We were due to travel on the Kurunagala – Puttlam road with some time to spare. So I looked up a couple of books for some diversions and came up with two interesting sounding places – Tonigala Inscription and Paramakanda Viharaya – in සිරි ලක අැසු දුටු තැන්. We never made it to Tonigala (one of the largest inscriptions in SL) as we were so taken up with what we found in Paramakanda.

Turn off a few km past Anamaduwa by the sign board for Paramakanda Purana Viharaya. Driving through very flat land you suddenly see this huge rock outcrop ahead.

Even before you get there it becomes very obvious that it is a very unusual formation. What you see in this picture is the part of the rock that is visible as you approach it.	There seemed to be bits and pieces stuck together, a combination of different types of rock. And across a vast area
A sliced bread look, of a different colour to the main rock	The comparative size of the monkeys (hope you can see the family!) give an idea of the spread of the rock – and this is just a small tip of it! Look at the texture and colours of the rock in the foreground.

Before you enter the temple compound there is a flat space with a lake/swamp and some caves. Obviously very old meditation caves as the Kataram indicate. According to some villages we spoke to, it is still used on poya days by those who observe sil.

This one was large with space on three sides, AND an attached rock pond – I think it would qualify as a ‘suite with attached bath and toilet’!

We met the in-resident monk and he told us the history of the site, the folktales associated with it (the rock formations were unique and have foot prints embedded where monks had walked when it was still soft, but no one can comfortably step on the same prints now) and encouraged us to climb to the top first and then see the caves below.

What we found on top was a huge rock balancing on the main rock. It was certainly not like anything we had seen before. See how small a person looks and as you can see this is only part of the rock which is connected to the lower rock by a relatively small area.	The odd formations, textures, colours of the rock. At points it looked like mud that dried on a lake bed, at others like sand. The odd rock was difficult to walk on but even though the sun was very hot, the rock it self was not as hot as they normally are.
More odd formations, textures, colours of the rock	More odd formations, textures, colours of the rock

There was certainly a lot of evidence that this had been a major monastic site in the early periods of our history. As always the natural rock formation had been used to maximum benefit with minimum disturbance.

A slight drain cut in the rock to lead the water away from the cave.	Multiple levels, differing depths of kataram ( drip ledges) and niches – both square and round - to hold cross beams around the main boulder.
Currently there is a Budu Ge only on one side of the upper rock. If you look carefully at the picture you can see the kataram line.	One of the two Siri Pathla under the upper rock. The way it is placed it makes you think that the other print must be on the planes below.
Rock cut statues in the lower caves. (note the small square where the archeological department has scraped the paint to check the rock) There is a series of caves at the lower level with shrines from the earliest to the current period. It’s an extremely interesting study of a living religion and its changing art forms over thousands of years.	From top of the hill we could see this house – so like a dream, that I decided to blur the edges of the photo.

The monastic history we could piece together, but we just had too many unanswered questions about WHY the rocks were the way they were….based on a clue that it might be a rare occurrence of Jurassic rock in Sri Lanka I pulled out my copy of “An Introduction to The Geology of Sri Lanka”, by P.G. Cooray (1984 second edition, National Museums of Sri Lanka Publication).

And believe it or not, not only was Tonigala explained as a special rock formation in Sri Lanka, there was even a photo of Paramakanda and diagrams showing the formations!!

So, for any one whose curiosity is aroused, given below is a bit of information from the book that seems relevant:

“Tonigala Granite: The best known granite is the Tonigala granite, a pinkish, medium-grained granite with few dark minerals, though parts of it are gneissic in texture owing to the presence of streaks of biotite and hornblende. The granite occurs mainly as two sheets (figure given shows Paramakanda)….the more southerly of the two crosses the road from Puttalm to Kurunagala at Tonigala, near Anamaduwa, as a number of low, turtle backed outcrops, one of which is the famous Tonigala Inscription. …The main out crop of granite is marked by a line of prominent rocky outcrops or erosion remnants, such as Pramakande (534 feet), Labugala, and Pitihandewa (567 feet), most of which are sites of rock caves, ancient Buddhist shrines, and ruins”. (page 173)

Moving on in millions of years of geological time, in the section on ‘A fragment of Gondwanaland’ (page 189) P.G. Cooray says

‘The melting of the ice cap at the end of the Palaeozoic era was followed by uplift of the land and a general regression of the sea…Sri Lanka and the east coast of India continued to remain above sea level and still subject to denudation which removed great thicknesses of Precambrian rocks until even such deep-seated granitic gneisses as the Tonigala Complex were exposed’ (Page 190)

Granite tiles have become a big business in Sri Lanka due to the existence of these unusual colours and grains….Just think next time someone encourages you to use granite tiles, we are mining rare types in huge quantities for ‘flawless’ ‘high quality’ products. Do we REALLY need it? Can we recycle some old tiles or just let the existing floors, kitchen tops be? Who is going to reproduce these rocks and how long will it take???!!!

The connection to Jurassic rock that we initially thought was linked to Paramakanda is also made here;

‘The regression of the sea in Triassic times was followed during the Jurassic (about 150 Ma ago) by an encroachment of the sea on the land and it was only now that this part of Gondwanaland formed low land upon which sediments were deposited’ (page 190)

And more interesting bits as the story continues – (pages 190 – 192)

‘…it was towards the end of the Mesozoic era that the break-up of Gondwanaland began…the Himalayan mountain ranges were created out of this collision when the northern edge of the India plate began crumpling up the thousands of feet of sediments laid down on the southern margin of the Asian plate. The Cauvery Basin, the south-eastern margin of which was formed by the north-western part of Sri Lanka, developed during this initial break-up of Gondwanaland. …Sri Lanka was displaced southwards along the east coast of India. This structural separation of Sri Lanka from mainland of India appears to have begun in late Jurassic to early Cretaceous times. In addition to the south-west displacement, the island underwent a counter-clockwise rotational movement…’

A little bit more on the connection to Jurassic rock -

‘Sedimentary rocks of the Upper Jurassic age are preserved in at least three faulted basins…only one of these, [Tabbowa wawe] …is exposed at the surface. The others, at Andigama and Pallama, are completely covered by more recent deposits. [Jurassic] sediments were laid down on the margins of the ancient landmass – Gondwanaland…’(page 117)

The reason we initially thought the Paramakanda rock formation belonged to this group was that we returned on the Andigama – Pallama road (where our GPS said a road does not exist beyond Andigama to Bangadeniya!!) and Tabbowa is just beyond Tonigala/Paramakanda area.

In addition the description of Jurassic rock was very similar to what we had seen on Paramakanda –

‘The sediments vary in colour from white or light grey to dark brown and purplish red, and in texture from coarse-grained to fine grained…Arkose the main rock type is …almost granite in appearance. The large grains and the small pebbles form a framework, the intervening spaces being filled with finer grained quarts and feldspar. The grains are generally fused together by pressure and vary little cementing material is present’ (page 118 -119)

Little wonder that we see such intriguing rock formation when we travel. It also explains why there is frequently such confusion as to exactly what the formation is or when it happened. Too much has been going on for too long!! The interesting thing is that there is always a some link – however fuzzy – between what science is trying to explain and what the folk–wisdom or our traditional stories tell us – as in the case of the story the Hamuduruwo told us in Paramakanda.