Medawala

The Medawala Rajamaha Vihara, north of Kandy, is a tempita vihara, a small wooden image house raised on stone pillars, a form that is Kandy’s own contribution to temple building and now rare. Its murals, carrying all the marks of the eighteenth century, are given to Devaragampola Silvattenne Unnanse, who painted here before his masterwork at Degaldoruwa.

What sets them apart is their reach beyond the sacred. Alongside the king and the royal household, the walls show the everyday life of ordinary people, a farmer tilling his field behind a white bull among them, so that the murals become a record of Kandyan life as much as of Kandyan devotion.