{"id":154438,"date":"2026-02-01T18:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=154438"},"modified":"2026-02-01T18:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:10:25","slug":"visiting-tiriyayi-thirtyfirst-jan-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/02\/01\/visiting-tiriyayi-thirtyfirst-jan-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Tiriyayi, ThirtyFirst Jan 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

On the Thirty First of Jan 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bimba, Hiran and I, Siri at the wheel,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left Anuradhapura far behind<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the Anuradhapura where in the TwoSixties and ThreeSixties<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We worked there,myself in Agrarian and Bimba a teacher at the Central<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I laboured to implement the Paddy Lands Act,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was three of us Assistant Commissioners, myself, Sappie & Peris ,TG<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ten Divisional Officers- Nanda Godage our Ambassador to Europe one of them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sad, Nanda had a fall a few years ago and is not with us today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We organized the farmers to use good seed, row seed, reap<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we worked with the farmers, organizing them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they got bumper crops<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We purchased all the paddy the farmers had at a premium price<\/p>\n\n\n\n

repairing anicuts and tanks, providing water<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those were the days when I presided over the irrigation meeting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

over the Kagama Kattiyawa tanks-some over fifty tanks fed by the KalaWeva waters<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The farmers \u2013 over a hundred were up in arms, water not flowing to the fields<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told the irrigation engineers- there were three of them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lay a concrete base to the Yodha Ela<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to bring water to every tank in time. I will provide funds\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The engineers looked puzzled, dazed and silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did not talk for a while<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally the DIE- the Divisional Irrigation Engineer spoke<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot lay that concrete base.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gradient of Yodha Ela is six inches in a mile<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so precise, Our instruments cannot lay that fine gradient over forty miles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you work now\u201d I quipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We take a small section of Yodha Ela, a section very small,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a section we can manage\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There ended that talk. The farmers must be fighting for water even today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixty years later!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, we do not today have that precision instrument<\/p>\n\n\n\n

we then had in the fifth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We three worked hard, easily twelve hours a day<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working for the people we loved<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ignored all politicians. They could decide in Parliament<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and that was all.  In the Field it was us to serve everyone<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But One fine day Maitripala Senanayake, the Mighty Minister erupted<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was transferred overnight to Kandy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Got a transfer for Bimba<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I packed my bags, and away I went, myself. Bimba and one year old son Arjuna<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then the massive work we did, did also stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is all Very Very Strange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We speeded past Mihintale and Horowpatana,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siri at the wheel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remembered my first Novel, The Vidanes Daughter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where the novel begins at that village Horowpotana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visited Tiriyai<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the spot where the two merchants<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tapassu and Bhalluka<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the Fifth Century before Christ,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when Our Lord Sammasambudu was preaching the Dhamma<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listened and got blessed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were two seafaring merchants<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whose merchandise took them beyond Bharata<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to Tambapanni, our land – as it was then called<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They landed for trade at Tiriyayi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and took refuge at Tiriyayi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

placing their belongings on a rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tale goes that they could not take their belongings back when going<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There sprang our first place of worship<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is Tiriyayi, managed by a young monk, all alone<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who even cooks to feed some mendicants in the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Luck\u201d I plead for that monk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welimada Dhamma Visuddhi Thera<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I donated Fifty Thousand, the prize money I got<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Ministry of Cultural Affairs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for my book, Nuwara Kalaviya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had kept that money for long,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That day going to Tririyayi from sacred Anuradhapura<\/p>\n\n\n\n

was also sacred to us as we went to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the sacred site where Buddhism was first brought<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by the seafaring merchants Tapassu and Bhalluka<\/p>\n\n\n\n

during the time when our Lord Buddha was still alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiriyayi, two miles inland, just pass Nilaveli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

one can turn off from the Trinco road to Mullativu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do hope to go there again, perhaps next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Fifty Five to Seventy Three I did serve Mother Lanka<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I did work for the people I loved<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I visit and relive my memories<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and try to pen my thoughts, for posterity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matara Disapathy 1971-73<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of Feb2026 at Giritale Hotel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne On the Thirty First of Jan 2026 Bimba, Hiran and I, Siri at the wheel, We left Anuradhapura far behind the Anuradhapura where in the TwoSixties and ThreeSixties We worked there,myself in Agrarian and Bimba a teacher at the Central I laboured to implement the Paddy Lands Act, It was three of us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154439,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154438\/revisions\/154439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}