Malwatu Maha Viharaya

Malwatu Maha Viharaya is one of the two head chapters of the Siyam Nikaya, the monastic order established on 20 July 1753, when the Thai monk Upali Thera performed higher ordination in the Kingdom of Kandy under King Kirti Sri Rajasinha. The Sri Lankan reformer Weliwita Sri Saranankara Thera received his own ordination at this site on the Esala Poya day in 1753, and was later given the title of Sangharaja here, before an assembly of monks. The complex stands beside Kandy Lake, and when the lake was built in the early 1800s, King Sri Wickrama Rajasinha had a causeway laid across it that allowed him to cross over to the vihara — meaning the monastery was already an established, working site by then.

Monks have been ordained at Malwatta over the centuries, and it is linked administratively to a network of affiliated temples. Its buildings are whitewashed, tile-roofed, and arranged around quiet courtyards, and parts of the complex remain working religious spaces rather than general visitor areas.