Point-Pedro and Katcovalam, village scenes, Sri Lanka.

House on the Puloly road.

P{onit-Pedro town.

Palmyra seeds buried in the sand to make 'Panangkilangu' T - 'Kottakilangu' S.

Playing in the sand in a house in Katcovalam, Point-Pedro.

The village life and practice of centuries past goes on.

Manalkaadu to Puloly, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

Paddy field near Manalkaadu.

Government Hospital, Manthkai.

On the Puloly road.

Traffic is not hectic and the usual sights of a road meet the visitor.

Video:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7gDB19Zzg8

Manalkaadu environs, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

A pond growing red and white water lilies.

A hot lonely road.

Water is a precious commodity in these parts. A well is a necessity in each dwelling and even then the water is brackish. It is a hard life in these parts.

Bird life among the sand dunes of Manalkaadu, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

A fresh-water collection among the sand dunes.

An Open-Bill contemplating the camera-man.

Collections of birds feeding in a pond.

Time has stood still among these shifting sands. The birds in their variety come to feed, build their nests and breed. They raise up their young and depart. They are the wanderers but return home every year. What a contrast they are to humans, ever in search of better pastures. The latter hardly seem to realize that your home is where your heart is.
To watch a video of some bird life click on the web-link below:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ben1xU2fU-A

Manalkaadu, Point-Pedro, effects of the Tsunami.

Abandoned house and well.

Effects of the Tsunami on a prosperous house near the sea-shore.

New houses and settlements two Kilometers from the shore.

The cemetery where the dead of the Tsunami were buried.

Reminds me of a poem I memorized at school long ago. It goes as follows:-

‘Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old’.

 ‘Home No More Home To Me, Whither Must I Wander?’

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Manalkaadu beach, Sri Lanka.

Houses destroyed by the Tsunami.

New buildings close to the beach.

The fury of the Tsunami which wiped out the residents close to the beach. Similar occurrences are  recorded in tales and legends going back more than two millenia. The shorelines facing the eastern parts of the Island and of the Indian sub-continent have these tales. Prosperous trade emporia like Vallipuram in Sri Lanka and Kaverippooom Pattinam in South India were wiped out in a matter of minutes. Indra was the God of the Oceans and the destruction of Kaverippoom Pattinum in South India was attributed by the populace, to a failure to hold the annual festivities - called Indra Villaa - to this God. This is related in the Tamil Buddhist epic 'Manimekalai' written about the 2nd Century AD.

Manalkaadu beach, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

The road to Manalkaadu beach.

House destroyed by the Tsunami.

The wind-blown beach.

Pickings from the net.

Sand and more sand is what greets the eye at Manalkaadu (Sandy desert -Tamil). The remnants of houses destroyed by the Tsunami are much in evidence.

Vallipuram - Manalkaadu, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka, birds

A varied collection of birds.

Ibises in flight.

Black-winged Stilt.

Painted-Storks.

The road from Vallipuram temple to Manalkaadu has a lot of small collections of water near paddy fields  where birds come to feed. I took these pictures there in December 2011.
Video:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ben1xU2fU-A

Vallipuram Temple, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

'Pura-veedhi' - outer road surrounding the Vallipuram Temple.

Palmyra tree with branches.

Open-bill feeding.

Video of the Open-bill feeding. Click on the web-link below:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNWMM8IM16A

Egret and a Black-headed Ibis feeding in a paddy field.

A sense of peace and serenity comes over one in the surroundings of one of the few Vaishnava Temples in the Jaffna Peninsula. The rise and fall of this large sea emporium by cataclysms nearly two thousand years ago and its present state boggles one's imagination. Only the temple survives. The surrounding once prosperous villages of a large emporium, of nearly two millenia ago survive as 'foot-prints in the sands of time'.

