Dominic has put up some great photographs of the stunning paintings and statues of this temple’s image house. The artwork was carried out in the 1920s by an artist called Sarlis Master who I think is still unparalleled in this century.
For the temple’s location, here’s the Wikimapia link.
I couldn’t find much about Isipathanaramaya online. The only bit I found was that the temple was built in memory of Edward Henry Pedris who was executed by the British in 1915 in what seems to have been a bungled application of emergency regulations. A grim warning about today perhaps. If you got better links or information, the comment box is below.
April 4, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Thanks so much Cerno. I have not forgotten about trying to find my early pictures of the same temple.
April 5, 2008 at 10:07 am
Dominic no rush or pressure
April 24, 2008 at 12:01 am
please put a decent picture if the temple from ground level.
It is not right and disrespectful to show picture from above Vihara kotha. You will understand if you know the meaning of all the attributes of a vihara.
April 24, 2008 at 9:34 am
g jayantha: I don’t know the meanings of ALL the attributes of a Vihara. Hope you can enlighten me. I’m particularly confused about how it applies to a image take of another image which was taken by a satellite.
I’m also unsure about the disrespect issue – particularly about how the camera angle indicate disrespect. The image in the post was not meant to disrespect anything – but to show where the temple is on Google Earth.
Perhaps this has something to do with “looking down” from a higher elevation at a temple? Which is further confused by the fact that people live in high rises surrounding most Buddhist temples in Colombo. Looking down at the temple premises everyday. Would this be an issue with images of the Dalada Maligawa and Adam’s peak in places like the Sri Lanka Tourist Board?
November 10, 2008 at 10:46 am
[...] just another chaotic street in a third world city. Untill you notice white and gold spire of the Isipatanaramaya stupa rising above the chaoas. It floats above the grubby roof tops and tree tops like a profound [...]