Expedition Budupatunna : in search for lost heritage

It was an exciting and fresh morning. After a good night sleep followed by the heartwarming hospitality by the villagers and some hours of listening to interesting folklores, we were ready for our main mission of the visit. By 6.30 am Ashan joined with Theshantha who took the night bus from Colombo to Athimale were at the doorstep.

A quick but filling breakfast was taken and all packed into Yohan’s jeep with as much as possible water bottles in their backpacks and were ready to go. Another three villagers joined us on the way while our journey proceeded through chena cultivations off the roads, along the river Vila Oya. Our plan was to drive as deep as possible into the jungle in order to reduce the distance we had to walk.

Having reached the border of the village’s chena lands we left the vehicle under the shade of a big tree and proceeded towards the jungle. The initial part of our journey was through a jungle patch until we reached the river. About 20 minutes of walking brought us to the river which was totally dried up because of the many months long severe drought. The rest of our journey of about six kilometers was along this river.

Starting the walk through the jungle

Enetered the river

There were so many butterflies. But had no time to waste

Mod Wedda

Oh, apologies for not telling where we were going. Budupatunna! Heard of it? I don’t think so. I don’t think even some of the archaeologists have heard that name. Even I had no clue when I saw the initial discussion started by NG on Lakdaun forum

However after a great effort of map reading, literature reviews and inquiring NG, Yohan and Priyanjan were able to roughly locate the site somewhere in Kotiyagala. Then rest of the mission was undertaken by Ashan who dropped the bomb suddenly by announcing that he has found the place and even visited it. Since that day we were planning our journey, getting delayed for about one year due to various reasons until this day.

It was a hard journey. The path was a totally dried up river, the walking was on soft sand which was burying our feet as soon as we set on it, the sun was burning hot on a clear day in the middle of the driest month of the year, but still we marched on.

First of the many pitstops

Along the river

Totally dried up riverbed. It was a torture walking on soft sand.

Blue – Green & Brown

smooooooth

along the shady part

Frequent pit stops were taken, water was carefully consumed, Jeevani solution was sipped frequently and the journey was enjoyed to the max. Endless blue skies, greenery all around us, thousands of butterflies everywhere, echoing bird songs, presence of wild elephants close to our path a couple of times and endless chatting took us along the journey.

lovely

.

Perfect

Kumbuk Puttuwa

Claw marks of a bear on a tree. It had climbed in search for honey

Goyam Kole Gala

Four hours into our walking, we reached the landmark where we had to enter the jungle again. Another short walk brought us to our destination. For a moment the heartbeat stopped, ears turned deaf, tongues went dumb and the time stopped. We were looking at three statues carved out of a rock boulder, hidden deep in the jungles, covered by thorny creepers and bushes. It was like an ‘Indiana Jones movie location’ as NG described after watching my video clip.

Behold…. the first sight

What we came looking for

See the statue of Lord Buddha. The head is carefully cut off

.

The largest of the three statues was the statue of Lord Buddha in the middle with equal sized two Bodhisathwa statues on either side, similar to the statues in Buduruwagala. The significance of these is that they belong to the Mahayana Buddhism style.

“The rock cut trio of figures represents the Buddha in the center flanked by Avalokitesvara (with his garment held in position by a tiger skin indicating his ascetic identity) and a bodhisattva who could well be Maitreya, as in the case of Buduruwagala”

Source – John Guy, Indian Art and Connoisseurship : Essays in honor of Douglas Barret, page 159

Statue of Buddha in the middle, Awalokitheshwara and Maithree Bdhisathwa on two sides

Destroyed

.

.

.

.

Hoods to preven water droping I guess

The vandalized pagoda

A Japanese team from Hosei University had come exploring this site in 1985. An old article related to their exploration triggered NG’s first discussion about Budupatunna and ended up with us going on exploring the same.

The Japanese journal says

“It is thought to have been able to be able to until October 3 end of activities, to explore the ruins point of 51 points total, and include better-than-expected performance. Waketemo is U~iraoya-Budo~upato~un’na ruins, ruins of extremely rare Mahayana Buddhism system, is Shakasanzon image obtained by a round carved rock, Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka art history also archaeological also have an important value in Sri Lanka mainstream I considered.”

Source – Sri Lanka jungle ruins exploration Corps (Fifth Corps) summary of activities

An image from the Japanese Journal of their exploration in 1985

The trio of statues were in very good state when the Japanese discovered it

However the current status of the statues was very bad. Though it has been hidden deep in the jungle full of wild animals and once was a territory of the terrorists, Budupatunna has had no escape from the cruel greedy eyes of the treasure hunters. One of the Bodhisattva statues was totally destroyed. The head of the Buddha statue is carefully cut and removed, probably now being kept in a glass box of a billionaire’s house as a relic. The base of the statues and the pagoda nearby were dug and vandalized.

See the video clip

From another angle

This is the best remaining statue

.	Another angle

.	Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – named by NG

.	One last look. Probably this will be last time we see these in this state

It was past noon so we had to say good bye to this precious place, which probably we will never see again in any better shape. Returned to the river, had a light lunch, had a nap for about 40 minutes under the shade of a giant Kumbuk tree, we started our torturous return.

Ashan the Hanu-man on Kumbuk Poottuwa

A nap after lunch

While lying on the riverbed saw this above

The textures of nature

Lovely

A luxury pitstop

He wasn’t looking for luxuries though

Just as we came out of the jungle

We had to get pass them to get to the vehicle

Serenity

Thank you for reading