Vallipuram Vishnu Temple, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

Building housing the 'Ther'

The 'Mandapam'

A devotee

The 'Gopuram'

Sir Paul. E Pieris, who also discovered Kadurugoda, made important discoveries here, which have subsequently been identified as belonging to the period of the first Lambakarna King, Vasaba (65 - 109 AC). An inscription on a gold plate records the words "Hail in the reign of the great king, Vasaba and when the Minister Isigirayan was governing Nakadiva, Piyagutikatissa caused a Vihara (temple) to be built at Badakara Atana". The origin of this temple, like most, is founded in legend. The story says that Lavalli Ammaiyar, a pious lady, had been afflicted with nagadosham (a curse) and was hence unable to have children. She was advised to go to this place which was sacred to Vishnu and beseech him for the remission of her sins. She performed tapas (prayed) daily with arms outspread facing the sea in the hope that Lord Vishnu would appear before her, arise from the ocean and grant her desire. One day when the fishermen of the village were fishing they cast their net and caught a large fish which leapt into the arms of Lavalli Ammaiyar. As she held it, it turned into the shape of an infant looking like the Lord Vishnu himself. When the infant vanished an old soothsayer who was present gave to the people a Vishnu Cakkaram (a disc, symbol of Vishnu), which they decided to install at this place and venerate in commemoration of the event.

The place name Valli or Vali is a Ramayana name, and it is also a clear toponymic from "Valli", or "sand" in Tamil and Sinhala. The Vishnu temple here was constructed around the 13th century. Tamil Buddhist and Hindu cults co-existed easily, even when the rulers did not, and hence a Vaishnava tradition may have

existed in early times as well. The deity of the temple is called Vallipura Azhvar. Azhvar names are common in Vaishnavite tradition. This place is the first place of settlement in Sri Lanka. Rest of Sri Lanka was populated from this landing place.

Vallipuram (Sandy City) has a recorded history from the 2nd century BC, in the gold inscription, where the local ruler is named as "Azhagiri", a name confirmed in the Nelugala stone inscription (2nd Century BC). King Vasaba is also thought to be mentioned. The Buddhist list of holy places ("Nampotha") names it as "Vallipuram" or sand city. The exact details of the temple complex are not known, and the famous 'Vallipuram" Buddha statue built with Dravidian sculptural traditions from Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh was found in excavations below the Hindu Temple. The language of the inscription is Tamil-Prakrit, which shares several similarities with script inscriptions used in Andhra at the time. This cultural exchange between the Jaffna Tamils and Andhra Pradesh occurred at the height of Tamil trade in the Sangam period, continuing when the Telugu Satavahana dynasty was at the height of its power from 230 BCE right through when its 17th monarch Hāla (20-24 CE) married a princess from the island.[1][2] Professor Peter Shalk (University of Uppsala), writes " Vallipuram has very rich archaeological remains that point at an early settlement. It was probably an emporium in the first centuries AD. From already dated stones with which we compare this Vallipuram statue, we can conclude that it falls in the period 3-4 century AD. During that period, the typical Amaravati-Buddha sculpture was developed". The Buddha statue found here was gifted to King of Thailand by the then British Governor Henry Blake in 1906. The descendants of Arya Chakravarti married into Kalinga Magha family and created a dynasty of Singai-Aryans and ruled from Vallipuram and renamed it as Singai Nagar. However, no historically useful objects, e.g., inscriptions, art or literary works were left by these rulers, and Paranavithana and other historians claim that they paid tribute to the main ruler of the country. See also S. Paranavithana, ``Vallipuram Gold-Plate Inscription of the Reign of Vasaba. Epigraphia Zeylanica, 4 (1936) 229-236. A full discussion has been given recently by Karthigesu Indrapala, Evolution of an Ethnic Identity,(2005), and in an earlier work, 1965 where Dr. Indrapala argued for a flourishing pre-Christian Buddhist civilization in Jaffna, in agreement with Paranavithana, and Mudliyar C. Rasanayagam's Ancient Jaffna. (http://www.srilankaheritages.com/hindu-vallipuram.html)

Point-Pedro, Thumbalai, to Vallipuram, Sri Lanka.

This old road which led to Maruthankerny by bus in the 1950s is tarred. This leads to the real old outback in the Jaffna Peninsula. These would have been thriving communities when 'Singai-nagar' (Vallipuram) was the capital of Jaffna nearly two millenia ago.The last picture shows the turnoff to Katcovalam.
Click on web-link below to watch video:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmeYwmGZuh4&list=UU1dqepitfAJwrQWLD-gZ3NA&index=9

Sculpturers in stone, Hindu Temple, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

I found these stone-sculpturers at work in renovating the temple close to the 'Theru-moody madam' at Point-Pedro. Jaffna is of limestone rock. Granite was imported by 'Vallams' - sailing boats - from South India from time immemorial, for construction of Hindu temples.

Thumbalai road, Point-Pedro, Sri Lanka.

The temple.

Old 'sakadam'  of the temple.

'Theru-moody madam'.