Thiru Ketheeswaram Temple - Mannar

Overlooking the ancient port towns of Mantai and Kudiramalai, the ruined temple has been restored, renovated and enlarged by various royals and |

Devotees throughout its History. Ketheeswaram is one of five Iswarams dedicated to Shiva and is venerated by Saivites throughout the continent. Ketheeswaram temple is an ancient Hindu'Hindu' temple in Mannar, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. Portuguese demolished and destroyed the temple in 1575, and the Poojas terminating at the shrine in 1589. Following an appeal by Arumugam Navalar in 1872, the temple was rebuilt at its original site in 1903. The exact date of the Ketheeswaram temple's birth is not universally agreed upon. The shrine is known to have existed for at least 1400 years, with inscriptional and literary evidence of the post-classical era attesting to the shrine's classical antiquity. The buried ancient trading port of Manthota in the Mannar District, where Ketheeswaram is located, has provided historians with existing remains of the area's culture during the ancient period. This includes the vestiges of its ancient temple tank, the Pahlavi, and the ruins of a city built of brick, described by J.W. Benet in 1843. Since prehistory, Manthota was an international trade centre, with Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Arabs, Ethiopians, Persians, Chinese, Japanese, Burmese and others competing to monopolize the trade of Ceylon with traders. Malhotra is currently viewed as the only port on the Island that could be called a "buried city," with much of the ancient ruins under sand today. The existence of the ThiruKetheeswaram temple attests to the antiquity of the port. Malhotra finds mention as "one of the greatest ports" on the seaboard in the Island.

(Heritage Lanka by Neil Kiriella 2017, P195)

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