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The Cultural Triangle: # 1 Anuradhapura
How did Buddha achieve Enlightenment?
Of the things worthy of worship in Sri Lanka is the Sri Maha Bodhi and the Tooth Relic. Both have attained a unique status among the Buddhists. The Tooth Relic is now at a Buddhist temple in Kandy and the Bodhi tree is in Anuradhapura, 210 km north of Colombo. Anuradhapura is the oldest capital city in the country, built by a Sinhala king in the 4th century B.C.
In the same century a north Indian emperor dispatched his son, a Buddhist monk to preach the doctrine of Buddha in Sri Lanka. Buddhism was accepted as the main religion by the Sri Lankan king. A few years later, the sister of the monk, a Buddhist nun, came to Anuradhapura with a sapling of the Bodhi tree under which Buddha had attained enlightenment and presented it to the king. The tree was planted in Anuradhapura and is venerated to this day.
Prince Siddhartha having relinquished the comfort of lay life and striving to find the ultimate truth arrived at Gaya towards the evening and sat under a Bo tree, making himself a seat by spreading some handfuls of grass. There engaged in deep meditation during the night he attained full enlightenment or the Buddhahood at dawn. A person who has attained enlightenment by his knowledge of the truth is called Buddha. The supreme knowledge is Bodhi.
The tree under which Siddharta attained enlightenment is therefore designated as Bodhi tree. This fact is reminisced in the Pali verse recited in worshiping the Sri Maha Bodhi:
While seated at whose shadow
Did win all opposing forces (the defilements)
The teacher attained omniscience
May homage be to that Bodhi Tree.
The sacred Bodhi tree is the oldest historically authenticated tree in the world, for it has been tended by an uninterrupted succession of guardians over 2000
years.
What do we know about Tsunamis and Sri Lanka?
Legend has it that there was a Tsunami well over 2000 years ago.
Vihara Maha Devi
Vihara Maha Devi’s father, the king who ruled the Kelaniya kingdom, sacrificed his daughter to pacify the people who were in uproar because of him punishing an innocent Buddhist monk. Vihara Maha Devi was abandoned to the sea and was swept ashore alive by the last Tsunami over 2000 years ago. Since December 26, 2004, a big veneration of the princess is observed in all of the Buddhist temples.
Herta M. Keilbach, PhD