The legends disagree on the exact method in which Sumana Saman became a god, but what is clear is that Adam’s Peak, or Siripada, is believed to be his earthly home, and the centre of his influence and protection.”
Adam’s Peak, in the southwestern foothills of Sri Lanka’s Central Highlands, is the island’s most famous mountain, known locally as Siripada, or the Sacred Foot, because of an imprint at the summit that Buddhists believe is the footprint of the Buddha. Tens of thousands of devotees, tourists, and adventurers, of all ages, make the 900m climb to the mountaintop each year. The period of pilgrimage is traditionally from December to early May, ending on Vesak; the annual celebration of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death.
Siripada has other names too. Sumanakuta and Samanalakanda are two of them. While the latter name is often connected to the mysterious migrant hordes of butterflies (samanalu, in Sinhalese) that flock in their thousands in March and April to cluster in the trees around the Butterfly Mountain, both names are also derivations of Sumana Saman, a uniquely Sri Lankan Buddhist deity.
Buddhism isn’t a theistic religion with the worship of divine beings, and while the Buddha is widely venerated, he isn’t a god from whom favours or blessings may be requested. This benefactory role, therefore, has been sensibly bestowed on the pantheon of Hindu gods that have, over the centuries, found a place for themselves in the homes, temples, and lives of Sri Lanka’s Buddhists. In this deva-worship, they are regularly showered with offerings and prayers for a multitude of things; from the blessing of a new home or business, to support during a student’s O/Levels. These overworked beings, however, remain Hindu in identity and, therefore, quite different to Sumana Saman.
Saman means the ‘Morning Sun’, and he is thought to have been a 6th century BC chieftain or provincial ruler (a Mahasumana) of the Devas, one of the four mythical clans that made up the people known as the Sivhela (from which is derived the name Sinhala, which denotes the majority ethnic group and language of modern Sri Lanka). When, according to legend, the Buddha visited Sri Lanka for the first time in 528 BC, Saman became a disciple. Asking the Buddha for a few hairs from his head, Saman enshrined them in the Miyuguna Seya, Sri Lanka’s first stupa, in what is today Mahiyanganaya. By the time of the Buddha’s third visit to the island, three years later, Saman is thought to have become a sotapanna, one who has achieved the first of the four stages of enlightenment. Sumana Saman then invited the Buddha to visit Sumanakuta or ‘Saman’s Mountain’, where he left his footprint.
The Miyaguna Seya was of relatively demure stature at the time of its creation, just 3m in height but, on the Buddha’s death, the Arhat Sarabhu recovered a bone (either a clavicle or portion of cervical vertebrae) from the funeral pyre and brought it to Sri Lanka where it was added to the hairs already enshrined in the stupa which was raised to 5.5m. Successive kings then added to the stupa until in the 2nd century BC, King Dutugemunu of Anuradhapura raised it to 37m.
Adjoining this is the Mahiyanganaya Maha Saman Devalaya, the oldest of the Saman worship sites. The main devalaya, or shrine, was built in the 1950s, but portions of the shrine outside are over 2,500 years old. Both the viharaya and devalaya are very popular with pilgrims, local and foreign, as it combines the centre of Saman worship with the first of the Solosmasthana, the sixteen most holy of Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka, each defined by a relic of the Buddha, a visit by the Enlightened One or, as in the case of Mahiyanganaya, both.
The legends disagree on the exact method in which Sumana Saman became a god, but what is clear is that on his death, he began to be worshipped as a god by the Devas of Sabaragamuwa. Eventually, this veneration spread further abroad, until Sumana Saman became one of the protecting deities of Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese people. Sumanakuta, or Siripada, is believed to be his earthly home, and the centre of his influence and protection. Saman is usually depicted in art holding a red lotus and accompanied by a white elephant.
Over the centuries, Buddhist pilgrims setting off to Siripada, often from distant parts and usually on foot, would first visit a devalaya of Saman to receive blessings on what would have been a dangerous journey through heavy jungles, braving wild animals, warring armies, and bandits. These devala in the foothills of Adam’s Peak still remain popular waypoints on a pilgrim’s journey today, and Saman is the deity to see on the subject of safe travels.
The biggest and most famous of these is the Saparagamu Maha Saman Devalaya in Ratnapura. It is unclear when this site first became a place of worship, but the Mahavamsa mentions monks from a Saparagama Viharaya attending the opening ceremony of the Ruwanwelisaya in Anuradhapura around 137 BC. The building of the shrine by Aryakamadeva, a minister of King Parakramabahu II of Dambadeniya, was completed in 1270, a year after the king’s death, but it was destroyed in 1618, when the Portuguese conquered Ratnapura. The devalaya was rebuilt in 1661, however, when King Rajasinghe II of Kandy recaptured Ratnapura; but not having the finances of his predecessors, this monarch settled for a much simpler design than the original shrine. Like many Saman devala, the main shrine must be accessed up a steep set of stairs that is meant to mimic the climb to Siripada.
Ratnapura Perahera
An interesting addendum to the history of this shrine is that because of the Sinhalese-Portuguese Wars, the Tooth Relic of the Buddha was moved for safekeeping, in 1549, from Kotte to the Delgamuwa Temple in Kuruwita. The annual Dalada Perahera – which carries the relic in procession for public veneration – would wind its way from the Delgamuwa Temple to the Saman Devalaya in Ratnapura. It was only when large swathes of lowland Lanka – including Kuruwita and Ratnapura – had fallen to the Portuguese that the Tooth Relic was spirited away in 1592 to Kandy where, eventually, it was ensconced in its present home, the Temple of the Tooth, from where the Dalada Perahera is held today, as part of the older Esala Perahera, itself a traditional rainmaking ceremony. However, in memory of the Tooth Relic it once protected, a symbolic perahera continues to be held in Ratnapura each September.
The most accessible Saman devalaya from Colombo is the Sri Sumana Saman Devalaya in Deraniyagala, close to Avissawella. Not as architecturally interesting as the Ratnapura shrine, it is, however, a good example of the heavy influence of Hinduism on Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition. Completed in 1586 by King Rajasinghe I of Seetawaka during the Sinhalese-Portuguese Wars, the devale is built on twin hills overlooking the Seetawaka River. The main Saman shrine is on the steep-sided flat-topped western hill, which can be climbed by stairways on opposite sides. Again, the replication of Siripada is unmistakable. The main Saman shrine room in the centre of the flat summit is surrounded by a circle of smaller shrines to the Buddha and several uniquely Sinhalese Hindu deities such as the Kataragama god. The eastern hill has a multitude of shrines to the Indian Hindu gods, which are accessed via a winding set of stone steps.
While Mahiyanganaya warrants a journey of its own due to its location east of the Central Highlands, the devala below Adam’s Peak can all be visited on a daytrip from Colombo. Ratnapura is itself an ideal location to base oneself to visit the mountain and the Saman shrines, as well as interesting caves such as Batatotalena, Batadombalena, and Wahulapane.
A version of this article ran in the April 2016 issue of Serendib, the inflight magazine of Sri Lankan Airlines. Since that long-running magazine’s website has ceased to function, I will, in an effort to keep accessible the pieces I wrote for it, be posting versions of them here on this blog. The photos have not been re-edited, and continue to display whatever skills I had at the time.
Son of the Morning Light 