Walala Purana Tampita Viharaya

Walala Purana Tampita Viharaya stands a few hundred metres down Vawinna Road from Walala junction, a small town between Madawala and Rajawella in Kandy District, about 12 km from Kandy town by way of Lewella. The raised image house rests on twenty-five stone pillars, each 48 cm high, with the inner sanctum measuring 4.42 by 2.80 metres inside an overall raised platform of 5.74 by 4.11 metres. A circumambulatory passage runs around the shrine — 66 cm wide on the front and sides, narrowing to 61 cm at the rear — reached by a wooden staircase and a door carved with two intertwined peacocks. Eighteen wooden pillars rising from the platform carry a larger protective roof, and the main entrance, in the Chandrawanka style, is worked with floral and creeper carvings and guardian dvarapala figures.

Inside, a seated Buddha statue with a flame-shaped halo faces the entrance, flanked by paintings of the chief disciples Sariputta and Moggallana. Four larger-than-life standing Buddha statues, each with a headdress and halo, occupy the side walls.

An elongated mandapa of brick and mortar, with doorways on its front and sides, stands before the Tampita shrine, and in 1956 a bell tower with a pandol-like structure was added in front of it to mark the 2500th year of the Buddha Jayanthi. The stone pillars and the raised sanctum they carry remain what defines the building. No date or founder for the original shrine has surfaced in the records consulted.