Clusters of granite monoliths sprawling languorously on rocky
beds....Statues and statuettes, some half done .... Bodhigaras...shrine
rooms hoary with age whose vaulted interiors are dark as midnight....
These compose a massive Buddhist shrine sited in Maha Villachchi Korale
of Anuradhapura district.
Its chief incumbent, Ven. Tantirimale Chandaratne Thera would tell you
rather boastfully that the vast panoramic site spans an area of almost
150 acres. But the Venerable does not standstill. As he talks he keeps
on moving about almost restlessly, pointing at something here and there
and arranging and disarranging his dark orange robes. Frankly the placid
and serene demeanour one expects from a disciple of the Buddha is not
manifest in him. For he is not living in the 6th or 5th century BC at
the base of the Himalaya range, but he is living in the post-ethnic
strife period of Lanka at the dawn of the 21st century. He has seen much
and suffered much. There is so much left to do to resuscitate the age
old shrine and his restlessness signifies that he himself is in a
quandary where to begin it all and how to accomplish it all.
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