabodhi, the whole area was dense forest. Once we started work on the stupa, the Tamil Separatist Movement decided that they too wanted to worship there and talked of a Hindu kovil. Meke thiyenna thanikrana demela bedum vadaya,” Santhabodhi said.

If there had been an ancient kovil at Kurundi, then there must be archaeological evidence of that kovil. There is no evidence to show an ancient kovil, but plenty of evidence to show that there was a large Buddhist monastery at Kurundi, dating from Anuradhapura times.

Further, if there was a kovil then there should be a road, or evidence of a road, leading to the kovil. There was no such road. Kurundi villagers when interviewed admitted that there was only a footpath to Kurundi.

 There was no clear access to Kurundi, when I first went there, recalled Santhabodhi. There were two footpaths and a stream to cross. The hillside was thick with trees and undergrowth.Santhabodhi and his group had to follow animal tracks up the hill. There were huge holes dug all over the place at Kurundi, said Santhabodhi. 

The difficult terrain shows that Hindus never went there. There was no road, and the place was uncleared . If  as the Tamil Separatist Movement says, there was popular kovil there, then there would at  least have been a good road.

 Santhabodhi was not the first monk to come to Kurundi in modern times. Kanakaraja Vijaya Kumar, a farmer resident near  Kurundi,  recalled that  prior to 1982, there was a Buddhist monk residing at Kurundi.  LTTE  killed him. The presence of this monk was also corroborated by other  interviewees.

 Baskaran Susila Devi also said that there was a  Buddhist monk at Kurundi.  There were two other persons to see to his needs.  This monk was about 45 years old.   He was there for about 4 months. He was given Dane regularly by the villagers. Susila had offered alms to him.   He had visited Susila’s house for Dane and was given curd and other food. She had done this regularly.

The ad hoc Hindu kovils set up in the north  and east, including Kurundi, are not well set up Hindu temples. There is no lingam, only a trident and the kovil is shoddily constructed. These ‘kovils’  are planted in the heart of a  Buddhist ruins,  in the case of Kurundi, in the pilimage. The intention is not to set up a proper kovil.  The intention is to claim the site for the Hindus, if the Buddhists  arrive. The intention was to create contested sites.

The Contested site” stunt  is part of the modus operand of the Tamil Separatist Movement. . The Tamil Separatist Movement had  planned this  long ago. They had explored the Buddhist ruins of the north and east  during the Eelam war. It was not possible to destroy all the Buddhist ruins they found, so they hit on another tactic.

Hindu symbols were introduced into Buddhist ruins located in the north and east.  This was usually    confined to a Trident , the  symbol of Siva. Ellawela Medhananda found plenty of  trisulas in his exploration of Buddhist ruins in the east.

  Then when the Buddhists arrived and   excavation began on a Buddhist ruin, the Tamil Separatist Movement would be able to  announce that  the site was     that of an ancient Kovil, not a Buddhist temple. This was a planned operation, to order to create a series of contested sites in the north and east.

At Kurundi Tamil Separatist Movement carried out its usual trick of installing a trisula in the heart of a Buddhist ruin    and then   howl that this was an ancient Hindu kovil. Kurundi became a contested site  leading to  political fears. Authorities feared that   contested sites like Kurundi could lead to an ethnic riot.

Regardless of who is   right and who is wrong, it is best to deal with Kurundi carefully. The north and east are sensitive territory,  competing interests must be  managed carefully, said analysts. Buddhists awake! – Save Kurundi!’ may become a launching pad warned Harindra B. Dassanayake  and Rajni Gamage

The columnist Cassandra wrote,  The Island of Tuesday August 22 sent warning signals, down Cassandra’s spine. It said Possibility of communal riots over temple”. It’s about the Kurundimale temple in Mullaitivu. Buddhist monks and devotees started arriving at the temple to conduct religious rituals. The worst was that the Pongal celebrations of the people in the vicinity were disturbed.

The monks who gathered religious fanatics and trouble makers deliberately chose the time at this dicey venue.  It is a place sited on a volcano of racial tension. This is another example of totally misguided Buddhist enthusiasm. Sacrilegiously using the name of the Buddha and his Dhamma, overzealous monks, knowing full well what horrendous calamities could result, go headlong into rousing religious tensions. Needless to say, such action should be stopped and such monks stymied radical Buddhism lives on, fired by monks who are anything but Buddhist clergy, concluded Cassandra.

Island  editorial   said in June 2023: the writ of the state, we believe, must run in all parts of the country, and national heritage sites must be traced and conserved or restored wherever they are located. This task should be left to heritage management experts, who alone are capable of handling such sensitive issues carefully.

The Kurundimale heritage site has given rise to a huge controversy for political and religious reasons, and only a scientific approach to the problem can help find a workable solution. Let an expert committee consisting of senior archaeologists drawn from the national universities and heritage management experts be set up to study the Kurundimale site and determine the extent of land necessary for its restoration or conservation and how that task should be carried out to the satisfaction of all stakeholders, concluded Island editorial.

There was a second site where excavation work started in the same year as Kurundi that is Rajagala in Ampara. Rajagala archaeological site is only second to the Mihintale monastery in Anuradhapura.  It spreads over 1,600 .  It consists of more than 600 prehistoric ruins, monuments and artifacts, and nearly 100 of them are ancient stupas. It contains the  ancient Ariyakara Viharaya built between 116 and 109BC.

Rajagala conservation started  in the same year as Kurundi. Work on Rajagala  started in 2018, jointly  by  Department of Archaeology  and University of Sri Jayewardenepura. However  Rajagala  conservation was never interrupted  by the Tamil Separatist Movement. The reason is that the Tamil Separatist Movement decided several decades ago,   to drop Ampara from its Eelam grab.  I was present at a talk where this was publicly  announced in the 1990s.

Many Buddhist sites, not  only Rajagala , have been restored  by the Archaeology Department  over the  years, during British rule and after,  for decades without  any  fuss. So why this sudden fuss over Kurundi.

The clash is due to the location of Kurundi. Kurundi is located at a critical point in the Eastern Province, where the north and east come together. Mullaitivu is the district that connects the north and east. The Tamil Separatist Movement has recognized the danger.

Kurundi is  a very serious  threat to Eelam, because of its strategic position in the East of Sri Lanka said the Tamil Separatist Movement .  Mullaitivu is the district that connects the north and east. Changing its  ethnic composition can forever prevent the merger of these two provinces, said the  Tamil Separatist Movement ” ( continued)