Gangarama Sima Malaka

Colombo Travel Packages

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Tags : Buddhist Temple

Timings : Daily: 09:00 AM - 04:30 PM

Ticket Price : Foreigners: LKR 300-500 per person

Ways to Experience this attraction

Gangaramaya Seema Malaka, Colombo Overview

Seema Malaka is Gangaramaya Temple's satellite meditation hall, built on three platforms linked by pontoon walkways over Beira Lake, about a kilometre from the main Gangaramaya complex on land. It has no museum or car collection like the main temple; expect a quieter stop with Buddha statues ringing the water and a sacred Bodhi sapling. Sunset is the best time to visit, when the lake reflects the statues and the city skyline.

The temple premises consists of three overwater platform halls connected to each other and the mainland by pontoon boardwalks. Numerous seated Buddha statues surround the halls. Seema Malaka temple is made from authentic wooden spindles and is bordered by handrails, with its facade resembling Kandyan Era designs. The main meditation hall has multiple Buddha statues, including one on a wooden altar in the center. There is a Buddha footprint at the temple entrance and a Guanyin statue in front of the main shrine. The four corners of the side platform have smaller shrines dedicated to the Hindu gods Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, and Kataragama Deviyo, a powerful guardian deity of Sri Lanka. 

Seema Malaka also houses a sacred Bodhi tree on one of the platform halls grown from a branch of the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree in Anuradhapura. Underneath the tree is a white marble Buddha statue in deep meditation.

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The Temple Museum

The temple museum stands on your way out. It has two big rooms displaying artifacts of sentimental, artistic, and financial value. These include Sanskrit Ola leaf manuscripts, sandalwood and ivory carvings, jade statues, abstract crystal objects, elephant tusks, coins, idols of Buddhist and Hindu deities, and many more items. 

Constructed in the late 19th century, it was originally a part of the adjacent Gangaramaya Temple located a few hundred meters to its east. After the original structure slowly sank into the water in the 1970s, it was redesigned in a contemporary minimalist style by famous Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa. The new structure is heavily inspired by the ancient forest monasteries of Anuradhapura and Ritigala.