Godamunna Ambalama

Godamunna Ambalama is an old wayside rest in Godamunna village, Pathahewaheta Divisional Secretariat, Kandy District. Local tradition places its construction in the Kandyan period, though no source gives a specific date or names a builder. It is a square structure: four large foundation beams, each about 1.85 metres in circumference, rest on boulders, and four carved corner columns support a square tiled roof; knife-chip damage is visible on the carvings. The design resembles the nearby Marassana Ambalama, and Godamunna is one of a cluster of ambalamas in the Hevaheta area. A separate, later structure nearby, the Godamunna Elle Oya Ambalama, was built in 1930 and should not be confused with this older one.

Local folklore ties the ambalama to two larger stories. One holds that its wooden pillars came from King Rajasinha II's palace at Hanguranketha, burned by the Dutch in the 17th century — which would make them the only surviving remnants of that palace. Another holds that the Buddha's Tooth Relic was kept here briefly when it was moved in secret from Kandy to Hanguranketha for safekeeping. Neither story is documented beyond local tradition.

During the Great Rebellion of 1817–1818, British troops camped at Godamunna reportedly used the ambalama as a slaughterhouse for cattle, in the course of which blood was scraped from the carved pillars. The Department of Archaeology later restored the building, replacing decayed timber and a tin roof with flat tiles in the Kandyan style, and the site was gazetted as a protected archaeological reserve in December 1971.