A PLACE OF ABIDING SENERITY

Found off a tiny back road just a few kilometres from The Flame Tree Estate and Hotel, the Galayawe Sri Suvi Suddharamaya is a place of abiding serenity; simple, good work and halcyon calm. Dating back 397 years, it is not merely a temple. Within its grounds lie a lovely elongated mini stupa, over 100 years old; a dormitory for its monks; ponds of koi carp, a range of Buddhist alters; a Museum; public rooms for workshops and eating; a medical facility; and the ancient temple itself.

It is presided over by Udawela Nanda Thero, whose kind and thoughtful character is almost all the argument you need to believe in the goodness of God. Half a century old, he is just the 6th member of his family to preside over this monastic temple school since it was established early in the 400 years ago. Someone once said that anyone who loves books, dogs, and trees cannot be faulted for their essential goodness. And so it is here. Udawela Nanda Thero goes about his daily work, followed by his three adoring dogs, who take but a passing interest in the gentle stream of locals who come to pay their respects, touch his feet, and receive a blessing in return.

The temple is as much a practical expression of care as it is a spiritual one. The medical facility here opens on weekends and focuses on the needs of women and children. The temple school, which operates from 8 am to 12 noon, looks after about 30 local children aged 3 to 5. Its head teacher, Mrs Liyange, has been at her work here for 18 years, supported by a couple of assistants. The children, at this age, of course, learn by play; and the class includes those few children who present disabilities, so that at the very earliest of ages, no child, whatever their ability, is alienated from the other. There are several respected schools in Galagedera for children to move on to as they grow older, but it would be hard to beat this pastoral kindergarten start.

The temple, which sits beside it, is a marvel of carvings and paintings. The central enclosed sanctum is covered in ancient Buddhist frescos and sits inside a vast, cool veranda whose roof extends to enclose the sanctum's outer walls. Frescos of varying ages tell their morality stories across these walls. The entrance to the sanctum itself is guarded by wood carvings that date to the building’s inception: carved lions, life-size statues of characters from the Buddhist scriptures, horses, wild animals, mystical beasts and tableaus of noted Buddhist stories. Beside the temple sits the stupa, solid as with all stupas, but containing – what? Something, for sure, as all stupas have at their heart some relic or memory that has a special historic resonance. What lies at the heart of this one is now lost to memory.

Over 5 decades, Udawela Nanda Thero has assembled a singular museum that tells, with subtle eloquence, the story of Sri Lanka’s journey from an agrarian world to a more urban one. A great range of antique agricultural implements adorn its walls and shelves. Hand-carved coconut scrapers; little metal containers that fit together like Russian dolls, made to measure rice out in careful and agreed amounts; a paddy crusher; a vast 350-year-old Rice Safe, with an accompanying separate container made from an enormous single hollowed-out jack tree.

Each item recalls not just a lost rustic world, long since overtaken by modern machines and equipment, but also a culture centred on rice, as befits an island that flourished from its very beginning by harnessing the transformative power of water. To achieve anything more than a rudimentary agricultural existence required the availability of year-long water, and plenty of it. Water, after all, permitted greater areas to be used for growing crops and higher yield densities. It meant food surplus, profit, trade - and with it the capacity to develop an urban and industrial capability, underwritten by technical advances from construction and weaponry to horticulture, and transport. It meant that the state could better develop the organisational and professional skills essential to its success – commerce, industry, engineering, labour, planning, law, medicine, food storage, and finance.

In this part of the country, where the dry plains meet the hills, agriculture is a beguiling mix of what works best in both zones - rice paddy and spice plantations; timber forests and orchards; rubber, vegetables and coconut. And the droughts that plague the dry zone are greatly mitigated here in the wetter hill country. Small Galagedera rivers like Kospotu Oya or Iriyyagahadeniye Ela, fed by a thousand smaller streams, ensure that whatever the season, the waters still flow. And flow, of course, ultimately to feed the very paddy land whose ancient machinery, unchanged since the time of the Anuradhapuran kings, has been collected and displayed by Udawela Nanda Thero in his unique temple museum.

But they are not alone. Other artefacts dot the museum’s walls: a medicinal boat and crusher for creating traditional medicines, a great wooden box made by the Portuguese to hold guns; a simple school slate and stylus, the laptops of its day; a paan crusher, the jingling bangles worn by Kandyan dancers; weapons and daggers that go back to the last kings. And, perhaps most poignant of all, some of the very first examples of the modern world that have so eroded this one: an ancient typewriter; a bakerite phone; a vintage cine film camera; a massive iron fuelled by hot coals.