{"id":74329,"date":"2018-02-04T00:56:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T06:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=74329"},"modified":"2018-02-03T17:29:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T00:29:37","slug":"ven-bellanwila-wimalarathana-dies-after-attack-by-temple-tusker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/02\/04\/ven-bellanwila-wimalarathana-dies-after-attack-by-temple-tusker\/","title":{"rendered":"Ven. Bellanwila Wimalarathana dies after attack by temple tusker"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Ven. Prof. Bellanwila Wimalarathana Nayake Thera, the chief incumbent of the Bellanwila Raja Maha Viharaya, died yesterday following what sources described as &#8220;an attack by the temple\u2019s tusker&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The prelate usually feeds the elephant named \u2018Miyan Kumara\u2019 between 6.00-6.30 am as a practice on a daily basis. On Friday morning, he had approached the pachyderm, chained to a tree in the backyard of the temple premises, to feed it around 6.30 am when the animal suddenly attacked him, the sources said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The tusker had struck the monk with its trunk and tried to move forward with its head down when the mahout raised cries and, with the help of some others, evacuated the fallen monk to safety&#8221;, the sources said.<\/p>\n<p>The prelate was taken immediately to the Colombo South Teaching Hospital and later transferred to a private hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries yesterday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Initial reports indicated that the monk had suffered broken ribs in the attack and also injured his right hand.<\/p>\n<p>An erudite monk, Ven. Prof. Bellanwila Wimalarathana Nayake Thera (77) was the Chancellor of the University of Sri Jayewardhenepura since 2000. Earlier, he served as professor, associate professor, lecturer and visiting lecturer of the university.<\/p>\n<p>He was also a visiting professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, United Kingdom. He read for a doctorate in Philosophy (Ph.D) in 1980 at the University of Lancaster, United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>The prelate also served as the Deputy Chief (Anunayaka) of the Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dhamma Maha Sangha Sabha of the Syamopali Maha Nikaya.<\/p>\n<p>A widely respected monk who had earned plaudits internationally as well, the Ven. Thera he was actively involved in creating inter-religious harmony in Sri Lanka, particularly easing ethnic tension in the country. (Suresh Perera)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Island Ven. Prof. Bellanwila Wimalarathana Nayake Thera, the chief incumbent of the Bellanwila Raja Maha Viharaya, died yesterday following what sources described as &#8220;an attack by the temple\u2019s tusker&#8221;. The prelate usually feeds the elephant named \u2018Miyan Kumara\u2019 between 6.00-6.30 am as a practice on a daily basis. On Friday morning, he had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74329","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=74329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}