MEDIRIGIRIYA

Fourteen miles north of Minneriya lies Medirigiriya, the former Mandalagiri, a monastery dating from the 2 nd

century. Granite columns which we now see are replacements, perhaps by Aggabodhi lV  of earlier pillars of wood. Wood or stone, the pillars were the supports of a roof for the dagoba which stood in the middle. Hence the name vatadage the house of the dagoba.

The graceful octagonal pillars of the vatadage of Medirigiriya stand in three concentric circles round the broken remains of the ancient dagoba, which had probably stood there from before the Christian era. Thirty-two columns form the outermost circle twenty the next inner ring; and sixteen the innermost. Four Buddhas t black granite sit at the cardinal points, lacing outwards from the shattered shrine, meditating upon the transience thins.