Kataragama Temple
Kataragama temple in Kataragama, Sri Lanka, is a temple complex dedicated to Buddhist guardian deity Kataragama deviyo and Hindu War God Murugan. It is one of the few religious sites in Sri Lanka that is venerated by the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and the Vedda people. For most of the past millennia, it was a jungle shrine very difficult to access; today it is accessible by an all-weather road. The shrines and the nearby Kiri Vehera are managed by Buddhists, the shrines dedicated to Teyvāṉai and Shiva are managed by Hindus and the mosque by Muslims.
The shrine has for centuries attracted Tamil Hindus from Sri Lanka and South India who undertook an arduous pilgrimage on foot. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the site has risen dramatically among Sinhalese Buddhists who today constitute majority of the visitors.
The cult of Kataragama deviyo has become the most popular amongst the Sinhalese people. A number of legends and myths are associated with the deity and the location, differing by religion, ethnic affiliation and time. These legends are changing with the deity's burgeoning popularity with Buddhists, as the Buddhist ritual specialists and clergy try to accommodate the deity within Buddhist ideals of nontheism. With the change in devotees, the mode of worship and festivals has changed from that of Hindu orientation to one that accommodates Buddhist rituals and theology. It is difficult to reconstruct the factual history of the place and the reason for its popularity amongst Sri Lankans and Indians based on legends and available archeological and literary evidence alone, although the place seems to have a venerable history. The lack of clear historic records and resultant legends and myths fuel the conflict between Buddhists and Hindus as to the ownership and the mode of worship at Kataragama.
The priests of the temple are known as Kapuralas and are believed to be descended from Vedda people. Veddas, too, have a claim on the temple, a nearby mountain peak and locality through a number of legends. There is a mosque and a few tombs of Muslim pious men buried nearby. The temple complex is also connected to other similar temples in Eastern Province dedicated to Murugan which are along the path of pilgrimage from Jaffna in the north to Kataragama in the south of the island; Arunagirinathar traversed this pilgrimage route in the 15th century. The vicinity of the temple complex is used for secretive practices of sorcery and cursing peculiar to Sri Lanka. The entire temple complex was declared a holy place by the government of Sri Lanka in the 1950s; since then political leaders have contributed for its maintenance and upkeep.
History
Origin theories
There are number of theories as to the origin of the shrine. According to Heinz Bechert and Paul Younger, the mode of veneration and rituals connected with Kataragama deviyo is a survival of indigenous Vedda mode of veneration that preceded the arrival of Buddhist and Indo-Aryan cultural influences from North India in Sri Lanka in the last centuries BCE, although Hindus, Buddhists and even Muslims have tried to co-opt the deity, rituals and the shrine. But according to S. Pathmanathan, the original Kataragama shrine was established as an adjunct guardian deity shrine to Skanda-Kumara within a Buddhist temple complex. This particular shrine then became idealized as the very spot where Valli met Murukan amongst local Tamils and Sinhalese, and Kataragama deviyo subsumed the identity of Skanda-Kumara and became a deity on his own right with rituals and pilgrimage. According to Pathmanathan, it happened after the 13th century CE when Murukan became popular amongst Tamils and before the 15th century CE when the poet Arunagirinathar identified the very location as a sacred spot. The deity among the Veddas is referred as O' Vedda or Oya Vedda, meaning "river hunter".Literary evidence
The first literary mention of Kataragama in a context of a sacred place to kandha-Murugan is in its Tamil form Kathirkamam in the 15th-century devotional poems of Arunagirinathar. Tradition claims that he visited the forest shrine when he composed the poems. According to his poems, the deity dwelt on top of a mountain. The first mention of Kataragama deviyo in the form Khattugama, as a guardian deity of Sri Lanka and its Buddhist relics, was in the Pali chronicle of Jinakalamali written during the 16th century in what is today Thailand. Kataragama village is first mentioned in the historical annals known as Mahavamsa written down in the 5th century CE. It mentions a town named Kajjaragama from which important dignitaries came to receive the sacred Bo sapling sent from Ashoka’s Mauryan Empire on 288 BCE.Archeological evidence
The vicinity of the temple has number of ancient ruins and inscriptions. Based on dated inscriptions found, the nearby Kiri Vehera is believed to have been built or renovated around the 1st century BCE. There is an inscription, a votive offering to the Mangala Mahacetiya, apparently the former name of Kiri Vehera on the orders of one Mahadathika Mahanaga, a son of king Tiritara who ruled in 447 CE. There is also an inscription of Dapula I dated to the 7th century CE who built a sanctuary for Buddhist monks, but the inscription does not mention Kataragama by name. Nearby Tissamaharama was a trading town of antiquity by the 2nd century BCE, as indicated by Prakrit and Tamil Brahmi legends in coins and potsherds unearthed on the site.The region was part of the ancient kingdom of Ruhuna which played an important role in the political history of the island.
