My trip to the ancient city of kings included less kingly WiFi connection and when I arrived back in Panadura, the datavolume for this month had come to an end. So this entry is a bit behind but as it was already written, I might as well post it 😉
As on Friday, I got on my tiny bicycle in the morning and went to explore the rest of the 40 km² of ancient Anuradhapura.
Starting with the remains of Jetavana Vihara monastery.
The cupola you can see here, used to be the highest Dagoba of the country. (115m. Today it is 71m)
A Dagoba or Stupa covers some holy relics (clothes or bodyparts) of an important monk or even Buddha himself (It is said that his body relics were divided into 84 000 pieces ;-). The relics are immured into the solid stone construction, so you can’t go inside and see them.
Attached to the Dagoba there are usually altars in various sizes, one in each cardinal direction. Often one is bigger and has a Buddha statue in it.
The dagoba stands on a big stone-paved square. This fact turns into a problem once the sun is high, as the whole temple area must be entered barefoot only. So basically your dagoba-visit comes to a pause after 12 o’clock unless you want to have hot-stone-barbecue-feet.
So I had a rest with the monkeys 😉
Traveltimes 
Very interesting trip! Once again, thanks for all the information, which I have to say is all new for me! I found the description of how the relics are treated extremely interesting – I’m doing a project for someone about the monasteries on agios oros, and they have an incredible amount of relics of all kinds of things – some of the stuff was a bit morbid (pieces of a skull, a finger with skin on it, etc), but one piece was very interesting: they have the original gold, frankincense and myrrh which the three Magi brought as gifts to the infant Christ! Apparently they were smuggled out of Palestine (or rescued by the crusaders?) and taken to Constantinople, where they were once again secretly removed and sent to the monasteries at agios oros. I was curious and looked up a photo on google. Here is the link, if you want to see: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gifts+of+the+magi+relics&t=ffnt&atb=v96-1&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images (or just google gifts of the magi relics images).
Lots of very interesting stories of miracles, etc, plus it’s like a course in Byzantine history – so many wars, so many countries that don’t exist anymore, so much politics!
Sorry for getting off the track – at least I’m not ranting about Trump! Back to your post – interesting that the temple has to be entered barefoot. Did you have a chance to go inside in the end? What about the monkeys? On some TV documentaries, the monkeys seem to be all over and can be quite aggressive. Did you have any contact with them?
Thanks again for keeping us posted and giving us some great lessons in culture at the same time. Bye for now! Filakia polla! Joanne Stournara
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Hi Joanne!
Sounds like interesting work you are doing at the moment! Thanks for the link!
The monkeys are quite abundant especially in the temple sites but they are completely peaceful and rather not get in contact with people from what I have experienced.
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