RAJAGALA A REMINDER OF BREADTH OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE: US

The heritage of Rajagala is an important reminder of the breadth of the human experience in Sri Lanka, an official from the US Embassy said on Tuesday. Counsellor for Public Affairs David Mcguire expressed these views at the inauguration of a restored stupa of the Rajagala Buddhist forest monastery, the Embassy said in a statement.

The stupa was restored under a project funded by the US Department of State through the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) and it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The project includes the conservation and restoration of cave dwellings, monuments and buildings belonging to the Rajagala Buddhist forest monastery. The project also restored the walkways that connect stupas, common buildings, caves with meditation paintings and other significant structures. Funding for the project, initiated in 2013, totals nearly Rs.43 million.

Additional excavations were conducted that identified a pre-historic human settlement, which were the first-ever research excavations carried out in the Eastern Province.

Since 2001, AFCP has funded 13 projects in Sri Lanka, including the conservation of a Buddhist temple, restoration of the Batticaloa Dutch Fort, preservation of Buddhist, Hindu and other collections in the Anuradhapura Archaeological Museum and the preservation of the intangible heritage of ritual music and dance forms of the Adivasi, Tamil and Buddhist communities.

On October 5, Embassy Chargé d’affaires Robert Hilton inaugurated the most recent project undertaken in Sri Lanka, a partnership with the Jaffna University to restore ancient Hindu and other artefacts.