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| The entrance to the courtyard. |
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| A hall with granite pillers. |
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| A trough carved out of granite used to immerse a patient in medicinal oils. |
Veda Sala ( Hospital Complex)
It
was reported by Chinese mahayana buddhist priest "Fa- Hsien" who
visited the cave in the 5th century that Mihinthalawa was home to over 2000
Buddhist monks at that time. To support that number of monks, Mihinthalawa
should have been a complete monastery with all facilities for the resident
monks. The complete Veda Sala or the hospital complex is one of these support
facilities which can be still seen today.
The
ruins of the present hospital is attributed to King Sena II (853-887 AD). But
it is believed that there was a hospital at Mihinthalawa long before this
building. The inner Chamber of the hospital is centred around a Buddha Shrine.
Around it are the rooms for the patients. Each room entrance face the shrine
and is about 10x10 feet in size. The corners have larger rooms and the
medicinal trough is on the North-Eastern eastern room.
The
southern side of the building is the outer court which contain the hot water
and steam bath, a clinic, a medicine stores, the refectory and a grinding stone
for grinding medicine.
Heinz E Müller-Dietz (Historia Hospitalium 1975) describes
Mihintale Hospital as
being perhaps the oldest in the world.(Wikipedia)
