As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, things began in Mahiyangane. The Buddha visited there to dispel the yakkhas: the first mention of the country in the ancient chronicles. Even to this day Mahiyangane is redolent of yakkas, vedddas, or the first inhabitants who were here before the Sinhalese came.
There’s a lot of controversy as to whether the yakkas and the veddas are the same. These are questions for which solutions seem not to be forthcoming. But Mahiyangane is a place, which impresses nearly every Sri Lankan with its air of great antiquity.
It is not a big town. Up until recently it was a shaded little hamlet with not even a two-storied building within sight. Things were spread out, rural, with green mountains, vast open spaces or yellow paddy fields being the only substantial features of the landscape.
These vast landscapes are the most attractive thing about Mahiyangane. If you visit when rainy weather is not on, you can enjoy the idyll of this ancient land now gone wild. But for most Sri Lankans going to Mahiyangane is a pilgrimage.
It was the first place in the country visited by the Buddha. The temple with its vast grounds, sits by the meandering Mahaweli River. The temple is renowned for another reason: it hosts the second most important shrine of god Saman, the most important of local deities. His main shrine is in the more upcountry Ratnapura. His second seat here, however, is also revered.
The other attraction in Mahiyangane is a reservoir or a tank, not a big one given the proportions of tanks in Anuradhapura or Polonnaruwa, but still a place that visitors do not miss. Legends attribute the tank to one single person; a giant (as he has to be, given he built the place all by himself).
You have to park your car and borrow a well-travelled path with stalls selling regional specialties like kitul flour, jaggery, sookiri, or pink teddy bears and other gaudy memorabilia.
We visited the Sorabora tank inevitably at dusk, the best time to view its splendour. The last rays of sun are going down, and the expanse of water is romantic and beautiful. The last boats were reaching the shores. On the other end of the river are fringes of a jungle. They are no longer wild. Time was when it was unthinkable to go there; with veddhas, and “bears ready to pounce on you screaming” as a Sinhalese verse describes.
Walk on the embankment of the tank as the day slowly dies. Bats screech and swirl around, gathering together till they seem to form the darkness of the night. Then it is time to leave, bid adieu to this land of many mysteries; mysteries which will probably never be revealed, as there are no physical remnants of them; only memories deep within.