Bringing the past into present

Sri Lanka’s history and the Buddhist Civilization are more than 2500 years old. Still those ruins are standing as witnesses of a rich culture. Still the Archeologist could not find how the ancient Artist carved that magnificent works in massive rocks with their bare hands?
After the destruction on by the Taliban vandals of the world largest standing Buddha carved in the rock at the Bamiyan valley of Afghanistan located 230km northwest of Capitol Kabul, the next largest Samadhi Buddha statue on its final, carved into a granite cliff for the first time since the rule of the ancient kings in Sri Lanka. This giant 67.5 feet rock sculptured Samadhi Buddha is situated at Ridigama temple in Kurunegala, central province of Sri Lanka.

This is another wonderful work of art and this breathtaking work was initiated by few youth from an impoverished village called Rambadagalla in the outskirts of Kurunegala. All the villagers and these few youths at Rambadagalla were saddened when they came to know the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha by the Taliban in Afghanistan. They lashed out with full of anger and declared that they should destroy some mosques. Hearing the news of the youth, the village priests emphasized them that the Buddhism based on compassion and non-violence and not on reprisal.
He suggested to the youth that the only way they can come up with that situation is to build a giant Buddha in order to compensate the loss. But their challenge was how to raise funds for such a massive project? They made their first donation for this work collecting Rs.1358/- (USD 12/-) made up of coins which they collected from Vesak Festival (Celebrating Gauthama Buddha’s Birth, Enlightenment and Nirvana) hold by the village.

The work was then initiated after they met the chief incumbent of the Kurunrgala Rambadagalla Monaragala Piriven viharaya, venerable Egodamulle Amaramoli Thero. Then the Thero was taken to India by a businessman who wanted to assist the project and introduced the Thero to a famous Indian sculptor / Artist Padma Sri Muttiah Stapathi and he arrived with his 10 men’s to start the project on 2003.
The estimated cost of the project is Rs.25 million and they had already spent Rs.11 million by now and the expenditure is likely to increase sharply. Amongst the many that aided the project was, Sri Lankan President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa donated two million five hundred thousand for the project and former Indian High Commissioner in Colombo Mrs. Nirupama Rao donated another two million five hundred thousand.
As such, they expect more assistance for the project from anybody, any organization and the Sri Lankans living in abroad and they can contact venerable Egodamulle Amaramoli thero on 037 2252018 at anytime.

- Asian Tribune -