Role of Kalyangiri Swamy
The medieval phase of the history of the shrine began with the arrival of Kalyanagiri Swamy from North India sometimes during the 16th or 17th century. He identified the very spot of the shrines and their mythic associations with characters and events as expounded in Skanda Purana. Following his re-establishment of the forest shrine, it again became a place of pilgrimage for Indian and Sri Lankan Hindus. The shrine also attracted local Sinhala Buddhist devotees. The caretakers of the shrines were people of the forest who were of indigenous Vedda or mixed Vedda and Sinhalese lineages. The shrines popularity increased with the veneration of the place by the kings of the Kingdom of Kandy, the last indigenous kingdom before colonial occupation of the island. When Indian indentured workers were brought in after the British occupation in 1815, they too began to participate in the pilgrimage in droves, thus the popularity of the shrine increased amongst all sections of the people.Legends
Hindu legends
According to Hindus and some Buddhist texts, the main shrine is dedicated to Kartikeya, known as Murugan in Tamil sources. Kartikeya, also known as Kumara, Skanda, Saravanabhava, Visakha or Mahasena, is the chief of warriors of celestial Gods. The Kushan Empires and the Yaudheyas had his likeness minted in coins that they issued in the last centuries BCE. The deity's popularity has waned in North India but has survived in South India. In South India, he became known as Subrahmaniya and was eventually fused with another local god of war known as Murugan among Tamils. Murugan is known independently from Sangam literature dated from the 2nd century BCE to the 6th century CE. Along the way, a number of legends were woven about the deity's birth, accomplishments, and marriages, including one to a tribal princess known amongst Tamil and Sinhalese sources as Valli. The Skanda Purana, written in Sanskrit in the 7th or 8th century, is the primary corpus of all literature about him. A Tamil rendition of the Skanda Purana known as the Kandha Puranam written in the 14th century also expands on legends of Valli meeting Murugan. The Kandha Puranam plays a greater role for Sri Lankan Tamils than Tamils from India, who hardly know it.In Sri Lanka the Sinhala Buddhists also worshiped Kartikeya as Kumaradevio or Skanda-Kumara since at least the 4th century, if not earlier. Skanda-Kumara was known as one of the guardian deities until the 14th century, invoked to protect the island; they are accommodated within the non-theistic Buddhist religion. During the 11th and 12th century CE, the worship of Skanda-Kumara was documented even among the royal family. At some point in the past Skanda-Kumara was identified with the deity in Kataragama shrine, also known as Kataragama deviyo and Kataragama deviyo, became one of the guardian deities of Sri Lanka. Numerous legends have sprung about Kataragama deviyo, some of which try to find an independent origin for Katargamadevio from the Hindu roots of Skanda-Kumara.
Buddhist legends
One of the Sinhala legends tells that when Skanda-Kumara moved to Sri Lanka, he asked for refuge from Tamils. The Tamils refused, and he came to live with the Sinhalese in Kataragama. As a penance for their refusal, the deity forced Tamils to indulge in body piercing and fire walking in his annual festival. This legend tries to explain the location of the shrine as well as the traditional patterns of worship by Tamils. Another Sinhala legends attests that Kataragama deviyo was the deity worshiped by Dutugamunu in the 1st century BCE, before his war with Ellalan, and that Dutugamunu had the shrine erected to Skanda-Kumara at Kataragama after his victory. This legend has no corroboration in the Mahavamsa, the historic annals about Dutugamunu. Another Sinhala legend makes Kataragama deviyo a deification of a Tamil spy sent by Elara to live amongst the Sinhalese or a Tamil juggler who made the locals deify him after his death. Yet another legend says that Kataragama deviyo is a deification of the legendary king Mahasena, who is born as a bodhisattva or Buddha in waiting. Anthropologists Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere were able to identify new strands of these legends and the originators of these legends since the 1970s, with the burgeoning popularity of the shrine and its deity amongst the Sinhala Buddhists.According to the practice of cursing and sorcery peculiar to Sinhala Buddhists, Kataragama deviyo has his dark side represented by Getabaru and Kadavara. The current Getabaru shrine is located in an isolated place near Morawaka. The shrine for Kadavara is in the town of Kataragama. His power to curse is carried out in secret outside the Main Kataragama deviyo shrine at a place at the Menik Ganga, where he receives animal sacrifices. Katagama devio is also directly invoked in sorcery practices.