Paththirippuwa or Pattirippuwa is an octagonal pavilion and one of three main structures which comprise the
Temple of the Tooth
The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic or Sri Dalada Maligawa, ( si, ශ්රී දළදා මාළිගාව) is a Buddhist temple in Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is located in the royal palace complex of the former Kingdom of Kandy, which hou ...
(Sri Dalada Maligawa).
The name is derived from the
Tamil language
Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pud ...
, whereby "Parthu" means 'to see' and "Irippu" means 'seated', the combination of which is 'to sit and see all around'.
The front section of the temple, together with the Pattirippuwa was built in 1802, during the reign of
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the ...
Sri Vickrama Rajasingha, by the royal architect, Devendra Moolacharya. Moolacharya is also credited with the designing and construction of the Magul Maduwa (the Audience Hall), the
Kandy Lake (Kiri Muhuda), Walakula Bamma (Cloud Wall) and Diyarella Bemma. The Pattirippuwa was constructed on the site of the old temple kitchen.
The Pattirippuwa was intended as a place where Rajasingha could exhibit the
sacred tooth relic to the surrounding populace,
view the temple festivals, peraheras and on important occasions address his subjects. The symbolism of its octagonal form, reinforced the view that when the king stood in the tower, with the eight points in the compass radiating out around him he stood at the centre of the world.
During the
British period
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
, it had been used to house an oriental library where the upstairs was used to accommodate the library and downstairs to provide space for the librarian monk. It currently houses the temple's library of ancient palm leaf buddhist manuscripts and books.
On 11 February 1948, following the country's political
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the s ...
from British rule, the
national flag (Lion Flag) was raised for the first time over the Paththirippuwa.
On 25 January 1998 the temple, including the Pattirippuwa, was severely damaged following the detonation of a truck bomb by
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; ta, தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், translit=Tamiḻīḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ, si, දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි, t ...
. The restoration work on the Pattirippuwa was undertaken by the
Sri Lanka Ports Authority, under the guidance of the
Department of Archaeology.
The restoration process took over a year and was completed by August 1999.
References
{{coord missing, Sri Lanka
Buddhist temples in Kandy