Aukana Buddha
Aukana Buddha
It is the 5th century AD and a man, a very special sculptor, takes his first blow at a jungle rock face. That was a time of the reign of Dhatusena king (459 to 477AD) who was responsible for many great works – including building the enormous Kala Wewa tank (or lake) at Aukana a few miles away.
Aukana Buddha
Aukana, 12 meters high, carved from the living rock, means ”sun-eating” and some writers have linked that to the statue rather than the location, pointing to the way that it lights up in the sun to reflect a rich sand colour contrasting with the blacks and grays of the granite cliff from which it was carved. The statue looks towards the tank and, at a certain time, the eyes are level with the water. It is beautifully upright with the tip of the nose exactly over a ‘plumbline marker’ between the feet. The pleats of the robe are seen as an artistic masterpiece of the time. And while the right hand, the one that usually indicates meaning in Buddha statues, is in the gesture of ‘the giving of the blessing’, the symbolism of the left hand involves the gathering up of the robe in preparation to step over a river – a representation of the cycle of rebirths.
Aukana Buddha
Around 1850, British archaeologists came upon the statue. Sir James Emerson Tennent, writing in Ceylon (1859), tells how an associate ”chanced to follow the track of a herd of wild elephants near the tank of Kala Wewa when he suddenly found himself in front of a gigantic statue in the forest, whose existence had been previously unknown to Europeans. He led us to the spot and our surprise was extreme on beholding a figure of Buddha, nearly 50 feet in height, carved from the face of a granite cliff, and so detached that only two slender ties had been left unhewn at the back to support the colossus”.
Now, as through so many centuries, the monks gather the morning flowers and offer them in front of the statue as the sun creeps down its beautifully preserved form to the lotus plinth. And, on special days, there are still the ceremonies – including one involving local children who parade from the village, up the hill and before the Buddha at the Aukana Rajamaha Viharaya (the temple complex).
