Kalutara Bodhiya

Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka

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Kalutara Bodhiya is a celebrated sacred fig (Buddhi or Bo) tree located in the coastal town of Kalutara in Sri Lanka’s Western Province, just south of the main Kalutara town on the Galle–Colombo road beside the Kalu River.

It is traditionally believed to be one of the 32 saplings of the historic Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, which itself grows from a branch of the original Bodhi tree in India under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. According to historical accounts, the tree was planted in the 11th century (around 1042 AD) by a Pandyan prince named Wickrama Pandya, and over time it became a major pilgrimage site for Buddhists.

The sacred tree is surrounded by a Buddhist temple known as Kalutara Viharaya and a modern hollow stupa called Kalutara Chaitya, which was built on the site of the ancient Gangatilaka Vihara and later forts, and was commissioned by Sir Cyril de Zoysa with construction engineered by the State Engineering Corporation.

The Kalutara Chaitya is one of the few hollow Buddhist stupas in the world; visitors can walk inside its concrete dome, which contains four smaller stupas and 74 murals depicting scenes from the Buddha’s life and the Jataka tales. As a prominent religious landmark, Kalutara Bodhiya attracts hundreds of local devotees and foreign tourists daily, and it is often visited as a stop on journeys between Colombo and the south of the country.